The role of technology, organization and contextual factors in the development of e-Government services: An empirical analysis on Italian Local Public Administrations

Using data drawn from the 2007 and 2009 Istat ICT-PA surveys on 4471 Italian municipalities, we identify the technological, organizational, and contextual factors associated with the development of e-Government services in local administrations. We find that both outsourcing and internal accumulation of ICT competencies are strongly correlated to the provision of these services. Moreover we observe that in-house ICT activities have twice as high an impact on e-Government development as compared to ICT outsourcing. The enactment of advanced e-services is less likely in the case of small municipalities, in sparsely populated areas, and in the presence of higher rates of growth of the elder component of population. By contrast it is more likely in areas characterized by more intense patenting activities, which in turn favour a dynamic and sophisticated demand for new services. Though broadly consistent with Fountain's “technology enactment framework”, our findings suggest that more emphasis should be given to the internal competencies of public administrations, and to context specific factors reflecting the characteristics of end users.