Making e-government work: Adopting the network approach

•We attempt to analyse why e-government projects are prone to design-reality gap.•We argue that it is caused by the presence of a network of diverse actors.•Network management theory can help us in understanding these gaps.•Three Indian e-government cases having varying degrees of success are examined.•Network management explains design-reality gap in all three cases.

Much of what was promised has not been delivered by e-government. This necessitates a better understanding of the critical factors necessary for making e-government work. While a number of factors are known to cause e-government failure, this knowledge has not translated into greater success in e-government implementation. This suggests that other, more deep-rooted issues may have remained unaddressed. The nature of modern governance implies that e-government should be looked upon as a network. Application of network concepts like the politics of partner selection, achievement of network goals, institutionalisation processes, network structuring and incentive design can make e-government projects more realistic. We analyse three projects in India based on these issues and argue how a network approach could lead to success of such initiatives. In addition, we show that adoption of a process focus can help in identifying the appropriate partners and facilitate other network processes.