The effects of the ongoing digital revolution have been profound and have been studied in many contexts such as government interaction with the public (e-participation) and administrative structures (e-administration). However, the study of how the digital revolution has changed leaders’ interactions with followers via information and communication technologies (ICTs) has been modest, and the theory building in organizational studies and public administration has been, for the most part, nonexistent. A major reason for this lack of progress is the inability to produce an operational definition of e-leadership that spans telework, team, and enterprise settings. The article examines an exploratory case study to propose an operational definition based on six factors (or broad e-competencies) for e-leadership. Research limitations and future research opportunities are discussed. Points for practitioners E-leadership, technology-mediated leadership, has become critically important for leaders at all levels, both inside and outside of the organization. E-leadership is as much about blending technologies and traditional communication as it is about simply using more ICT-mediated communication. While there is a lot of consistency in the types of leadership skills needed in traditional and virtual environments, they are not the same and the differences are critical to success and failure. The areas in which competence in e-skills were most important included: e-communication, e-social skills, e-team building, e-change management, e-technology skills, and e-trustworthiness.

This article demonstrates the impact of public officials’ corruption on the size and allocation of U.S. state spending. Extending two theories of “excessive” government expansion, the authors argue that public officials’ corruption should cause state spending to be artificially elevated. Corruption increased state spending over the period 1997–2008. During that time, the 10 most corrupt states could have reduced their total annual expenditure by an average of $1,308 per capita—5.2 percent of the mean per capita state expenditure—if corruption had been at the average level of the states. Moreover, at the expense of social sectors, corruption is likely to distort states’ public resource allocations in favor of higher‐potential “bribe‐generating” spending and items directly beneficial to public officials, such as capital, construction, highways, borrowing, and total salaries and wages. The authors use an objective, concrete, and consistent measurement of corruption, the number of convictions.

While many aspects of the dramatic shifts caused by digital government have made enormous progress, the leadership of those who serve the public via electronic means has yet to take a significant step forward. This article addresses three questions: How significant has e-leadership become? What are the challenges in trying to create a more comprehensive model of defining and measuring e-leadership? And, based on current knowledge, what skill and behavioral elements are candidates for a concrete e-leadership model? The authors develop and test an original model that focuses on e-leadership as a competence in virtual communications (i.e., the use of ICT-mediated communications) and the digital opportunities and challenges that are created. The results provide strong support for the proposed model. The article concludes with a discussion of a future agenda for e-leadership research that can be developed in a manner that is fruitful for theory and practitioners. Evidence for Practice• Leadership is as much virtual as it is face-to-face today; e-leadership is an important and distinctive ability in organizational management that can lead to more effective organizational functioning. • An effective e-leader communicates clearly, provides adequate social interaction, and demonstrates technological know-how through and within virtual environments. • In the long term, effective e-leadership builds responsible teams, sets effective accountability processes, inspires change, and develops trust virtually. • E-leadership is a set of technology-mediated social influencing processes intended to change attitudes, feelings, thinking, behavior, and performance within organizations. • Six competencies lead to effective e-leadership: e-communication, e-social skills, e-change skills, e-team skills, e-tech savvy, and e-trustworthiness.

Theories describing rent seeking in the public sector posit a number of negative fiscal outcomes that the choices of corrupt officials may generate. The evidence presented in this article shows that states with greater intensities of public corruption have higher aggregate levels of state and local debt. If corruption in the 10 most corrupt states were only at an average level, their public debt would be 9 percent lower, or about $249.35 per capita, all else being equal. Notably, institutional control measures may not have succeeded in restraining the expansion of state and local public debt in the presence of greater levels of corruption. State and local governments would achieve more efficient levels of fiscal discipline by curbing public sector corruption. Practitioner Points• Curbing public corruption can help state and local governments reduce the amount of public debt and the extra costs that the debt markets inflict on more corrupt jurisdictions. • The issuance of long-term private-purpose debts is affected more seriously by corruption, which invites closer attention of policy makers to this market. • Curbing corruption helps institutional control measures work as they are designed and, as a consequence, restrains the expansion of public debt.

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