Why e-government projects fail? An analysis of the Healthcare.gov website

Adaptive governance: Towards a stable, accountable and responsive government

“…Uncertainty is caused by the inability to know all the requirements in advances and the many changes happening during the projects. Many projects fail and the high level of expectations are not achieved due to the inability to deal with the complexity and uncertainty (Anthopoulos, Reddick, Giannakidou, & Mavridis, 2016;Janssen, Voort, & Veenstra, 2014). The chance of failure is higher when political and organizational elements come to the fore (Gauld, 2007) and vertical governance does not connect the horizontal layers.…”

E-Government Implementation: A Reflection on South African Municipalities

“…These include: e-Government projects are inherently risky, complex, non-linear and very technical in nature (Brown, 2005;Ebbers & Van Dijk, 2007). The on-going threat of the digital divide has also been cited where certain groups in society lack access to ICTs (Cloete, 2012;Davison, Wagner, & Ma, 2005;Mutula, 2005;Anthopoulos, Reddick, Giannakidou, & Mavridis, 2016). Also, there is insufficient funding to spend on ICT and high operational costs (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005;Heeks, 2002;Tat-Kei Ho, 2002); partnership and collaboration across public, private and non-profit sectors is lacking (Ndou, 2004); a lack of e-readiness necessary for implementing e-Government initiatives.…”

“…Scholars have purported that e-Government projects have seen more failures than successes (Anthopoulos et al, 2016;Guha & Chakrabarti, 2014;Heeks & Molla, 2009;Nurdin, Stockdale, & Scheepers, 2012 Bank, 2011, p. vii) In their paper, Mutula and Mostert (2010) cite some South African examples of e-Government projects that did not meet stakeholder expectations. These include the Golaganang project that was to provide government employees with cost effective ICT resources and address their digital literacy needs however it failed to launch.…”

How you buy affects what you get: Technology acquisition by state governments

“…When faced with the need to explain government's IT problems, scholars and practitioners tend to round up the usual suspects: incommensurable goals, compartmentalization of policy making, siloed bureaucracies, inflexible budgets, and cumbersome procurement processes, among others (Anthopoulos et al, 2015;Gil-García & Pardo, 2005). But these are not really problems, since problems have solutions.…”

“…How well government works, therefore, depends upon the quality of its information technology (IT) and the ability of its personnel to make good use of that technology. Unfortunately, government IT acquisition programs frequently underachieve and sometimes fail disastrously (Anthopoulos, Reddick, Giannakidou, & Mavridis, 2015). Indeed, the fraction of government IT projects that are fully successful is likely between 15 and 30% (Anthopoulos et al, 2015;Ellis & Berry, 2013;Heeks, 2001), which is similar to numbers seen in the private sector (Bouras & Bendak, 2014;Hidding & Nicholas, 2009;Standish Group, 2013).…”