Towards a Prioritization of e-Government Challenges: An Exploratory Study in Belgium

New developments in information and communications technologies can enable governments to improve their internal functioning as well as the services they offer to users. This transformation entails several hurdles that have been discussed extensively in existing literature. However, challenges are rarely ranked in terms of importance leaving practitioners in the dark regarding which one to tackle first. This paper analyzes, interlinks and prioritizes challenges that employees in federal, regional and local level experience in the further development of e(lectronic)-government in Belgium. Data was collected through six in-depth interviews and a focus group of three persons. The data was then analyzed following the Grounded Theory method. This allows to understand reasons for the relative lag Belgium has compared to countries leading the e-government charge.The findings reveal that coordination and alignment issues (a lack of end-To-end thinking) constitute the main obstacle for Belgian governmental authorities regarding further e-government development. Finally, current policies are reviewed to search for possible leads for solutions for the challenges discussed. This paper contributes to existing research in e-government, by explicitly distinguishing crucial challenges and ranking them on importance. This allows both researchers and practitioners to focus on focusing on the most important hurdles to further development.