Socio-Economic Enablers of E-Government in Bulgaria

Abstract

The successful implementation of e-government solutions hinges critically on numerous factors. While research has been abundant, no consensus has emerged on their relative importance. This paper aims to fill this knowledge gap by exploring a number of socio-economic determinants for new e-government developments and investigating their influence. This is done by distributing a self-administered online questionnaire to groups of relevant stakeholders in Bulgaria and then ranking their responses. An agreement emerged across the sample that the availability of qualified human resources, organizational context and technological factors are seen as the key enablers. This view is shared across both professionals in the field of e-government, as well as users of e-services. Results are further confirmed by a factor analysis showing that the three underlying themes of resources, organizational context, and implementation figure prominently. These results point to the importance of shifting e-government policy away from issues of budgeting and procurement and focusing it more on issues of human and organizational development.