Strategic computing and administrative reform
Computerization and controversy
Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change
Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change
Research in progress: a preliminary theoretical framework for understanding e-governance initiatives
dg.o '05 Proceedings of the 2005 national conference on Digital government research
Information systems in the public sector: The e-Government enactment framework
The Journal of Strategic Information Systems
Is e-government research a flash in the pan or here for the long shot?
EGOV'06 Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Electronic Government
Value Sensitive Transfer VST of Systems Among Countries: Towards a Framework
International Journal of Electronic Government Research
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In this article, the author advances four arguments about Building the Virtual State. First, it is ahistorical and fails to take into account the rich and rewarding literature about information technology (IT) and government developed over the past 3 decades. Second, its theory of IT enactment is little more than a repackaging of the dominant extant theory in the field, sociotechnical systems theory. Third, evidence provided from the three case studies in the book is insufficient to test enactment (or any other) theory of IT and government. Finally, although the book claims to be about the virtual state, only one of the case studies addresses the movement of government services onto the Internet (the author's definition of the virtual state), and the other two cases do not address it at all. For these reasons, Building the Virtual State is a disappointment, and it delivers a good bit less than it promises.