The Influence of the Institutional Arrangements on the Success of Government Web Portals

Abstract

Digital government1 research suggests the existence of a series of factors that are present in successful projects. Institutional arrangements constitute a specific set of factors that are particularly relevant for digital government projects. Institutional Arrangements are the formal and informal rules that shape an organization and organizational activity. Those rules are both, rigid and flexible, in a way that can influence and be influenced by other factors as the enacted technology and for the organization itself. Although there is general agreement on the influence of institutional arrangements in project success, we know less about the specific mechanisms through which they operate. In this paper, we use qualitative methods and the case of the State Government Portals in Mexico to uncover some of these mechanisms.