From e-government strategy to services: challenges of inter-organizational IT governance in Egypt

Abstract

IT governance has been identified as a key enabler also for implementing e-government solutions. However, little is known about what 'best practice' of IT governance could mean when applied to an inter-organizational and highly distributed information infrastructure as typical for the public sector. In this paper the case of Egypt is analyzed based on previous investigations and publications, governmental documents, and data collected from a recent project involvement. The main IT governance challenges have been found as: unclear definition of network membership, extensive voluntarism, vague goal orientation, unprotected data resources, absence of financial governance, and the project status of network. Accordingly, lessons to be learned include that (1) creators of a network hub must clarify goal direction, membership responsibilities, performance assessment for all government agencies involved, (2) participating government agencies need to understand, commit to, practice sharing of accountability beyond hierarchy or ownership, (3) countries with little collaboration culture and network experience are better off to rely on accepted dominating actors for managing inter-organizational collaboration hubs in e-government. Based on essential attributes of the required governance process milestones are suggested for improving inter-organizational IT governance while addressing the detected challenges in Egypt and beyond. In conclusion, more research is needed to discuss any fit of inter-organizational IT governance arrangements to a given e-government context. Building on IT governance research related to enterprises, future e-government research can stay aligned and continue to share the lessons learned.