A systematic review of E-gov research in developing countries

The purpose of this paper is to systematically analyse the existing body of knowledge on E-government related issues in developing and under-developed countries. In doing so, the paper aims to reveal the current state of theoretical development and rigour within this area. Usable data relating to egovernment research was collected from 158 research articles identified from the ISI Web of Knowledge database, and by manually identifying relevant articles from journals dedicated to electronic government research such as Transforming Government: People, Process, and Policy (TGPPP), Electronic Government, an International Journal (EGIJ), and International Journal of Electronic Government Research (IJEGR). Based on our investigation of this extant literature, our findings reveal that generic e-government applications were explored more than any specific applications, and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was the theory most often utilised to explain research models. It was also found that 'adoption' and 'diffusion' were the most commonly explored themes; the survey was the most frequently applied research method, and access to only one case study, website content, community, organisation, culture, or country were the highly accepted limitations across all the studies. The paper also discussed the limitations of this study and suggests research directions for future researchers.