Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 423430

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Government Information Quarterly

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Are determining factors of municipal E-government common to a worldwide

municipal view? An intra-country comparison
Isabel Gallego-lvarez , Luis Rodrguez-Domnguez, Isabel-Mara Garca-Snchez
Universidad de Salamanca, Facultad de Economa y Empresa, Campus Miguel de Unamuno, Edicio FES, 37007 Salamanca, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Available online 3 August 2010 The implementation of E-government aims at simplifying and improving the transactions between public
administrations and their users or customers. The objective of this study is to analyze whether the factors
Keywords: behind the level of development of E-government among municipalities of a specic country are common to
E-government the improvement of digital administration in the largest municipalities from 81 countries worldwide. While
Worldwide municipal previous studies provide evidence that municipalities from the same country, mainly those governed by left-
E-government index
wing parties, focus on differentiating themselves in the content of their Web sites, our ndings emphasize
Web pages
that internationally, in the most important municipalities worldwide, all the political parties attempt to
promote the development of a dynamic and participatory E-government.
2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction the technological innovations performed in a specic geographic

Within New Public Management, a management philosophy that
has been in existence since the 1980s, the creation of a more efcient
and effective public sector that is oriented to satisfying citizens' needs
optimally, is pursued. Among the multiple activities performed to
achieve that goali.e. decentralization, introduction of service guide-
lines, performance measures, etc.the development and use of public
Web sites particularly stand out as mechanisms oriented to simplify
and improve the transactions among government and other agents
(Justice, Melitski, & Smith, 2006). At the same time, the transparency
of the reporting made by public bodies to diverse stakeholders
becomes reinforced (Pina, Torres, & Royo, 2007b) and the citizen's
participation is fostered (Justice et al., 2006).
Along this line, the rst studies have focused on analyzing the level
of development of those Web sites (i.e., West, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003,
2004; Caba, Lpez, & Rodrguez, 2005; Torres, Pina, & Royo, 2005;
Torres, Pina, & Acerate, 2006), and the format, volume, and quality of
the budgetary and nancial information disclosed (i.e., Laswad, Fisher,
& Oyelere, 2005; Crcaba & Garca, 2008).
Nowadays, the studies are oriented towards nding the factors
associated with the degree of development of E-government (i.e., Siau
& Long, 2006; Kim, 2007; Pina et al., 2007b; Tolbert, Mossberger, &
McNeal, 2008; Ganda & Archidona, 2008). These works mainly focus
on determining those socioeconomic and demographic features of the
municipalities and states within a country which allow us to explain
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: igallego@usal.es (I. Gallego-lvarez), lrodomin@usal.es
(L. Rodrguez-Domnguez), lajefa@usal.es (I.-M. Garca-Snchez).
context.
Framed within the current research line, this study examines the
determinants of the development of E-government in 81 municipal-
ities from different countries. This international comparison allows us
to observe whether there are signicant differences among the intra-
country results obtained by previous studies, and the inter-country
results analyzed in this work.
Consequently, we test the inuence of (1) the internal features of
the public institutions, such as the organizational complexity of the
public entity, the availability of nancial resources, its degree of
leverage and the style of public administrationOECD versus non-
OECD countries; and (2) political factors, as they are represented by
the ideology and stability of the ruling party and the current political
competition. We also control for socioeconomic and demographic
factors.
As Ganda and Archidona (2008) afrm, the analysis of internal
public administration characteristics enables us to identify the
deciencies of these institutions in order to improve the development
of Web sites. Likewise, the style of public administration is a relevant
factor to take into account in technological innovation processes. In
this vein, Rodrguez, Caba, and Lpez (2005) and Pina et al. (2007b)
evidence that those more citizen-oriented administrations are more
prone to disclose a higher volume of nancial information. Thus, it
seems worthwhile to analyze the effect of the different proles of
public administration on the development of E-government.
Finally, some authors underscore that political factors linked to the
arguments supported by different ideologies and the political stability
necessary for implementing the innovation proposed in the electoral
programs can affect the development of digital administration
signicantly. Moreover, the political competition and the possible

0740-624X/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.giq.2009.12.011
424 I. Gallego-lvarez et al. / Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 423430
benets derived from an e-transparent administration can also
inuence its evolution (Tolbert et al., 2008).
The ndings obtained from the empirical analysis emphasize that,
while previous studies have shown that the development of a
municipal digital administration differs in contents among the
municipalities with different sizes in a specic country, the signicant
differences associated with town hall size and resources in an
international context lead to different levels of dynamism and
interaction of municipal websites, with a common information
content. From a political perspective, there seems to be a common
effort in the development of E-government, without this being
translated into potential electoral advantages for the governing party.
2. Development of E-government
Over the last few years, information and communication technol-
ogies have been deeply affecting relationships among individuals and
the societies in which they live. Internet usage has allowed us to
overcome many of the technical barriers which hinder a uent
relationship between citizens with the public administration, by
allowing the disclosure of more detailed information, an increase in
the frequency and timeliness of the information provided, and a
decrease in printing and distribution costs of information (Pina et al.,
2007b). The use of governmental Web sites is indeed one of the
fastest-growing activities on the Internet, giving rise to E-
government.
In this line, the importance of E-government as a tool that can be
used to improve public management has grown in recent years
(Alcaide, Rodrguez, & Lpez, 2007; Nour, AbdelRahman, & Fadlalla,
2008). E-government can be considered as any way information
technology is used to simplify and improve transactions between
governments and other actors such as constituents, businesses and
other governmental agencies (Sprecher, 2000). It involves a set of
technological processes which attempt to change both the delivery of
public services and the wider scope of interactions between citizens
and governments (Torres, Pina, & Royo, 2005).
Electronic government is based on an agency relationship in which
the voter is the principal and the public manager plays the role of
agent (Banker & Patton, 1987). In this relationship it is assumed that
politicians will attempt to satisfy their own interests; this includes re-
election, the advancement of their political or professional careers,
and the augmentation of their current and future incomes. Voters'
wealth will depend on the agents' actions and, consequently, each
voter has various incentives to monitor politicians' behavior (Zim-
immerman, 1977). These agency relationships provide public man-
agers with incentives to disclose voluntarily information that allows
the monitoring of their activities.
Therefore, E-government arises as a way of increasing the citizens'
trust in governments and improving the valuations made concerning
political management (Tolbert & Mossberger, 2006). Its objective is
focused on bringing the Public Administration closer to citizens and
on restoring trust in governments (Torres et al., 2005).
As a consequence of its adoption and implementation, some
benets for governments and citizens can arise. Governments will
achieve signicant cost reductions, derived from the use of new and
more efcient technologies (Kim, 2007; Tolbert et al., 2008); they will
rationalize their processes (Torres et al., 2005) and nally their image
will be improved. As Siau and Long (2006) argue, digital government
will provide governments with an effective and efcient channel to
facilitate their internal administrations and improve their external
services, thereby increasing transparency and generating a higher
degree of trust.
Furthermore, digital administration would eliminate the time and
space barriers for citizens in their relationships with public admin-
istration, and it will be viewed as an entity in the service of citizens,
rather than as a heavy bureaucracy. Moreover, it allows citizens to
participate in the democratic institutions and political processes
(Justice et al., 2006; Siau & Long, 2006), thereby perceiving
governments as accessible, transparent, responsible, effective and
participative (Tolbert & Mossberger, 2006). Consequently, it could
lead to an increase in citizens' trust and a perception of speed in the
answers made by governments to their needs.
However, the adoption of E-government is not exempt from
barriers. Whereas on the one hand citizens may have doubts about the
security and condentiality of their transactions online, it is also
necessary to consider the lack of political support in many cases and
the resistance to change inside the public administrations (Coursey &
Norris, 2008). In a survey performed by public managers in the United
States, Coursey and Norris (2008) classify these barriers as technical,
political and organizational, legal and nancial, with the lack of
nancial resources and the absence of technology and well-trained
personnel standing out in particular.
In conclusion, the adoption of E-government as a kind of
relationship between citizens and public administrations is a growing
trend in the New Public Management eld (Alcaide et al., 2007), and is
a result of the high extent of use of computers and the increasing
number of people and organizations with access to broad-band
Internet. In this vein, an updated public administration should
encourage the use of digital communications to benet citizens.
3. Factors affecting the adoption of E-government: Research
hypotheses
In the consolidation of E-government, some factors can exert a
relevant inuence; among them the internal features of the public
body and political factors especially stand out.
3.1. Features of the public bodies
The Public Administrations that use E-government may be
inuenced by some factors which affect that particular government,
such as organizational complexity, institutional capacity, or the style
of public administration.
3.1.1. Organizational complexity of public bodies
A priori, the development of E-government seems more justied in
those countries with large-sized national administrations. In this sense,
the size of the public bodyor, more specically, the populationhas
been taken as a measure of the level of complexity of the public
administration and the government, which can be considered to be one
of the internal factors underlying the activities of the public manager
(Crcaba & Garca, 2008). Population can be taken as an indicator of the
overall level of resources as well as the degree of professionalization and
specialization of the civil servants.
Thus, the most populated countries will tend to have larger
organizations and greater levels of nancial and human resources. At
the same time, they will exhibit incentives to adopt measures of E-
government as tools to manage the practical challenges and the high
costs of communicating effectively with different agents and public
bodies (Justice et al., 2006).
Moon and Norris (2005) argue that large city governments are
more prone to adopt E-government activities, compared to smaller-
sized cities, because large cities receive more pressure to nd ways of
providing public services and disclosing information. Nevertheless,
previous literature has not reached conclusive evidence about this
inuence. While Ingram (1984), Ingram and DeJong (1987) and
Laswad et al. (2005) do not nd a statistically signicant association,
Evans and Patton (1987) and Moon (2002) obtain evidence for a
direct relationship.
Likewise, those countries organized into federal states will exhibit
more administrative complexity, which affects the need for develop-
ing mechanisms of coordination among them; in those contexts, E-
 I. Gallego-lvarez et al. / Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 423430
government can constitute a suitable device for disclosing information
and establishing connections among the different administrations.
According to these theoretical arguments, the following hypoth-
esis is formulated:
H1. The complexity of the public body positively inuences the
development of E-government.
3.1.2. Institutional capacity
E-government requires the building of a technical and administrative
infrastructure that will permit its development. In this sense, the budget
of the public body may constitute an important determinant for
implementing E-government practices, by providing a measure of the
management quality, which can benet local politicians, increasing their
possibilities for re-election and reducing interest costs (Pina et al., 2007b).
However, Pina, et al. (2007b) do not detect a statistically signicant
association between those factors. In the same vein, when analyzing
the situation in the United States, Tolbert et al. (2008) conclude that
the states with higher budgetary incomes per capita do not exhibit a
greater likelihood of developing digital government.
Taking into consideration the theoretical arguments, we have
tested the following hypothesis:
H2. The countries with higher budgets will show a larger level of
development in E-government.
The institutional capacity is measured by the budgetary expense
per capita (BUDGET).
3.1.3. Style of public administration
According to Allen, Juillet, Paquet, and Roy (2001), the necessary
change in public government can be blocked by an administration
culture which is badly adapted to the digital world. Rodrguez et al.
(2005) and Pina et al. (2007b) have underscored the strong inuence
of administration culture. For instance, Nordic and Anglo-Saxon
countries are considered customer-oriented, so they will better
answer to the needs of citizens through E-government; on the
contrary, continental European countriesoriented traditionally
towards the fulllment of Law as the main source for legitimacy
will show more slowness in incorporating the new styles of public
government. Even so, these countries will exhibit a higher develop-
ment of digital administration in comparison with those countries
which are not involved in the improvement of public management.
In the eld of administrative culture, it is worth emphasizing the role
played by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD), which promotes initiatives in the context of public management
and the use of Web platforms, with the purpose of achieving greater
transparency in their member states (Caba, Rodrguez, & Lpez, 2008).
Consequently, the following hypothesis has been formulated:
H3. The style of the Public Administration oriented towards citizens
and/or interested in the legitimacy processes positively inuences the
development of E-government.
In order to identify the administrative culture, we use the variable
OECD which identies whether the country analyzed is a member of
the OECD. As stated above, this body promotes the introduction of
signicant reforms in the Public Administration in order to improve
the effectiveness and efciency of public management and, at the
same time, encourages citizen participation.
3.2. Political factors
3.2.1. Political competition
A high degree of political rivalry can create a favorable environ-
ment for technological reforms (Tolbert et al., 2008), given that there
425
may be a continuous monitoring of public management which may
benet from the use of new technologies. Baber (1983) argues that
the higher the political competition, the higher the incentives to
disclose information towards the principals in an agency relationship.
In this context, some pressure groups will arise in order to force the
ruling party to show its ability and capacity to offer higher benets
and achievements than its competitors (Crcaba & Garca, 2008),
thereby leading to the need for a higher information transparency in
the government team.
Previous literature has shown mixed results concerning this fact.
On the one hand, Crcaba and Garca (2008), Ganda and Archidona
(2008) and Tolbert et al. (2008) highlight the positive inuence of
political rivalry in the utilization of digital government; on the
contrary, Laswad et al. (2005) conclude that it is not a statistically
signicant factor for New Zealand municipalities.
According to theoretical arguments, the following hypothesis has
been formulated:
H4. The level of political competition positively inuences the develop-
ment of e-government.
3.2.2. Ideology and political stability
These factors include both the elements which identify the
behavior of parties, such as political stability, understood as a concept
of the level of representativeness received in the ballot boxes, and
their ideology.
It is interesting to analyze whether the political trend of the ruling
party can have any impacteither positive or negativeon E-
government. The few studies in existence that have actually analyzed
this issue have found a positive inuence of the Socialist Party in Spain
(Crcaba & Garca, 2008) and the Republican Party in the United
States (Tolbert et al., 2008).
Initially, it can be thought that governments with a right-wing
ideology tend to carry out programs or activities of a notably economic
nature and introduce public sector reforms, whereas those that have
other types of ideologies more often concentrate on social policies. On the
contrary, countries with a communist regime may show a lower interest
in technological advances and, by extension, in digital government.
However, because there is not enough previous evidence that can
anticipate which political tendency may be more prone to the use of
digital government, we have formulated an open hypothesis:
H5. There is a relationship between the political tendency of the
ruling party and the development of E-government.
At the same time, a greater or lesser level of political stability may
lead to the advancement or stoppage of the activities related with E-
government, because the implementation of these activities tends to
require having the proper support to choose to assign resources, with
effects detectable only in the medium to long term. Consequently,
H6. There is a positive relationship between the political stability of
the ruling party and the degree of development of E-government.
4. Methodology
4.1. Population and sample
In order to achieve our research purposes, we selected most
countries worldwide as our target population. This population was
chosen in the interest of extending and generalizing the results
obtained in previous studies, which focused on the analysis of the
explanatory factors of the development of E-government in the local
administration (i.e., Pina et al., 2007b; Ganda & Archidona, 2008), by
incorporating the advantages derived from considering different
geographic contexts. Thus, we may overcome the limitations of those
426 I. Gallego-lvarez et al. / Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 423430

Table 1
E-governance performance measures.
Source: Holzer and Kim (2005).

E-Governance Category Key Raw Weighted

concepts score score Keywords

Security/Privacy 18 25 20 Privacy policies, authentication, encryption, data management, and use of cookies
Usability 20 32 20 User-friendly design, branding, length of homepage, targeted audience links or channels, and site search capabilities
Content 20 48 20 Access to current accurate information, public documents, reports, publications, and multimedia materials
Service 20 59 20 Transactional services involving purchase or register, interaction between citizens, businesses and government
Citizen 20 55 20 Online civic engagement, internet based policy deliberation, and citizen based performance measurement
Participation
Total 98 219 100

studies that limited their focus on specic geographic contexts, such
as Spanish municipalities (Ganda & Archidona, 2008), European
municipalities (Pina et al., 2007b), or US states (Tolbert et al., 2008).
The sample used refers to the 81 largest municipalities from 81
countries selected by Holzer and Kim (2005) for the elaboration of the
report Digital Governance Municipalities Worldwide.
4.2. Dependent variable
The dependent variable corresponds to Digital Governance Index
2005 carried out by Holzer and Kim (2005).
This E-government Index consists of ve components: (1) Security
and Privacy, (2) Usability, (3) Content, (4) Services, and (5) Citizen
Participation. These components are used as dependent variables, as
well. Table 1 summarizes the content of those indexes. Annex 1
describes the content of the items analyzed.
The research instrument includes 98 measures, of which 43 are
dichotomous. For each of the ve E-governance components, the
researches applied 18 to 20 measures, and for questions which were
not dichotomous, each measure was coded on a four-point scale (0, 1,
2, and 3). Furthermore, in developing an overall score for each
municipality, we have equally weighted each of the ve categories so
as not to skew the research in favor of a particular category
(regardless of the number of questions in each category).
4.3. Independent variables
Table 2 exhibits the explanatory variables proposed to test the
hypotheses of section three. The necessary information for creating
the variables was obtained from each municipality's Web site.
4.4. Control variables
In addition, economic wealth (GDP, EUROPE, NORTH AMERICA)
and technological development have been added as control variables.
The development of E-government overall depends on the
country's economic performance (Siau & Long, 2006), which is
directly linked to the capacity for buying computers and techno-
logical devices, as well as for accessing the Internet. Countries with a
lower economic development may be at a notable disadvantage
not only in the adoption and implementation of information
technologies, but also in the communication with the public
administration, as a result of the insufciency of human and
nancial resources.
Consequently, previous works which have analyzed the inuence
of economic wealth (e.g. Christiaens, 1999; Laswad et al., 2005; Siau &
Long, 2006; Kim, 2007; Tolbert et al., 2008) have usually found a
positive association between the level of wealth and the use of E-
government. To represent economic wealth, we have used the
variable Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. Moreover, we
have included two dummy variables to represent the two continents
which group the different countries analyzed (EUROPE, NORTH
AMERICA).
As stated above, the implementation of E-government demands
signicant investments in technical and administrative infrastruc-
tures. It requires a certain amount of technological development
which allows the updating of Web sites by using advanced software
and technologies.
With regard to technological development, an essential driver for
managing E-government is the extent of Internet usage. The more
people with access to the Internet, the more possibilities exist for the
use of Web platforms for the administrationcitizen relationship,
given that the use of the Internet on behalf of public administrations
can be conceived as an answer to the increasing demand of a
population which uses the Internet (Tolbert et al., 2008). The effect of
technological development is analyzed through the variable IP
Internet Penetrationwhich represents the ratio Internet per 100
users.
4.5. Analysis technique
Based upon the variables selected to test the proposed hypotheses,
we have dened the following model (1), in which the level of
development of E-government depends on the socioeconomic and

Table 2
Independent variables.

Variable Denition Hypothesis Expected Sign

Internal features of the public bodies

SIZE Size of the public body, measured by the population of the country analyzed H1 +
BUDGET Institutional capacity, represented by the budgetary expense per inhabitant H2 +
OECD Dummy variable which takes the value 1 if the country belongs to the OECD, and 0, otherwise H3 +

Political factors
PARTIES Political competition, identied by the number of political parties which take part in the previous general elections H4 +
CONSERV Dummy variable which takes the value 1 if the ruling party is right-winged, and 0, otherwise H5 ?
COALI Dummy variable which takes the value 1 if the ruling party is governing in coalition, and 0 otherwise H6 +
 I. Gallego-lvarez et al. / Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 423430 427

Table 3
Correlations matrix.

WEB PRIVACY USABILITY CONTENT SERVICE CITIZENPART GDP IP

WEB 1.000
PRIVACY 0.4952 1.0000
USABILITY 0.8230 0.1563 1.0000
CONTENT 0.8940 0.5175 0.6526 1.0000
SERVICE 0.8626 0.1149 0.8034 0.7719 1.0000
CITIZENPART 0.8045 0.0603 0.7856 0.7151 0.8932 1.0000
GDP 0.4285 0.0559 0.7181 0.5334 0.7593 0.5651 1.0000
IP 0.4068 0.1318 0.4457 0.3482 0.4260 0.3307 0.7981 1.0000
EUROPA 0.2788 0.2976 0.5305 0.0288 0.3388 0.3940 0.5084 0.4563
NAMERICA 0.1990 0.2220 0.1402 0.1717 0.1206 0.2263 0.1897 0.1606
SIZE 0.0241 0.4022 0.1614 0.0319 0.0284 0.0721 0.4997 0.7610
BUDGET 0.4559 0.2306 0.5938 0.4084 0.7345 0.8521 0.5945 0.4236
OECD 0.2904 0.0531 0.3480 0.2011 0.6245 0.4049 0.6230 0.3300
PARTIES 0.1776 0.0866 0.2210 0.1215 0.1277 0.0573 0.0998 0.3691
CONSER 0.3867 0.3226 0.2536 0.0654 0.2383 0.3612 0.0679 0.1378
COALI 0.2823 0.1405 0.5771 0.0243 0.2114 0.1462 0.3437 0.0870

EUROPA NAMERICA SIZE BUDGET OECD PARTIES

EUROPA 1.0000
NAMERICA 0.2132 1.0000
SIZE 0.2459 0.2099 1.0000
BUDGET 0.4243 0.0734 0.2947 1.0000
OECD 0.2500 0.4264 0.0938 0.4280 1.0000
PARTIES 0.0000 0.3191 0.1239 0.1705 0.0831 1.0000
CONSER 0.1195 0.2548 0.3147 0.3368 0.4781 0.0199
COALI 0.2132 0.0909 0.1514 0.1030 0.2132 0.1773

CONSER COALI

CONSER 1.0000
COALI 0.2548 1.000

demographic characteristics of a country, as well as on the internal Moreover, this matrix reveals that there are not high correlations
features of the national administration and a set of political factors. between independent and control variables, which can lead to
multicollinearity problems.
Web = f Socioeconomic factors; Internal features of the public administration; Political Factors

Model (1) can be estimated empirically through model (2):
4 3 3
WEBi = 0 + i = 1 i SFi + i = 1 i IFi + i = 1 i PFi +
where,
SF are the control variables proposed to dene the socioeconomic
factors in each country.
IF are the variables which reect the internal features of the public
body.
PF are the variables which represent the political factors.
Model (2) has been checked empirically through a multiple linear
regression. Given that the dependent variable is broken down into ve
components, we have run six regressions.
1
5.2. Results of the multivariate dependency model
As for the linear regression model estimated for the overall index
2 of development of E-governmentvariable WEB, the results are
reected in Table 4. The explanatory power of the model proposed
reaches 72.83% for a condence level of 95%. The control variable IP
and the independent variable, SIZE, are statistically signicant, with a
positive sign, for a condence level of 99% and 95%, respectively.
The remaining variables, GDP, BUDGET, PARTIES and CONSERV,
have a positive effect, while the variables EUROPE, NORTHAMERICA,
OECD and COALI show a negative impact; however, none of them
reveal a statistically signicant inuence.
These ndings indicate that the development of local administra-
tions' Web sites is positively associated with the technological

5. Results of the empirical analysis Table 4

Linear regression results.
5.1. Previous descriptive analysis Dependent variable WEB

t
Table 3 contains the correlations among the variables proposed.
The variables, GDP and IP, which reect the economic and (Intercept) 0.696
GDP 0.233 0.899
technological development of a municipality, show signicant EUROPE 0.155 0.736
correlations with the dependent variable WEB (0.4285 and 0.4068), NAMERICA 0.061 0.267
as well as with most of their components. IP 0.976 3.254***
Likewise, the variable BUDGET, which represents the budgetary SIZE 0.627 2.494**
BUDGET 0.212 1.288
expense per capita, exhibits a positive relationship with the
OCDE 0.214 0.868
dependent variables WEB (0.4559), USABILITY (0.5938), CONTENT PARTIES 0.142 0.702
(0.4084) and PARTICIPATION (0.8521). CONSER 0.083 0.451
From these ndings, it is apparent that the internal capacity of the COALI 0.230 1.314
municipality and its level of technological and economic development R2 0.728
F 3.218**
are the most signicant drivers of the development of E-government.
428 I. Gallego-lvarez et al. / Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 423430

Table 5
Results of the linear regression for the components of e-Government index.

Dependent variable Privacy Usability Content Service Participatory

t t t t t

(Intercept) 1.357 2.280** 0.234 1.056 1.944

GDP 0.193 0.568 0.348 1.215 0.172 0.501 0.076 0.330 0.123 0.514
EUROPE 0.458 1.661 0.060 0.256 0.018 0.063 0.000 0.001 0.063 0.324
NAMERICA 0.381 1.285 0.087 0.348 0.038 0.126 0.358 1.773 0.206 0.988
IP 0.789 2.012* 0.496 1.498 0.782 1.967* 0.877 3.279*** 0.903 3.276***
SIZE 0.802 2.436** 0.145 0.522 0.231 0.691 0.463 2.062* 0.754 3.261***
BUDGET 0.115 0.534 0.218 1.198 0.089 0.405 0.331 2.250** 0.520 3.436***
OCDE 0.010 0.031 0.279 1.027 0.319 0.976 0.178 0.808 0.135 0.597
PARTIES 0.242 0.917 0.039 0.174 0.126 0.470 0.013 0.075 0.064 0.343
CONSER 0.158 0.657 0.247 1.218 0.230 0.946 0.111 0.678 0.035 0.209
COALI 0.293 1.277 0.326 1.688 0.018 0.076 0.099 0.634 0.139 0.866
R2 0.535 0.669 0.522 0.784 0.771
F 1.381** 2.427 1.310 4.352*** 4.030***

development of each municipality, as well as with the municipalities'
complexity; the remaining internal features of the public body and the
political factors do not have a statistically relevant inuence.
The results of the explanatory models for the components of the
development index of E-government are summarized in Table 5.
The rst model, which evidences the factors behind the extent of
privacy and security of Web sites, shows an explanatory power of
53.51%, for a condence level of 95%. The variables IP and SIZE are
again the only statistically signicant determinants, for a condence
level of 99% and 95%, respectively. The variables GDP, OECD and
PARTIES have a positive effect, while EUROPE, NORTHAMERICA,
BUDGET, CONSERV and COALI show an inverse relationship with
privacy and security of the municipalities' Web sites; nevertheless,
any effect can be considered as signicant, from a statistical
perspective.
The second model analyses the explanatory factors for the level of
navigability and simplicity in the use of the Webvariable USABILITY.
None of the independent and control variables proposed turn out to
be statistically signicant; consequently, the model developed
theoretically should not be considered.
The third model focuses on the explanatory variables for the
content of the Web sites concerning current accurate information,
public documents, reports, publications, and multimedia materials
variable CONTENT. The explanatory power of the model reaches
52.1%, although it is not statistically signicant, given that only the
variable IP has a relevant effect for a marginal signicance of 0.1
(condence level of 90%).
The model proposed for the variable SERVICEwhich identies the
level of transactional services involving purchase or register, interaction
between citizens, businesses and governmentexhibits an explanatory
power of 78.38%, for a condence level of 99%. It reveals a signicant
direct relationship between the dependent variable and the variables IP,
SIZE and BUDGET, for a condence level of 99%, 90%, and 95%,
respectively. Therefore, the level of development of services provided
online is explained by the technological development, the complexity of
the local administration and its institutional capacity.
The last modelwhich determines the factors underlying the
extent of development of citizens' participation online, variable
PARTICIPATORYshows an explanatory power of 77.05%, for a
condence level of 99%. The variables IP, SIZE and BUDGET are again
signicant, for a condence level of 99%.
With regard to the acceptation or refusal of the hypotheses
proposed, Table 6 summarizes the signicant variables in each model
and the hypotheses they refer to. Hypothesis H1which corresponds
to the relationship between the complexity of the public body and the
development of E-governmentis accepted with the proposed sign,
given that the variable SIZE is statistically signicant for most of
estimated models. In the same vein, hypothesis H2 should be
accepted, because those countries which exhibit a higher institutional
capacity based on the amount of budgetary expense present the most
complex and development levels of digital administration, transac-
tional services and citizen participation. The other hypotheses are
rejected because of the absence of statistical signicance of the
variables proposed to test them.
6. Discussion
Our ndings concerning the inuence of socioeconomic and
demographic factors allow us to afrm that a higher level of
improvement in E-government is strongly linked to municipalities
which have a signicant level of technological development. These
ndings are consistent with Pina et al. (2007b) for European regions
and cities, and differ from the negative impact detected by Tolbert et
al. (2008) and from a non-signicant impact, obtained by Pina, Torres,
and Royo (2007a)), Kim (2007), and Ganda and Archidona (2008).
Unlike previous studies (Kim, 2007; Tolbert et al., 2008), we do not
obtain evidence of a close relationship between economic wealth and
the development of digital government. Furthermore, we have not
found that the type of economic development which is typical of
Europe and North America inuences the improvement of digital
administration.
With regards to the internal features of the public administration,
our ndings point to the organizational complexity of the public body
as one of the factors which statistically inuence the development of
E-government; however, unlike results obtained by studies focused
on the reporting online by local administrations (i.e. Pina et al., 2007b;
Ganda & Archidona, 2008), it does not show a signicant effect on the
information disclosed on the Web site.
These ndings seem to indicate that, although there are some
important differences among municipalities with larger versus smaller
size concerning the process of reporting online when analyzing a
specic country, this effect disappears when analyzing the behavior of

Table 6
Relationships between ndings obtained and hypotheses proposed.

Variables Hypotheses Expected Obtained sign

sign
WEB PRIVACY USABILITY CONTENT SERVICE PARTICIPATORY

SIZE H1 + + + + + +
BUDGET H2 + + +
 I. Gallego-lvarez et al. / Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 423430 429

the most complex municipalities in the international sphere. This fact
suggests that the content of Web sites has common trends among the
largest cities worldwide.
On the contrary, the complexity of the public body does explain
the security and sophistication of the Web sites, because the large-
sized municipalities display higher levels of privacy, as well as a total
two-way interaction among administrations and citizens.
Inaddition,asignicantrelationshipbetweentheinstitutionalcapacity
ofthemunicipalityandthelevelofdevelopmentintheWebsitesisdetected.
AlthoughthebudgetaryexpensedoesnotseemtoaffecttheWebcontents
(asPinaetal.,2007b,haveevidenced),thisfactorpresentsarelevanteffectin
the evolution towards an online interactive system which facilitates the
onlineaccessofcitizenstomunicipalities'servicesandtheirparticipationin
municipalities'politicsandmanagement.
Independent of the geographic context analyzed, we have detected
that the use of the Internet as a communication channel between
administration and citizens does not lead to electoral advantages.
Furthermore, within a specic country, the left-wing parties tend to
design municipalities' Web sites as tools for reporting; nevertheless,
in the international sphere, political parties, independent of their
ideology and the stability they govern with, tend to promote common
systems of E-government among them.
Appendix A
Annex 1

Regarding the style of public administration, we have not found a Privacy/Security Service
relevant effect on the implementation of local digital administration
12. A privacy or security statement/ 5961. Pay utilities, taxes, nes
in an international sphere. Nevertheless, in Europe, Rodrguez et al. policy
(2005) and Pina et al. (2007a) have found a relationship between a 36. Data collection 62. Apply for permits
citizen-oriented administrative culture and the use of websites as 7. Option to have personal 63. Online tracking system
information used
reporting tools. Therefore, although the administrative culture can be
8. Third party disclosures 64. Apply for licenses
an explanatory factor in municipalities from a specic country, this 9. Ability to review personal data 65. E-procurement
factor does not seem to be relevant in the international development records
of local websites. 10. Managerial measures 66. Property assessments
Finally, the political factors do not have a relevant effect, because 11. Use of encryption 67. Searchable databases
12. Secure server 68. Complaints
we do not detect any relationship between E-government and
13. Use of cookies or Web 6970. Bulletin board about civil
political competition, stability, or ideology. The consistency of our Beacons applications
ndings with those obtained by Laswad et al. (2005), Crcaba and 14. Notication of privacy policy 71. FAQ
Garca (2008), Ganda and Archidona (2008), and Tolbert et al. (2008) 15. Contact or e-mail address for 72. Request information
allows us to afrm empirically that, unlike theoretical arguments, inquiries
16. Public information through a 73. Customize the main city homepage
political competition does not promote favorable environments for restricted area
technological reforms, perhaps as a consequence of not offering 17. Access to non-public information 74. Access private information online
electoral benets for the governing party. for employees
In contrast to the results for ideology and reporting in Spanish 18. Use of digital signatures 75. Purchase tickets
7677. Webmaster response
municipalities as obtained by Crcaba and Garca (2008), the
78. Report violations of administrative laws
development of E-government in the international sphere is sup- and regulations
ported by all of the political ideologies.
Usability Citizen Participation
7. Conclusions 1920. Homepage, page length. 7980. Comments or feedback
21. Targeted audience 8183. Newsletter
The advantages in frequency and timeliness, as well as the 2223. Navigation Bar 84. Online bulletin board or chat capabilities
24. Site map 8587. Online discussion forum on policy
decrease in information distribution costs, have made the Internet
issues
an indispensable communication channel in the relationship between 2527. Font Color 8889. Scheduled e-meetings for discussion
public administrations and their users/citizens. The development of 3031. Forms 9091. Online survey/ polls
E-government may constitute an important opportunity to improve 3237. Search tool 92. Synchronous video
38. Update of website 9394. Citizen satisfaction survey
the informative and relational capacity of Web sites, as well as to
95. Online decision-making
contribute to public management transparency. 9698. Performance measures, standards,
This work has focused on determining the explanatory factors of or benchmarks
the development of the websites from 81 municipalities worldwide,
through several indices which consider security and privacy, usability, Content

contents, services and citizens participation. 39. Information about the location of
While previous studies have detected that the municipalities from ofces
40. Listing of external links
a specic country differ in the information disclosed online, our
41. Contact information
ndings emphasize that, internationally, the municipalities exhibit a 42. Minutes of public meetings
common tendency regarding the informative content of their Web 43. City code and regulations
sites. However, as their complexity increases and they have more 44. City charter and policy priority
budgetary funds, municipalities differ in the support given to the 45. Mission statements
46. Budget information
development of a participatory and dynamic E-government.
4748. Documents, reports, or books
Consequently, in an international context, whereas the informa- (publications)
tion contents may be common to all, the signicant differences linked 49. GIS capabilities
to municipalities' size and resources lead to different levels of 50. Emergency management or alert
mechanism
dynamism and interaction of local Web sites. This situation is
5152. Disability access
different from the development of a local digital administration in a 53. Wireless technology
specic country, because the contents differ among municipalities of 54. Access in more than one language
diverse sizes. Their technological development and administrative 5556. Human resources information
complexity determine the development and sophistication of E- 57. Calendar of events
58. Downloadable documents
government to a large extent.
430 I. Gallego-lvarez et al. / Government Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 423430
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