The role of technology, organization and contextual factors inthe development of e-Government services: An empiricalanalysis on Italian Local Public Administrations

Using data drawn from the 2007 and 2009 Istat ICT-PA surveys on 4471 Italian munic-ipalities, we identify the technological, organizational, and contextual factors associatedwith the development of e-Government services in local administrations. We find thatboth outsourcing and internal accumulation of ICT competencies are strongly correlatedto the provision of these services. Moreover we observe that in-house ICT activities havetwice as high an impact on e-Government development as compared to ICT outsourcing.The enactment of advanced e-services is less likely in the case of small municipalities, insparsely populated areas, and in the presence of higher rates of growth of the elder com-ponent of population. By contrast it is more likely in areas characterized by more intensepatenting activities, which in turn favour a dynamic and sophisticated demand for newservices. Though broadly consistent with Fountain’s “technology enactment framework”,our findings suggest that more emphasis should be given to the internal competencies ofpublic administrations, and to context specific factors reflecting the characteristics of endusers.