Intellectual foundation and mainstream research of e-government in public administration

• Autor(a) principal: Arias, Maria Isabel
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Outros Autores: Serra, Fernando, Guerrazzi, Luiz, Ferreira, Manuel Portugal
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.8/5984
• topic: Co-citation analysis; E-government; Public administration; Bibliometric study; Bibliographic coupling

Purpose – This paper aims to conduct a bibliometric study on e-government research, with special concern over finding bases on which electronic government studies are constructed. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is a bibliometric study using citation, co-citation and bibliometric coupling analysis, applied to 161 selected articles published in 37 top journals in public administration. Findings – The paper presents existing knowledge on e-government research and provides a categorization in terms of research subfields. The 40 top cited works were classified into three subfields of intellectual influence: models and evolution; implementation factors; and adoption constraints. In total, 63 works were classified into three subfields of mainstream research: adoption (contextual and technological factors); evolution status and implementation; and social capital. The paper presents gaps in research streams. Research limitations/implications – Because of the chosen research approach, this study has limitations that are inherent to bibliometric studies, such as the selection of journals and keywords. This work helps e-government students and researchers to understand the mainstream research of the field, presents the references on each stream and, in addition, provides information to public policy makers. Findings from this study can contribute to theory building in e-government research. Practical implications – This study may provide support to government institutions to assess the allocation of public resources for research. Originality/value – The paper fulfils an identified need to examine the intellectual foundations and mainstream research in the field of e-government, unlike other reviews. The paper makes a methodological contribution by integrating co-citation and bibliographic coupling in mapping knowledge.