Exploring the Different Dimensions of Challenges in E-Governance Projects – A Literature Review Analysis

Digital technology is expected to play a key role as an enabler by providing a platform for interaction and improving public service delivery. By the adoption of digital technologies, e-Governance tries to ensure transparency and accountability, enhance efficiencies within the government, and empower people through information. Taking into consideration its advantages, e-Governance is being adopted by both developed as well as developing countries. In the developing world, including India, the number of e-governance applications has risen rapidly in recent times. Even though high amount of investments are made for e-Governance, past studies show that the success rates of e-governance projects are lower than the expected levels. Several projects incur time and cost overruns, do not meet stakeholder expectations or are even abandoned before completion. Identifying the kind of challenges faced in e-Governance projects should help in the adoption of established project management methodologies and best-practices to overcome the challenges. A systematic literature review is conducted from relevant studies by assessing the quality of studies, answering the research questions and extracting available information. This paper focuses on the identification of the challenges in the implementation of e-Governance projects by means of a systematic literature review. The challenges that emerged from the literature review during the period 2003 to 2017 were categorized in order to organize the identified challenges. The challenges were identified and the changing nature of the challenges over the period was analyzed. The findings from the research provide insights into the nature of challenges in the implementation of e-Governance projects. The findings can be used as a reference for better planning while initiating e-Governance projects by the government departments, software development agencies and other potential key stakeholders. The results are expected to contribute in providing a baseline for pursuing further research in this area