Barriers and impediments to transformational government: insights from literature and practice

Information and communication technology (ICT) has the potential to transform the public sector. Recently, transformational government (t-government) has been introduced as a new stage of egovernment aimed at realizing structural changes and greater benefits. Yet, there are many impediments blocking transformation and there is limited insight in these barriers. In this paper impediments for tgovernment are investigated by conducting a literature review and using this to investigate three case studies. The impediments found in literature primarily originate from literature not focusing on the transformational stage of e-government. These barriers were confirmed and extended using the case studies. Impediments simultaneously occur on the governance, the organisational and managerial, and the technical level. Impediments represent an interrelated set of factors that need to be addressed in concert. Research on transformation can benefit from studying, understanding and dealing with these interrelated impediments.