E-Government Project Implementation: Insight from Interviews in Vietnam

The government of Vietnam perceives e-Government as a powerful enabler to achieve the target to build a “government of, by and for the people. Thus, from 2001 to 2005 the government implemented Project 112, which had 10 times investment fund compared to the previous project. However, in April, 2007 the Prime Minister halted the project. In order to assist the Vietnam Government moving forward with future e-Government projects, this paper applies a new theoretical framework to investigate the failure of Project 112. An incompetence organization handling a multi-dimension project leaded to the low e-Government application quality. The low quality of e-Government applications resulted in the low level of actual usage, intention to use and user satisfaction. The project organization did not attempt to correct and control the flaws. Thus, the feedback loop continued and further depreciated the user satisfaction. Finally, the end-users together with the media pressured on the State to audit the e$ciency of Project 112. Besides, unreformed public administration system and untrained human resources were also found having negative influences on e-Government projects. Findings of this study are bases for the useful lessons in implementing e-Government projects. In addition, a new framework developed by this research can assist other countries in understanding the failure in order to implement the next e-Government projects more successfully.