Sustaining E-Government Website Services: An Investigation of Dynamic Relationships of Organisational Factors in a Government Agency

Abstrak

The availability of e-government website services can deteriorate overtime. Accordingly, persistent quality maintenance is necessary to sustain high availability levels of website services. The government of Surabaya, Indonesia has delivered and sustained website services with a high-level of availability over time. This research aims to reveal important organisational factors and their feedback relationships that influence availability levels. Guided by a previously proposed model, a causal loop diagram on e-government website availability, data was collected by observing the Surabaya website and interviewing the government staff unit that maintains the website. A revised causal loop diagram was constructed and analysed. Some leveraging factors have been identified, such as staff satisfaction over their tasks and rewards, communication and coordination among staff based
on trust and legitimate procedures, sufficient staff competence, informal training and communication with leadership. Through several reinforcing loops, these factors both influence and are influenced by the availability of website services.