Mapping out e-government research literature: How interdisciplinary was it for the blooming decades?. (2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hwang, Sungsoo; Murphy, Philip
• Is Part Of: Electronic government. Volume 13:Number 3(2017)
• Page Start: 224
• Page End: 241
• Publication Date: 2017
• Subjects: e-government literature -- digital government literature -- citation analysis -- citation networks; Internet in public administration -- Periodicals; 352.380285467805
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1740-7494

Abstract

The goal of this research is to empirically map out e-government literature to gauge the progress of the domain in the blooming years of studies. Since the 1990s, studies of e-government underwent exponential growth. Given the nature of its inquiry, e-government studies cut across the multiple disciplines. This study investigates how multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary e-government studies were. This work is meaningful in two ways. First, it adds empirical analysis to existing anecdotal evidence of e-government literature as e-government studies are maturing after a decade of exponential growth. Second, it serves as a teaching and research tool to help students and new scholars, identifying important scholars and works in the study domain. The main finding of this study is that digital government studies are conducted within multiple disciplines but lack genuine inter-disciplinary works. Some key journals are identified and key research topics are coded and illustrated.