Abstract
Despite an overflow of reports on e-Government, empirical inquiries on government website analyses as one of the elements for assessing the e-Government readiness index (e-GRI), are not sufficiently reported in the literature in recent years. From a South African outlook, this proves to be worse, with only a few studies published under this setting. While the United Nations (UN) remain the only authoritative measure of global e-Government developments, most practitioners, and researchers of the programme across the globe have done little in reviewing its methodological framework for measuring a country’s Online Service Index (OSI) (referred herein as web content analysis index (WebCAI/web index), which has some discrepancies in its form. The Republic of South Africa (RSA), which is among the 193 UN Member States - is also measured using this methodology. As a result, the research problem, therefore, was established on poor foundation, lack of inclusivity and independence, as well as questionability of the UN’s methodological framework. The objective, therefore, was fivefold, primarily seeking to bridge the gap in the body of knowledge by means of introducing an independent, yet integrated methodological framework (IMF) for assessing RSA’s online presence. In this research, the methodological framework was successfully introduced, guided by the conceptual framework which rested on nine key online tabs/features. The rest of the objectives were secondary and linked to the primary objective and were successfully achieved through empirical analyses. The current study followed a positivism research philosophy and adopted a quantitative, deductive-inductive-based analytical approach as it quantified the variables while allowing theory to be developed from the literature and collecting primary data to explore it. A non-probability sampling method was applied, and a consecutive sampling technique was considered suitable as it sought to include all accessible and qualifying subjects of the population. In total, 48 national government websites were assessed, inclusive of the national gateway portal (NGP). Data was collected using a 2-page interviewer-administered questionnaire and was analysed using IBM’s SPSS v.26. Among the statistics performed in this study, a reliability test using Cronbach’s Alpha was used to test the internal consistency of the instrument while construct validity was tested using factor analysis and correlation analysis. Consequently, the resultant alpha suggested good or better reliability of the instrument. Meanwhile, factor analysis removed two variables with low communalities while only one variable was highly correlated. From the empirical findings, all the national government departments were online, of which more than two-thirds had some form of social media presence, with Twitter coming out top at nearly three-thirds, followed closely by Facebook. It was further revealed that less than half of the national websites had some form of e-Service or Tool. On average, all the 48 national websites scored a mean value of 3.72 out of 5.00 in terms of their website ranking which included the look and design, user-friendliness content/information, processing speed, as well as overall website and its functionality. Overall, South Africa’s WebCAI was reading at .2066, with the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) leading with a WebCAI of .2733. Accordingly, this research recommends that government leaders in the RSA should capitalise on the latest technologies to meet the growing demand of citizens and businesses wanting more online services from the government. The research further recommends that the UN review and possibly refine its overall e-GDI methodology, including the OSI - which has been in application for two decades now. In conclusion, the new IMF is deemed feasible. In terms of the overall e-Government initiatives in the RSA - they remain at a minimal level, spurred by a slowdown in the deployment of e-Services or Tools on national government websites.
Keywords: e-Government, Integrated, South Africa, Methodological Framework, WebCAI.