Presently, the field of e-Government still lacks a coherent identity. For its future development, it would be useful to identify a distinctive lexicon and widely shared conception to help scholars understand its essence. In this study, exploratory work was conducted using a large-scale survey of e-Government articles from 1993 to 2008. A total of 752 abstracts from the world’s leading databases (i.e. Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) and Conference Proceedings Citation Index-Science (CPCI-S)) were retrieved, and 528 were analyzed using Computer-Aided Text Analysis (CATA) software. Based on the content analysis, a widely shared conception of the field held by its members was determined and a methodology to obtain a consensual definition of an academic field was designed.
Points for practitioners
By determining and presenting a widely shared conception of e-Government, this study aims to provide scholars, particularly the young, with a deeper understanding of the scope and meaning of the field. This consensual conception may serve either as a screen or as a magnet for future practitioners and academics. The methodology may be applied to several academic fields, including administration science, library science, management science, computer science, and others.
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