Government Information Quarterly 24 (2007) 576 – 594

The perceived impacts of e-government on U.S. cities:

A survey of Florida and Texas City managers
Christopher G. Reddick a,⁎, Howard A. Frank b
a
The University of Texas at San Antonio, Department of Public Administration,
501 West Durango Boulevard, San Antonio, TX 78207, USA
b
Metropolitan Center, Florida International University, PCA 268A, Miami, FL 33199, USA
Available online 1 November 2006

Abstract

This study examines the perceived impacts of electronic government or e-government adoption on
U.S. cities. This research conducted a survey of Texas and Florida city managers in the fall of 2005 to
find out their opinions on the impact of e-government on their city government. The results indicated
that e-government is having a positive impact on management, stakeholder involvement, needs and
collaboration, and procurement in American cities. There are, however, concerns over spam or
unsolicited e-mail and the ability of e-government to reduce the level of staffing. The results of this
study imply that, according to city managers' perceptions, e-government adoption in American city
governments is positively viewed as having an impact on their organizations and communities.
© 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Electronic government; City government; IT diffusion; Survey research; Management support

1. Introduction and background

Local governments throughout the United States are investing sizable sums of money on
e-government as a means of enhancing the effectiveness of their city government. This study
focuses on the impact of e-government by examining the perception of city managers in two
American states, namely Florida and Texas. This article examines particularly the perceptions
⁎ Corresponding author. Fax: +1 210 458 2536.
E-mail address: chris.reddick@utsa.edu (C.G. Reddick).

0740-624X/$ - see front matter © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.giq.2006.09.004
 C.G. Reddick, H.A. Frank / Government Information Quarterly 24 (2007) 576–594 577

of city managers in regard to e-government's impact on several key areas of information

technology (IT) and public administration. This study examines the perception of chief
administrative officers (CAO) on e-government adoption. While most of the existing research
tends to focus on breadth of offerings and less so on e-government's perceived impact on
management and government. It is vital to know how city managers perceive e-government. A
positive attitude by CAOs of e-government should promote its further adoption because of
their leadership roles in these organizations (Garson, 2006).
E-government, for the purposes of this study, is the delivery of government information and
services through the Internet 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. Other research has argued that
this is a rather narrow definition of e-government since it does not discuss the transformative
nature of this IT on governance (Grant & Chau, 2005). In addition, the definition used in this
study focuses on the use of Internet technologies and does not consider non-Internet
technologies (Gronlund, 2005). The Internet is a common tool that cities could use to interact
with citizens and businesses. This definition is also found in other surveys using the
International City/County Management Association (ICMA) data sets on e-government in
local governments in the United States (Moon, 2002; Holden, Norris, & Fletcher, 2003; Norris
& Moon, 2005; Moon & Norris, 2005).
Many of the existing surveys on the perception of e-government examine cities in the
United States nationally (Moon, 2002; Holden et al., 2003) or focus on a single small
state such as Iowa (Ho & Ni, 2004). This study is different since it focuses on two
populous states with unique characteristics rather than concentrate on all states, which may
wash away their characteristics in the analysis. Texas and Florida are essentially
“Megastates” perceived to be bellwethers of citizen preferences and government policies
elsewhere in the United States given their demographics, economics, and politics (Naisbitt,
1982).
This study examines Florida and Texas cities in particular because of the unique
characteristics that these states have in terms of population, economics, and digital
government. First according to the Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov), both Texas
and Florida are very populous states with Florida having a population estimate of nearly
18 million in 2005 and Texas having a population of 23 million. Therefore, Texas is the
second most populous state behind California and Florida is the fourth largest state
behind New York. In these states, a rather large proportion of the population is composed
of Hispanics or Latinos, with 34.9% for Texas and 19.1% for Florida in 2004. Both states
have grown substantially between 1990 and 2000, with 22.8% growth in population for
Texas and 23.5% for Florida. This is well above the 13.1% average for the United States
during this period. Second, in terms of economics Texas and Florida have relatively lower
median household incomes of $41,236 for Florida and Texas has $41,759, compared to
the national median household income of $44,684. Finally, in digital government the City
of Corpus Christi, Texas, and City of Tampa, Florida, are in the first and second place
of having the greatest extent to which city governments are utilizing information
technology to operate and deliver high quality services to their citizens. This is according
to the 2005 Digital Cities Survey (http://centerdigitalgov.com) of cities with populations
of 250,000 or greater. However, it should be cautioned since these are two rather
578 C.G. Reddick, H.A. Frank / Government Information Quarterly 24 (2007) 576–594

populous states; they may not be representative of governments throughout the United
States.
In order to examine the perception of e-government by city managers, this study is divided
into several sections. The next section examines the existing research on e-government in local
governments to determine where this research fits into the literature. This is followed by a brief
examination of the literature on the perceived factors that are expected to have an impact on
e-government. The research and data collection methods are also outlined in this article. The
main part of this article presents the descriptive characteristics of city managers surveyed and
their perceptions of e-government effectiveness. The conclusion provides a discussion of the
perceived impacts of e-government on cities in the United States, limitations, and future
research are also presented.

2. Existing e-government survey literature

Most of the existing survey evidence on the impact of e-government in local governments
examines the ICMA data sets (Moon, 2002; Holden et al., 2003; Reddick, 2004a; Norris &
Moon, 2005; Moon & Norris, 2005). This literature review will discuss their research methods
and key findings of these studies. However, there also is other survey research that examines
local governments in Iowa and larger-sized cities in the United States (Ho, 2002; Ho & Ni,
2004). In addition, there are surveys conducted by the Center for Digital Government (http://
www.centerdigitalgov.com) that ranks city government Web sites.
In an investigation of the 2000 ICMA Electronic Government Survey, Moon (2002)
provides an examination of the stages of e-government adoption in municipal governments
using this survey data. This author found that local governments were simply posting
information on the Web, with few transactions occurring. Moon's study found that
municipal size and type of government had an impact on the development of
e-government.
Holden et al. (2003) also examined the adoption of e-government using the ICMA 2000
data set. Similarly to Moon's (2002) study, these authors found statistical evidence that
factors such as population, government characteristics, and region of the country explained
e-government adoption. They found that e-government adoption was mostly cataloging
information online.
Reddick (2004a) examined local e-government using the 2002 ICMA survey. This author
uses on a two-stage model of e-government adoption; stage one being online information
gathering and stage two online transactions. This author differentiates between types of
e-government relationships such as government to citizen and government to business.
Reddick found, similarly to Moon (2002) and Holden et al.'s (2003) studies that American
cities were mostly cataloging information online.
Moon and Norris (2005) combined the two ICMA survey data sets of the 1997 Reinventing
Government Survey and the 2000 Electronic Government Survey. Their statistical analysis
revealed that local government managerial innovation is related to more comprehensive
e-government initiatives.
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Finally, Norris and Moon (2005) conducted a longitudinal comparison of the 2000 and 2002
ICMA Electronic Government Surveys to determine whether there has been increased
e-government adoption in local governments in the United States. They found that transaction-
based e-government is developing very slowly. Similar to other studies, e-government is
mostly providing information and much less transactional.
The existing surveys of e-government focus on stages of adoption and have found fairly
consistent evidence for governments primarily cataloging information online. Another factor
commonly found is that population size has an impact on e-government sophistication in local
governments. This study is different from prior research since it focuses more on the
perception of effectiveness by city managers of e-government, rather than the stages of
e-government adoption. This study uses Likert scales to represent the level of agreement and
disagreement about the perceived impact of e-government, which has not been done in the
previous ICMA surveys.
This study uses some of the major issues covered in the ICMA data set such as barriers to
e-government adoption and how it has changed local governments. Some of these issues were
converted into Likert scales to measure level of agreement and disagreement with them. Other
areas that are becoming more commonly discussed in the e-government literature such as
privacy and security were underrepresented in the ICMA survey. In addition, the impact of
e-government on management was not examined in the ICMA survey and is explored in this
study.
This study is also different from previous surveys in that it focuses on a comparison of city
managers' views on e-government. By contrast, the examination of ICMA data sets has
compared e-government in city manager and non-city manager cities (Moon & Norris, 2005;
Reddick, 2004a). The governance structure with a city manager is typically the council-
manager form of government.1
The benefit of doing a two-state comparison is that similar findings from two states can
possibly be extrapolated to the larger U.S. population. To the best of our knowledge, this two-
state comparison has not been done in previous e-government survey work. Therefore, this
study focuses on the opinions of city managers who should have substantial influence on the
direction of e-government for their cities because of the leadership position they hold (Garson,
2006).

3. Perceived impacts of e-government literature

In order to examine the perception of e-government by city managers the responses to the
survey have been classified into six categories. These categories are very broad covering areas

1
There are some exceptions to having a city manager and council manager form of government. For example,
the City of Houston has a mayor–council form of government, even knowing it has a city manager. This study
does not differentiate between professionally trained city managers and non-professionally trained managers
(Svara, 1990).
580 C.G. Reddick, H.A. Frank / Government Information Quarterly 24 (2007) 576–594

of management, security and privacy, stakeholder involvement, needs and collaboration,

procurement, and resources. These areas are common themes identified in the previous IT and
e-government literatures and are briefly discussed.
There have been several studies that address the impact of management on IT adoption
(Swain, White, & Hubbert, 1995; Brown & Brudney, 1998; Ho & Smith, 2001; Garson,
2006). These studies have found that a positive management attitude leads to greater IT
adoption. This study also asked city managers about privacy and security of e-government,
an important issue that should impact perceptions (Edmiston, 2002; Garson, 2006). The
existing literature on e-government adoption argues for the importance of stakeholder
involvement, particularly citizens' interaction with government, and this is explored in this
study (Musso, Weare, & Hale, 2000; Thomas & Streib, 2003; West, 2004; Welch, Hinnant, &
Moon, 2004). The need for e-government by constituencies and their level of collaboration
within government and between governments should also have an impact on IT adoption
and is examined in this research (Bozeman & Bretschneider, 1986; Bretschneider, 1990).
Electronic procurement is a significant management challenge with which city managers
must contend and should be related to the perceived impact of e-government (Rocheleau,
2003; Reddick, 2004b). Existing research shows that e-government should have an impact on
city government resources and is also explored in this study (Brudney & Selden, 1995, West,
2004; Ho & Ni, 2004).
In order to examine the perceived impacts of e-government, the following section discusses
how the survey data were collected and the research methods are explained.

4. Survey data collection and research methods

This study used data collected from a mail survey conducted by the authors in the months of
September and October 2005. City managers in both Florida and Texas were surveyed on their
perception of e-government. Mailing lists of city managers were provided by the Texas and
Florida League of Cities. City managers serving populations of 5000 residents or greater were
surveyed. A total of 207 mail surveys were sent to Florida City Managers and 195 to Texas
City Managers.
After two mailings, 220 responses were collected with only nine (or 4.1%) city governments
indicating that they did not have a Web site. The most common reasons for not having a Web
site were lack of resources or that a Web site was in progress. A total of 101 surveys were
completed by Florida City Managers indicating that they had an e-government Web site,
giving a response rate of 46%. A total of 110 city governments in Texas indicated they had
a Web site, giving a response rate of 50%. This is a similar response rate to the ICMA
e-government surveys.
In order to examine statistically whether there were differences in responses, cross-
tabulations were conducted comparing population classes of cities that responded to the
survey with cities that did not participate in the survey. Prior e-government survey
analysis has examined differences in city size of who responded and did not respond to a
survey as a response bias test (Ho & Ni, 2004). The Gamma test indicated that there were
 C.G. Reddick, H.A. Frank / Government Information Quarterly 24 (2007) 576–594 581

no statistically significant differences (p = 0.99) in the samples of respondents and non-

respondents.2 The sample seems representative in terms of city size, but there are other
factors such as IT sophistication of the city manager, that may have an influence on
responses. Therefore, caution should be used when interpreting the results.
To capture the intensity of views by city managers of different e-government issues,
this study used Likert scales ranging from strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, and
strongly disagree. The exact survey questions and their numerical coding can be found
in Appendix A. In order to conduct a comparison of Texas and Florida cities and
e-government this study used cross-tabulations with Pearson's χ2 statistics to examine the
degree of statistical significance differences between the state responses. This study also
used cross tabulations to determine whether size of city government had a bearing on the
perceived impacts of e-government, which has been done in previous studies of the ICMA
data sets (Holden et al., 2003; Norris & Moon, 2005). However, this study focuses on the
size of the city government in terms of full-time equivalent (FTE) employees and
compares two states, while prior research has used population size and regions of the
United States.
One of the limitations of this study is that with surveys of city managers, there is a
possibility that due to their busy schedules these professionals sometimes do not personally
answer the survey but send it off to someone else in their organization to answer on their
behalf. This should be acknowledged when interpreting the results in the following
sections.

5. Descriptive characteristics of city managers and IT

In order to gain an appreciation of the IT abilities of city managers and the characteristics
of these public officials and their cities surveyed, frequencies of the sample are reported in
Table 1. The results in Table 1 show the typical full-time equivalent (FTE) employment for
these cities was around 100 to 499 employees. Therefore, most of the cities are small to
medium sized. In addition, 75.5% of cities have a chief information officer (CIO) in charge

2
The table below shows the percent of responses of cities that participated in the survey and cities who did not
participate.

Response categories Population range Percent

Not responded Less than 99,000 87.8
100,000 to 249,999 7.3
Greater than 250,000 4.9
Total 100
Responded Less than 99,000 87.6
100,000 to 249,999 9.7
Greater than 250,000 2.7
Total 100
582 C.G. Reddick, H.A. Frank / Government Information Quarterly 24 (2007) 576–594

Table 1
Descriptive characteristics of city managers and their cities that reported having an e-government Web site
Frequency Percent
State
Texas 110 52.1
Florida 101 47.9
Full-time equivalent (FTE) employment
99 or less 32 15.1
100 to 499 122 57.5
500 to 999 32 15.1
1000 to 4999 24 11.3
5000 or more 2 0.9
CIO
Yes 160 75.5
No 52 24.5
Years worked as a city manager
Less than 5 years 55 25.9
5 to 10 years 58 27.4
11 to 15 years 22 10.4
16 to 20 years 21 9.9
21 to 25 years 21 9.9
26 years or more 35 16.5
Age range
25–34 years 8 3.8
35–44 years 38 17.9
45–54 years 84 39.6
55–64 years 75 35.4
65 or over years 7 3.3
Gender
Male 185 87.3
Female 27 12.7
Graduate degree
Yes 144 67.9
No 68 32.1
IT sophistication, scaled from 1 to 5
1–Technophobic 2 0.9
2 35 16.5
3 89 42.0
4 68 32.1
5–Technosavvy 18 8.5

of IT. The majority of the city managers had less than 10 years of service in that position.
The typical age range of city managers was between 45 and 64 years. Around 87% of city
managers were male. Sixty-eight percent of city managers held a graduate degree. There
was a fairly even split of Texas and Florida city managers in cities that provide
e-government and who have responded to the survey. There was 52.1% of the sample
composed of Texas City managers. In terms of the IT sophistication of city managers, on a
 C.G. Reddick, H.A. Frank / Government Information Quarterly 24 (2007) 576–594 583

scale from 1 to 5 (with 1 being “technophobic” and 5 being “technosavvy”), most city
managers viewed themselves in the range of 3 to 4. The results of this study should be
viewed with caution because the cities that responded may have more technologically
sophisticated city managers.
With the evidence presented on the characteristics of the sample, the following section of
this article discusses how city managers perceive the effectiveness of e-government for their
organization and community.

6. City managers' perception of e-government and its effectiveness

City managers in Texas and Florida expressed varying opinions on the ability of
e-government to impact their ability to manage their government as shown in Table 2. First,
there is an increased emphasis in city government to focus on attaining results and the survey
data supports this trend with 68.4% agreeing that this is the case (summing up the agree and
strongly agree categories). Second, e-government has fostered a greater level of team work
according to 47.1% of respondents agreeing to this statement. Third, e-government has
increased the level of productivity of employees acknowledged by 72.2% of city managers.
Fourth, city managers believe that e-government has made them more effective managers with
65.1% agreeing that this was the case. A p value (p = 0.05) for the χ 2 statistic was statistically
significant for e-government increasing the ability of a city manager to manage more
effectively in larger cities. Therefore, city managers can use e-government as a management
tool, especially in larger cities.
City managers agree that concerns over privacy and security have not hindered the
implementation of e-government (Table 3). There is agreement that adequate security is in
place to protect personal identifiable information (PII) of citizens and businesses. In addition,
the impact of September 11, 2001, or “9/11” and its aftermath have spurred enhanced
information sharing between public safety agencies and other governments. The most
pronounced impact was the disagreement that “spam” or unsolicited e-mail has not hindered
the productivity of employees. Overall, it appears from Table 4 that city managers are

Table 2
City manager's perception of e-government and managerial effectiveness
E-government in my city Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Texas χ2, Employees
government has… agree (%) (%) (%) (%) disagree (%) p values χ2, p values
Enhanced our ability to implement 17.0 51.4 27.4 4.2 0 0.68 0.67
results-oriented government
Fostered a greater level of 10.8 36.3 42.0 10.4 0.5 0.70 0.89
team work in employees
Increased the productivity of 17.0 55.2 21.7 6.1 0 0.06 0.10
our employees
Increased my ability to 15.6 49.5 29.7 4.7 0.5 0.26 0.05
manage more effectively
584 C.G. Reddick, H.A. Frank / Government Information Quarterly 24 (2007) 576–594

Table 3
City manager's perception of e-government and privacy and security issues
In my city government… Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Texas χ2, Employees
agree (%) (%) (%) (%) disagree (%) p values χ2, p values
Recent concerns over privacy 4.7 45.8 24.5 20.8 4.2 0.20 0.69
and compromised security
of personal and business
information (e.g., Social
Security numbers, credit
card information) have not
hindered implementation of
e-government
Adequate security is in place to 4.7 57.1 21.7 9.9 0.5 0.51 0.54
protect personal information
of citizens and businesses
“9/11” and its aftermath have 14.6 59.0 18.4 8.0 0 0.88 0.78
spurred enhanced information
sharing between our public
safety agencies and others
around the region and country
Spam, or unsolicited e-mail, 1.4 12.7 12.3 46.7 26.9 0.26 0.26
has not hindered the
productivity of our employees

concerned about privacy and security issues, which is not surprising given the increased dialog
on these issues after September 11, 2001.
The stakeholder involvement category of the survey asks for the impact of e-government on
citizens, businesses, and city council and the results are shown in Table 4. The findings
indicated that city managers strongly agreed that their respective councils had provided
positive support for e-government projects. Overall, there was strong agreement that

Table 4
City manager's perception of e-government and stakeholder involvement
E-government in my Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Texas χ2, Employees
city government has… agree (%) (%) (%) (%) disagree (%) p values χ2, p values
Received positive support 32.1 54.7 9.9 3.3 0 0.04 0.61
from city council
Been given positive feedback 23.1 61.8 12.3 2.8 0 0.02 0.84
from our customers or clients
Increased citizen and business 16.0 50.5 23.6 9.9 0 0.01 0.01
interaction with senior
managers
Provided us with the ability 22.2 59.4 14.2 4.2 0 0.03 0.03
to more effectively deal with
our customers and suppliers
 C.G. Reddick, H.A. Frank / Government Information Quarterly 24 (2007) 576–594 585

e-government has received positive support from customers or clients. There was agreement
that e-government has increased citizen and business interaction with senior managers.
E-government has been providing city managers with the ability to deal more effectively with
customers and suppliers. Overall, the results for the stakeholder involvement category indicate
that e-government in Texas and Florida cities is able to meet the demands of these diverse
groups. According to city managers, there is a strong level of support for e-government from a
variety of constituencies in the operating environment. The p values (p < 0.05) indicated that
there were differences between Florida and Texas City governments in terms of stakeholder
involvement. In addition, as city size increases the p values (p < 0.05) indicated that
e-government has increased interaction with citizens and businesses. Senior managers and
provided with a greater ability to deal effectively with customers and suppliers as a result of
e-government.
The views on needs and collaboration by city managers of e-government are reported in
Table 5. There was some agreement that cities believed that their government has a greater need
for e-government compared with similar sized cities. In addition, information sharing between
departments has increased because of e-government. There was not a high level of agreement
that e-government has increased collaboration between departments. There was also some
agreement that e-government has become a top priority and a necessity for city managers
surveyed. The needs and collaboration category showed favorable results, indicating that this
has been impacted because of e-government diffusion. The p values (p < 0.05) for the needs and
collaboration category indicated that as city size increased there was more information sharing
between departments and increased collaboration because of e-government.
Table 6 shows a marginal level of agreement that traditional procurement practices have not
slowed down city governments in their use of electronic procurement or e-procurement.

Table 5
City manager's perception of e-government needs and collaboration
My city government… Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Texas χ2, Employee
agree (%) (%) (%) (%) disagree (%) p values χ2, p values
Has a greater need for 9.0 20.3 52.8 17.9 0 0.33 0.29
e-government compared
with other similar sized
city governments
Has increased the level 13.7 59.9 18.4 7.5 0.5 0.20 0.01
of information sharing
between departments
because of e-government
Has increased the level of 8.0 48.1 34.9 8.5 0.5 0.48 0.03
collaboration between other
levels of government as
a result of e-government
Has made e-government a 11.3 31.6 40.6 14.2 2.4 0.41 0.34
top priority, compared to
other similar governments
586 C.G. Reddick, H.A. Frank / Government Information Quarterly 24 (2007) 576–594

Table 6
City manager's perception of e-government and procurement
In my city government… Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Texas χ2, Employees
agree (%) (%) (%) (%) disagree (%) p values χ2, p values
Traditional government 0.5 38.2 27.4 30.7 3.3 0.10 0.37
procurement practices have
not hampered our ability
to implement purchasing
over the Internet
Increased outsourcing (i.e., 3.3 38.7 50.5 7.5 0 0.09 0.23
“contracting out”) of
government services has
not decreased the security
of our e-government
projects
Purchasing over the Internet 8.0 51.9 29.7 9.4 0.9 0.92 0.66
has broadened our vendor
pool, increased quality,
and reduced costs
Acquiring state-of-art IT is 1.9 31.1 17.5 37.3 12.3 0.09 0.65
not difficult in today's
harsh fiscal climate

Increased outsourcing of e-government projects has not decreased the security of projects
according to many city managers. There is agreement that purchasing over the Internet has
broadened the vendor pool and increased quality. There is a slight disagreement that
e-government has not been more difficult in the harsh fiscal climate that city governments
currently face.
There was disagreement that e-government has reduced the level of staffing for city
governments (Table 7). There was some agreement that e-government has saved
budgetary resources. E-government has been adequately funded according to 43.4% of
city managers surveyed. E-government has resulted in changes from manual processing
to automation, but not many resources and staffing issues have been resolved. Especially
noteworthy in the resources category is that the level of staffing has not been reduced as

Table 7
City manager's perception of e-government and resources
In my city government, Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Texas χ2, Employees
e-government… agree (%) (%) (%) (%) disagree (%) p values χ2, p values
Has reduced the level of staffing. 0 7.5 29.2 56.1 7.1 0.83 0.11
Has saved budgetary resources. 2.4 42.5 25.5 25.9 3.8 0.81 0.18
Has been adequately funded. 0.9 43.4 23.1 25.5 7.1 0.00 0.32
Has resulted in manual 5.7 50.0 19.8 21.2 3.3 0.23 0.13
processes being eliminated.
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a result of e-government. The results in this study essentially demonstrate that

e-government does not save resources through staff reductions. There was a statistically
significant difference (p < 0.01) that e-government has been adequately funded in Texas
compared to Florida.

7. Discussion and conclusion

How do the findings for the perceived impact of e-government compare to prior ICMA
surveys results? In the 2000 and 2002 ICMA surveys, the top three greatest changes as a
result of e-government were increased demands on staff, changing the role of staff, and
business process are being reengineered. In addition, the top three barriers to e-government
adoption were lack of technology or Web staff, lack of financial resources, and issues
regarding security (Norris & Moon, 2005). In terms of how this survey compares, there is
evidence that e-government did change the role of staff since it enabled cities to achieve
more results-oriented government, fostered a greater level of teamwork, and improved
productivity of workers. In barriers to e-government adoption a comparison of the ICMA
data and the survey results presented in this study revealed that issues regarding security and
privacy were very important. However, what the ICMA surveys did not show was the
magnitude of e-government's impact on enhancing stakeholder involvement and its overall
influence on managerial effectiveness.
City managers perceive e-government as a strong communication tool to a number of
constituencies, including citizens, businesses, and other governments. On the other hand,
managers do not express strong conviction in regard to e-government as a labor-saving
device. This is an interesting split, one that warrants further research. It could be that the
relative newness of e-government has not allowed sufficient time for diffusion to any
number of municipal applications. Or it may be that government in general, city
government in particular, is a labor-intensive process that is not easily amenable to
productivity gains via automation (Osborne & Plastrik, 2000; Mikesell, 2003). Regardless
of interpretation, these results suggest that e-government's early utilization is primarily
focused under the broad heading of “stakeholder involvement” and not viewed at this
juncture as labor-saving device.
The findings of this study also imply that e-government is well received by city managers
as having a positive impact on their government. There was general agreement that
e-government had a positive bearing on the ability of city managers to effectively manage,
increase stakeholder involvement, impact needs and collaboration, and address procurement
issues. The most interesting observation that the results showed was a generally positive
attitude towards e-government by city managers. However, the question that should be raised
with this positive perception is: Why has e-government not more rapidly diffused into city
government?
There were only three questions on the perceptions of e-government where there was
a level of disagreement of its impact on city government. There was a general
disagreement that e-government had an impact on reducing staffing, which indicates that
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traditional points of service will not be changed in the short term. In addition, concerns
over spam have become an issue impacting the productivity of employees in city
government. Finally, there was disagreement that purchasing IT was not perceived to be
difficult in the current fiscally restrained environment. The open-ended question on
e-government effectiveness at the end of the survey (see Appendix A) also confirmed
these concerns of the impact of spam and the inability of e-government to reduce
staffing levels. Besides only three cautions expressed by city managers, this research
indicates a generally optimistic attitude of e-government impacting American cities in
Florida and Texas.
How do these results contribute to the literature on e-government adoption? Existing
information systems research shows that positive top management support means greater IT
adoption (Brudney & Selden, 1995; Kraemer & Dedrick, 1997; Garson, 2006). The support
and active commitment of top management in an organization plays a significant role
toward the adoption process of e-government. This factor is also identified as the predictor
of successful adoption of e-government. Active involvement and attention by top
management is almost always at the top of the list in studies in the IT success factors
literature (Poon & Wagner, 2001; Schelin & Garson, 2004). IT projects benefit from a top
level management who appreciate what the project can do and makes the case for the rest of
the organization (Fletcher et al., 1992). The results in this study generally are supportive
that city managers are optimistic about e-government and its impact on their organization,
providing evidence for the management support literature. Therefore, these results imply
that if management support is important for e-government adoption that these cities on
average have very supportive city managers that should lead to greater future adoption of
e-government.
There are some limitations to this study that deserve some comment. First this is a survey
of city managers and their claims may be prone to exaggeration according to existing
survey work (Ho & Ni, 2004; Norris & Moon, 2005). For example, tracking the responses
of local governments that said they intended on offering a Web site in the next few years, it
was often found this did not materialize in subsequent ICMA surveys (Norris & Moon,
2005). Second, even knowing this study conducted a two state comparison; this research
cannot say that these results can be extrapolated to the broader U.S. population. However,
there is no reason to believe that similar results would not be found in other states since
there were few differences found in this two-state comparison. Therefore, future work
should focus on the perception of e-government by CAOs using a national survey sample of
cities.

Appendix A. Survey Questions

Numerical coding are in brackets.

Definition of E-government: Electronic government or e-government, for the purposes of
this study, is the delivery of government information and services through the Internet 24 hours
a day, seven days per week.
 C.G. Reddick, H.A. Frank / Government Information Quarterly 24 (2007) 576–594 589

Part 1: City E-government Web site (Please circle the correct letter corresponding to the
following question).

Parts 2–8: Please circle the number corresponding to your level of agreement or
disagreement with each of the following statements related to e-government and your city
government.
Part 2: E-government and Management

E-government in my city government has… Strongly Agree Neither Agree/ Disagree Strongly
Agree Disagree Disagree
1. Enhanced our ability to implement (2) (1) (0) (−1) (−2)
results-oriented government.
2. Fostered a greater level of team (2) (1) (0) (−1) (−2)
work in employees.
3. Increased the productivity of our employees. (2) (1) (0) (−1) (−2)
4. Increased my ability to manage (2) (1) (0) (−1) (−2)
more effectively.

Part 3: Information Privacy and Security

In my city government… Strongly Agree Agree Neither Agree/ Disagree Strongly

Disagree Disagree
1. Recent concerns over privacy and (2) (1) (0) (−1) (−2)
compromised security of personal
and business information (e.g.,
Social Security numbers, credit card
information) have not hindered
implementation of e-government.
2. Adequate security is in place to (2) (1) (0) (−1) (−2)
protect personal information
of citizens and businesses.
3. “9/11” and its aftermath have (2) (1) (0) (−1) (−2)
spurred enhanced information
sharing between our public safety
agencies and others around the
region and country.
4. Spam, or unsolicited e-mail, has (2) (1) (0) (−1) (−2)
not hindered the productivity of
our employees.
590 C.G. Reddick, H.A. Frank / Government Information Quarterly 24 (2007) 576–594

Part 4: Stakeholders and E-government

E-government in my city government has… Strongly Agree Neither Agree/ Disagree Strongly
Agree Disagree Disagree
1. Received positive support from (2) (1) (0) (− 1) (− 2)
city council.
2. Been given positive feedback from (2) (1) (0) (− 1) (− 2)
our customers or clients.
3. Increased citizen and business (2) (1) (0) (− 1) (− 2)
interaction with senior managers.
4. Provided us with the ability to (2) (1) (0) (− 1) (− 2)
more effectively deal with our
customers and suppliers.

Part 5: Needs and Collaboration and E-government

My city government… Strongly Agree Neither Agree/ Disagree Strongly

Agree Disagree Disagree
1. Has a greater need for e-government (2) (1) (0) (−1) (− 2)
compared with other similar sized city
governments?
2. Has increased the level of information (2) (1) (0) (−1) (− 2)
sharing between departments because of
e-government.
3. Has increased the level of collaboration (2) (1) (0) (−1) (− 2)
between other levels of government as
a result of e-government.
4. Has made e-government a top priority, (2) (1) (0) (−1) (− 2)
compared to other similar governments.

Part 6: E-government and Procurement

In my city government… Strongly Agree Neither Agree/ Disagree Strongly

Agree Disagree Disagree
1. Traditional government procurement practices (2) (1) (0) (−1) (− 2)
have not hampered our ability to implement
purchasing over the Internet.
2. Increased outsourcing (i.e., “contracting out”) (2) (1) (0) (−1) (− 2)
of government services has not decreased
the security of our e-government
projects.
3. Purchasing over the Internet has broadened (2) (1) (0) (−1) (− 2)
our vendor pool, increased quality,
and reduced costs.
4. Acquiring state-of-art IT is not difficult given (2) (1) (0) (−1) (− 2)
today's harsh fiscal climate.
 C.G. Reddick, H.A. Frank / Government Information Quarterly 24 (2007) 576–594 591

Part 7: E-government and Resources

In my city government, e-government… Strongly Agree Neither Agree/ Disagree Strongly

Agree Disagree Disagree
1. Has reduced the level of staffing. (2) (1) (0) (−1) (−2)
2. Has saved budgetary resources. (2) (1) (0) (−1) (−2)
3. Has not been adequately funded. (2) (1) (0) (−1) (−2)
4. Has resulted in manual processes (2) (1) (0) (−1) (−2)
being eliminated.

Part 8: Secure Online Payment for Services

Part 9: Respondent and City Government Information. Please circle the letter
corresponding to the appropriate response for each question about you and your city
government.

1. Approximately how many full-time equivalent (FTE) employees are employed in your city
government? (Please circle one.)
a. 99 or less (1)
b. 100 to 499 (2)
c. 500 to 999 (3)
d. 1000 to 4,999 (4)
e. 5000 or more (5)
2. Does your city have a chief information officer (CIO) or other senior manager who oversees
IT strategic planning, purchasing, and administration? (Please circle one.)
a. Yes (1)
b. No (0)
3. On a scale from 1 to 5, where would you place yourself in terms of IT sophistication?
(Please circle one.)
Technophobic (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Technosavvy
592 C.G. Reddick, H.A. Frank / Government Information Quarterly 24 (2007) 576–594

4. What is your gender? (Please circle one.)

a. Female (0)
b. Male (1)
5. What is your age range? (Please circle one.)
a. 24 or less (1)
b. 25–34 (2)
c. 35–44 (3)
d. 45–54 (4)
e. 55–64 (5)
f. 65 or over (6)
6. How many years have you worked as a city manager? (Please circle one.)
a. Less than 5 years (1)
b. 5 to 10 years (2)
c. 11 to 15 years (3)
d. 16 to 20 years (4)
e. 21 to 25 years (5)
f. 26 years or more (6)
7. What is your highest level of academic attainment? (Please circle one.)
a. High school diploma (0)
b. 2 year college degree (0)
c. 4 year college degree (0)
d. Master's degree (1)
e. Law degree (1)
f. Medical degree (1)
g. Doctorate degree (1)
8. Please provide any addition comments on e-government and its effectiveness in your city
government.

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594 C.G. Reddick, H.A. Frank / Government Information Quarterly 24 (2007) 576–594

Christopher G. Reddick is an assistant professor of public administration at the University of Texas at San
Antonio. His research and teaching interests are in electronic government and public budgeting and finance.

Howard A. Frank is an associate professor of public administration at Florida International University in Miami.
His research interests are in local government budgeting, finance, productivity, and management.