International Journal of Pedagogics
181
https://theusajournals.com/index.php/ijp
VOLUME
Vol.05 Issue02 2025
PAGE NO.
181-184
10.37547/ijp/Volume05Issue02-49
Convenience and efficiency of using government services
remotely
Abdullayeva Dilobar Utkirovna
An independent researcher at the Tashkent State Pedagogical University named after Nizami Uzbek State University of World Languages,
office registrar manager, Uzbekistan
Received:
24 December 2024;
Accepted:
26 January 2025;
Published:
28 February 2025
Abstract:
Government online services are often considered a core component of e-government, generating
significant interest not only among practitioners and scholars but also among policymakers because of their crucial
role in enhancing a country's governance capacity. This study, which is based on the United Nations E-Government
Survey's Online Service Index, the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators, and the Global Innovation
Index, investigates how e-government online services' technology, institutional frameworks, content provision, e-
participation, and service provision, as well as innovation, enhance the national governance capacity and offer
governance support. The study confirms the critical role of the aforementioned factors in boosting governance
capacity and offers three mutually nonexclusive solution types that enhance governance support. These solutions
support governance by improving the closeness of interactions between the government and the public, the
potential for public participation in governance, and the government's own influence. Additionally, the study
reveals that innovation can enhance the impact of e-government online services on national governance capacity,
thereby providing a more comprehensive perspective on how e-government online services influence national
governance.
This study advances our understanding of how e-government enhances a nation's governance capability and
offers supplementary insights into the fields of interdisciplinary innovation research and mixed-methods research.
Keywords:
E-government Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) Necessary condition analysis (NCA) Principal
component analysis (PCA).
Introduction:
Online service-based e-government is a
relatively new concept that provides value to citizens
through streamlined governance processes online. This
concept has sparked widespread interest among not
only practitioners and scholars but also policymakers. It
is crucial for enhancing a nation's government's
governance capacity. Globally, many governments
have taken strong measures to implement online
platforms to improve governance transparency and
flexibility. Some studies emphasize the benefits of
doing so, as it not only reduces government costs but
also stimulates innovation through stakeholder
participation. In particular, as public services transition
from offline to online, e-government online service
platforms can enrich public service delivery and serve
as a new bridge connecting the government and
citizens, ultimately leading to better governance.
E-government is defined as "government agencies
using the internet to provide public sector information
and online services via the internet". Although the
positive role of e-government in governance
improvement has been confirmed in many studies, the
results are not clear regarding how e-government
online services, as a vital practice within e-government,
contribute to governance enhancement.
This study makes significant contributions from several
perspectives. First, from a research perspective, this
study explores the impact of e-government online
services on a country's governance capacity. While
many studies have investigated the impact of e-
government on governance capacity, this research
differs in that it focuses on crucial online service
practices within e-government. Unlike most studies
that concentrate on linear relationships within a single
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International Journal of Pedagogics (ISSN: 2771-2281)
domain, this research incorporates innovative
dimensions to understand how countries integrate
innovation into their online services and, in turn,
enhance their governance capacity.
Another example is the tangible benefits derived from
service innovations provided by national governments
through e-government. A case study from Indonesia
demonstrated that public service innovations
organized by the national government can establish
online relationships among various elements within a
country, thereby significantly enhancing the efficiency
and speed of public services.
In summary, the purpose of this study is to answer two
key questions. First, how do online services enhance
government governance capacity and provide better
support? Second, what role does innovation play as a
core concept within this context? Therefore, this study
designs a multidimensional and multilevel theoretical
framework that first discusses the impact of online
services on national governance capacity from
dimensions such as the technology level, institutional
framework, content provision, service provision, and e-
participation mechanisms. It then discusses the impact
of innovation on national governance capacity and
various aspects of online services to clarify the key
mechanisms through which innovation operates.
Moreover, the application of innovative technology has
profound implications for government governance
capacity. First, the integration of information and
communication technology into bureaucratic and
political systems is often seen as having a positive
impact, enhancing citizens' political influence, and
promoting the emergence of "creative citizens".
Second, by improving the data collection and analysis
processes,
innovative
technology
can
help
governments identify problems more accurately,
formulate policies, and monitor social trends.
While the United Nations E-Government Survey is a
valuable resource, it has certain limitations. The survey
heavily relies on the coverage of different types of
services when assessing a country's e-government
online service capacity, which might limit the data
performance of high-level countries in the evaluation
indicators. Considering a country's capacity as weak in
a particular area simply because it has fewer projects in
that area is a one-sided approach. This means that even
if a country excels in other aspects, its scores in the
United Nations E-Government Survey may be restricted
if the scope of its online services is narrow.
Therefore, this study needs to introduce new
dimensions to better reflect the true levels of various
countries and how online services genuinely impact
national governance capacity.
However, during the construction of the dataset,
several issues are encountered. In the UN E-
government Survey, each assessed country is assigned
scores on the basis of the various target functions or
services it provides through its official online e-
government service channels. A score of 1 is awarded
for each service or function that can be easily accessed
and available through the official online e-government
service channel. If a target function is missing or
inaccessible during the assessment, a score of 0 is
given. By answering 180 questions nested under five
major categories, a relatively objective and
comprehensive evaluation system for online service
capacity is constructed.
However, the data obtained through this method may
present some issues. First, the evaluation criteria are
overly simplified, and an overemphasis on breadth in
data performance can result in a lack of depth in
reflecting capacity. Second, data lack variability
between items. For example, in the case of the content
provision level, there are only 10 standard services,
resulting in a data precision of only 0.1 (with a
minimum of 0.3 and a maximum of 1). This does not
adequately represent the differences in performance
across different countries in this category.
The PCA method allows for the integration of
multidimensional data without the need to set explicit
weights, unlike weighted calculation methods.
However, PCA can be seen as a black-box approach that
forms complex linear combinations of original data
variables, making not only the operations and
outcomes during the data transformation process less
intuitively understandable but also the interpretation
of its results more complex.
To visually demonstrate the differences in outcomes
between the PCA method and traditional weighted
calculation methods, as well as to validate the reliability
of the PCA method in this research context, a
comparative experiment is designed. This experiment
involves contrasting the OSI data calculated through
the weighted method of the United Nations (OSIUN)
with the OSI data processed via PCA (OSI_PCA) in this
study.
Additionally, the consistency levels for the institutional
framework, service provision, e-participation index,
and technology level variables are all above 0.8,
indicating that these four variables provide reliable
explanations for high governance capacity. The
consistency and coverage levels for content provision
are also substantial, indicating its specific explanatory
power for the outcomes.
Recent methodological studies on QCA have suggested
obtaining explanatory explanations from parsimonious
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International Journal of Pedagogics (ISSN: 2771-2281)
solutions rather than intermediate. This is because
parsimonious solutions are closer to minimal or
nonredundant sufficient conditions, and redundant
conditions do not make a difference. However, nested
comparisons of parsimonious and intermediate
solutions remain the mainstream method in current
QCA usage, as they can provide richer research
conclusions. Therefore, this study bases its core
conditions on the solutions provided by parsimonious
solutions, which are summarized from the four paths of
intermediate solutions, to form two types of solutions
for achieving high governance levels: government-
public interaction-oriented (configurations S1 and S3)
and government-supply-oriented (configurations S2
and S4).
With the inclusion of the innovation factor, the
characteristics of the formed path configurations
become more pronounced, and innovation serves as a
key condition in all paths, indicating that innovation can
provide richer information for configurations seeking
high government governance capacity, supporting
propositions P6 and P7.
However, the research results also indicate that many
samples apply to both of these solution types, such as
the United States, China, the United Kingdom, France,
and other countries. These countries perform well in all
indicators, serving as examples of both strong
government‒public
interaction
and
proactive
government service provision. Therefore, further
experimentation
is
needed,
combining
more
information for confirmation.
The evaluation indicators that incorporate innovation
information can more comprehensively assess the
performance levels of different countries' governments
in various areas and better reflect the profound impact
of online government services on a country's
governance levels. Configuration S10 shows that a
country's high governance capacity level is the result of
a multidimensional, collaborative effort. Progress is
required in various aspects, such as the institutional
framework, content provision, service provision, e-
participation, and technology, to drive innovation and
more comprehensively evaluate and improve the
quality and depth of online services to meet evolving
governance needs, thereby supporting propositions
P1-P5. Comparisons with configurations S1
–
S4 and S5
–
S9 reveal that only in the QCA analysis, which
incorporates overlaid innovation information, do all
online service factors emerge as key factors in the
configurations, thereby supporting Proposition P7. This
finding is consistent with the results of the NCA.
Configuration S10, as the only configuration explaining
77.7 % of the cases, indicates that this path is applicable
to the majority of countries and serves as a universal
configuration.
Innovation systems must help understand core
microlevel behaviors and the "wider environment"
within which they operate. This means that various
influencing factors at different levels, including
technology,
institutional
frameworks,
content
provision, e-participation, and service provision, are
subject to and dependent on the existence of an
innovation system.
In this study, the frequency and consistency thresholds
are set to 1 and 0.8, respectively. The robustness of the
results is verified repeatedly within the range of 1 to 2
for frequency thresholds and 0.5 to 0.8 for consistency
thresholds. The results remain consistent within this
range, indicating that the research findings are robust.
In terms of theoretical contributions, this study collects
theoretical foundations that underlie the significant
influence of different factors of e-government online
services on governance capacity, which is often
overlooked in the dimension of e-government
research. Moreover, this study identifies three solution
types for achieving high-level governance capacity,
each of which demonstrates how governments can use
e-government online services to establish a more
stable and positive foundation for relations with
citizens, deliver superior proactive services, and
achieve comprehensive development by incorporating
innovation. These aspects collectively contribute to
enhanced support for governance.
Furthermore, the comparative results of this study
indicate that online governance service capacity
indicators that incorporate innovation information
demonstrate a stronger explanatory relationship with
governance capacity than do those that do not
incorporate innovation information. This finding shows
that innovation can enhance the impact of e-
government online services on national governance
capacity and that incorporating considerations of
innovation capacity can more effectively enhance the
national government's understanding of the true state
of e-government service components.
Based on the above discussion, it can be concluded that
online government services quality isthe most direct
factor on public satisfaction of e-government. Offline
government servicequality via its impact on perception
of online services quality, thus indirectly has an impact
onpublic satisfaction. Therefore, the government
should focus on improving the e-governmentonline
service quality in order to improve the public service
satisfaction of e-governmentservices; but this does not
mean that the government can ignore the quality of the
traditionalgovernment services. Good offline services
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International Journal of Pedagogics (ISSN: 2771-2281)
still have a strong influence on improving
publicperception of online service quality.
First, owing to the challenges in data collection, this
study uses an e-government evaluation system
developed by the United Nations. Different evaluation
systems
may
provide
different
perspectives.
Additionally, measuring a country's innovation level via
the Global Innovation Index (GII) from the World
Intellectual
Property
Organization
may
not
comprehensively and objectively measure a country's
innovation capabilities, particularly as reflected in e-
government online services.
Finally, from a practical perspective, this research
utilizes PCA for data processing and combines the NCA
and QCA methods to analyze the interdependent group
effects and explanatory asymmetry of governance
capacity affected by e-government. This approach
provides case-based support for the use of the QCA
method and its ability to break the assumption of
uniform symmetric explanatory effects in linear
regression.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of a comprehensive theoretical
framework, this study initially theoretically proves that
government online services can enhance governance
capacity. This finding demonstrates that five evaluation
dimensions within e-government online services play
crucial roles in improving governance capacity.
Through a combination of NCA and QCA, the study
reveals three types of mutually nonexclusive
configurations for high levels of governance capacity,
illustrating how these five evaluation dimensions
interact to influence and enhance governance capacity.
In
summary,
this
research
contributes
to
interdisciplinary innovation research and the field of
mixed-methods research.
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