Empirical Study of Sustaining the Actualized Value Propositions of Implemented E-Government Projects in Sub-Saharan Africa

TL;DR

This paper presents a systematic review and realist evaluation of e-Government projects in Sub-Saharan Africa, developing a framework to understand and sustain the actualized value propositions in these initiatives.

Contribution

It introduces a novel sustainability framework based on theories of affordance actualization, realist evaluation, and self-determination, specifically applied to e-Government projects in Rwanda.

Findings

Identified key value propositions of e-Government projects.

Developed a framework for sustaining actualized values.

Validated the framework through case studies in Rwanda.

Abstract

Governments in sub-Saharan Africa have implemented e-Government projects. Actualizing the value propositions and sustaining such values are becoming problematic. Some scanty studies on the value propositions of implemented e-Government projects did not consider actualization of the values. Besides, such studies lack theoretical underpinnings, the identification, and measure of what constitutes actualized values. Neither did they capture what mechanisms could sustain the actualized values nor the contextual conditions enabling its sustainability. Consequently, using a concept-centric systematic review, we identified the value proposition of such implemented projects. By drawing from theories of affordance actualization, realist evaluation (RE) theory, self-determination theory, and sustainability framework for e-Government success. We conducted a RE of the implemented e-Government projects in Rwanda using RE as a methodology in three phases. In phase one, we developed the initial program theory (IPT), in phase two, we used contingent valuation as a quantitative approach and realist interview as qualitative method to validate the IPT. Lastly, in the third phase, we synthesized the results of the two investigative case studies to develop the actualized values sustainability framework. Such framework encapsulates, the actualized value propositions, mechanisms and enabling conditions in interactions to sustain the value propositions discovered in the e-Government investigative contexts.