technology and in local governments using it.” He added however, that the effort at the
local level was largely ad hoc noting that, “What was lacking. . . was any clear decision
on the part of governments of what to do or what direction to take.” Hagen and Kubicek
(2000) and their colleagues also find that as cities and counties participated in regional
and European Union (EU) programs, these local governments began to see the value of
web-based technology as a means of information dissemination and self-promotion.
Business consulting firms helped spur interest among local governments by sponsoring
local government workshops on information technology (Klumpp and Schwemmle,
2000). By 2000 nearly all counties and cities had some type of web presence (“E-
government meets E-business,” 2001). But what passed for e-government in most cases
was little more than electronic brochures. One study found that while there was a great
deal of interest and pressure to use the internet, in the end the results were often little
more than “electronic leaflets” (Klumpp, 2002, 19).
Two factors shape the early stages of e-government development in cities and
counties. First, once websites were up, many local governments found they lacked the
capacity to keep them updated with relevant information. Financial resources were
lacking to keep information technologies current. And, the IT skill level of public sector
staff varied considerably across city and county government. At the height of the tech
boom, it was also difficult to keep the IT support staff from taking higher paying jobs in
the private sector. A further problem was the local governments relied on e-business
models (encouraged by business consulting firms) for their e-government applications.
What works for firms concerned about competition, turned out to be less successful with
governments. Researcher found that the e-business-based applications helped to foster
the creation of isolated websites often offering the same information and impeding
9
E-government in Germany 9
Convention