Achieving Employees’ Agile Response in E-Governance: Exploring the Synergy of Technology and Group Collaboration

Abstract

The transformation of technology and collaboration methods driven by the e-government system forces government employees to reconsider their daily workflow and collaboration with colleagues. Despite the extensive existing knowledge of technology usage and collaboration, there are limitations in explaining the synergy between technology usage and group collaboration in achieving agile response from the perspective of government employees, particularly in the e-government setting. To address these challenges, this study provides a holistic understanding of the successful pathway to agile response in e-governance from the perspective of government employees. This study explores a dual path to achieve agile response in e-governance through qualitative analysis, involving 34 in-depth semi-structured interviews with government employees in several government sectors in China. By employing three rounds of coding processes and adopting Interpretative Structural Modeling (ISM), this study identifies the five-layer mechanisms leading to agile response in e-governance, considering both government employee technology usage and group collaboration perspectives. Findings of this study provides suggestions and implications for achieving agile response in e-governance.