E-government strategy in Turkey: a case for m-government?

Market orientation strategies are now expected to be integrated and enacted by firms and government alike. While private services will surely continue to take the lead in mobile strategy orientation, others such as government and NGOs are also becoming prominent m-players. Enhanced data services through smart phones are raising expectations that governments will finally deliver services that are in line with a consumer ICT lifestyle. To date, it is not certain which form of technological standards will take the lead, e.g. enhanced m-services or traditional Internet-based applications. Yet, with the introduction of interactive applications and fully transactional services via 3G smart phones, the currently untapped segment of the population (without computers) have the potential to gain access to government services at a low cost. E-government started officially in 2008. Our research in Turkey reflects the current market situation in an emerging country and presents an update on the resistance points encountered while engaging with mobile and traditional e-government interfaces. Findings demonstrate that: (i) ICT expectations need to be defined in practice; (ii) ICT strategies are currently non-homogenous, and are sometimes conflicting; (iii) actions and services deployed to date have yet to justify their value to many skeptical citizens while face-to-face services remain more dependable, and (iv) the policy implication of ubiquitous computing and location-aware services has yet to be debated. Finally, beyond m-government initiatives’ success or failure, the mechanisms related to public administration mobile technical capacity building and knowledge transfer are found to remain crucial. We contend that more research is needed to understand the current resistance and expectations regarding location-aware technologies that will unlock an intention to use m-government services and the overall success rate for large government led digital ICT projects.