Government IT Performance and the Power of the IT Industry: A Cross-National Analysis.

How national governments interface with the IT industry can have an important influence upon the delivery of government IT projects, which in most advanced industrial countries will account for at least 1 per cent of GDP. Looking across seven countries (the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands and Japan) we characterize the power of the IT industry in terms of three variables: patterns of contractual relations, the largest firms? market and technical dominance, and the extent to which government retains IT expertise or ?intelligent customer? capabilities. We assess the performance of government IT in terms of three factors: the extent of catastrophic project failures or cancellations, indications of the price competitiveness of government IT contracts, and the relative modernization of government IT compared with the private sector nationally. Using a ?fuzzy-set social science? approach we argue that an overall index of corporate power viz a viz central governments shows a clear negative association with government IT performance. Where governments are weakly placed in relation to powerful IT corporations, long-run performance outcomes are less satisfactory. Our cases also illuminate the different ways in which governments can ensure and maintain more balanced relationships with the IT industry, which in turn will foster better long-run results in the design and operations of government IT systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]