On line service provision: are Municipalities really innovative? The case of Municipalities in Italy

The employment of information and communication technologies for the delivery of information and services has been considered a major objective of the modernization agenda of municipalities. This article contributes to the advances in the e-government literature by assessing the current status of ICT adoption among larger Italian municipalities and investigating whether the municipalities at a more mature stage of e-government adoption share any distinctive characteristics. The results show that some organizational factors, rather than environmental ones, show a positive association. However, the analysis also shows that most of the Italian municipalities involved have undertaken a non-linear e-government adoption process, which currently results in low diffusion of more mature stages of ICT adoption for the delivery of services to citizens and businesses.