Digital Service Maturity: Development of an e-Cohesion-Specific Model
Abstract :
This paper presents a new approach to measure the impacts of e-government
concepts on the reduction of administrative burdens, in the domain of European
fund management.
The present European legislation specifies that Member States shall provide
online portal services for beneficiaries to reduce the administrative burdens of
cohesion policy. This concept is marked with the term “e-Cohesion” in the scientific
discourse. Based on former studies, the concept has several attributes that leverage
its impact on burden reduction. Nevertheless, the level of their influence has not
been underpinned by evidence-based research yet.
The present paper has three main aims. First, to present the methodology and
findings of an international research on the capabilities and impacts of e-Cohesion
portals. Second, to evaluate the relevance of the above attributes based on these
findings. Third, to make suggestions for the development of an e-Cohesion specific
maturity model to measure the effectiveness of electronic portals.