Does e-government reduce the administrative burden of businesses?An assessment of business-to-government systems usage inthe NetherlandsRex Arendsen?, Oscar Peters, Marc ter Hedde, Jan van DijkUniversity of Twente, Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlandsa b s t r a c ta r t i c l ei n f oAvailable online 2 January 2014Keywords:Business-to-government information systemsInformation obligationsAdministrative burden reductionEffectiveness of e-government policyMeasurement instrumentsThe reduction of the administrative burden on businesses is an important governmental policy objective. Elec-tronic government is presented as a promising reduction strategy in many countries. Underlying assumptionsand mechanisms are hardly ever made explicit and scientific evidence of successful implementations is scarce.This paper presents an assessment of business-to-government systems in use in the Netherlands. Results showthatorganizationalcharacteristicsarethemostinfluencingfactorsofperceivedburdenreductionandimplemen-tationeffectiveness.Whereasperceivedorganizationalbenefitspositivelyrelatetotheoverallconfirmationoftheformer system adoption decision. Surprisingly the quantitative, usage related characteristics do not present anystatisticalrelevance.Thesefindingshelpusunderstandexistingdifferencesinappreciationbetweenbusinessandgovernmental representatives on the successfulness of e-government projects in reducing the administrativeburden on businesses. Furthermore, research results can help to enhance the effectiveness of e-government pol-icy and measurement instruments.© 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.1. IntroductionEmpirical research within the domain of e-government for busi-nesses is scarce (van den Boer, Pieterson, & Arendsen, 2011). Thispaper examines the realization and evaluation of expected business ef-fects of e-government systems, in particular with respect to the impacton the administrative burden on businesses. First exploratory researchandtheorydevelopmentinthisfieldfocusedonissuessuchastheadop-tion of business-to-government e-services (Arendsen, van Engers, &Schurink, 2008), reduction policy diffusion mechanisms (Wegrich,2009) and values of IT-innovations (Raus, Liu, & Kipp, 2010).Based on a theoretical analysis of expectations and assumptions, theempiricalresearchpresented inthispaperhas beenconductedamongstbusiness-to-government systems in use. Thus adding empirical evi-dence to the discussion on the role of e-government with respect tothe reduction of administrative burdens on businesses.Informationobligationsimposeamajoradministrativeburdenonallbusinesses. Companies devote considerable resources to administra-tion, regular tax declarations, managing the social security status oftheir employees, or applying for permits to carry out their business.These compliance costs hamper economical growth in general andburden smaller companies in particular (Nijsen, 2003; Ntaliani,Costopoulou, & Sideridis, 2012).The total administrative burden on businesses within the EuropeanUnion has been estimated at approximately 600 billion euros per year,varying from 1.5% of GDP in the UK and Sweden to 6.8% of GDP inHungary,GreeceandtheBalticStates(Undheim,2007).Othersestimateless variation of administrative burdens between the EU countries of2.4% of GDP in the UK, Sweden, Finland and Denmark to 4.4% of GDPin Hungary, Greece, Poland and Slovenia in 2003 (Gelauff & Lejour,2006).The reduction of the administrative burden on businesses has be-come an important policy theme. Main drivers behind ‘Better Regula-tion Programs’ are the assumptions that a stronger focus on thereduction of theadministrative burden on businesses will lead to betterpolicies, better implementation, better compliance and ultimately, bet-ter government (UK Cabinet Office, 2006). Within the context of theLisbonAgenda,theEuropeanCommissionlauncheditsagendaonBetterRegulation. To reinforce this agenda by early 2007 the Commissionadopted the Action Programme for Reducing Administrative Burdensin the European Union. The Action Plan was endorsed by theEuropean Council which underlined the goal of setting a target to re-duce administrative burdens stemming from EU law by 25% by 2012.This reduction could lead to an increase of 1.4% of EU GDP (EuropeanCommission, 2007).One of the goals of the U.S. E-Government Act was to realize costsavings through a variety of efficiency enhancements associated withGovernment Information Quarterly 31 (2014) 160–169? Corresponding author. Fax: +31 53 489 4259.E-mail addresses: rex.arendsen@gmail.com (R. Arendsen), o.peters@utwente.nl(O. Peters), m.j.TerHedde@utwente.nl (M. ter Hedde), j.a.g.m.VanDijk@utwente.nl(J. van Dijk).0740-624X/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2013.09.002Contents lists available at ScienceDirectGovernment Information Quarterlyjournal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/govinf
