Certain cultural values are crucial to the enhancement of e-government readiness, and e-government policies should be tailored to a nation's specific cultural profile, finds a Government Information Quarterly article by Omar E.M. Khalil, a business professor at Kuwait University.

Cultural values and practices related to nine cultural dimensions--power distance, uncertainty avoidance, future orientation, institutional collectivism, in-group collectivism, humane orientation, performance orientation, gender egalitarianism and assertiveness--can act as predictors for things such as economic health, national competitiveness, life expectancy and, according to Kahlil, e-government readiness.

Cultural values and e-government, or a government's use of information technology for constituent services, maturity levels vary significantly across nations, writes Khalil.

According to Khalil's research, there exists a negative correlation between e-government readiness and uncertainty avoidance, future orientation and institutional-collectivism. Uncertainty avoidance is the extent to which individuals in a society rely on social norms, rules and procedures avoid unpredictable situations. Future orientation is defined as the extent to which citizens behave with an eye to the future by delaying gratification, planning and investing in the future. Finally, institutional-collectivism is the degree to which the collective distribution of resources is rewarded and encouraged, writes Khalil.

The author's e-government readiness index shows a significant positive relationship with only one cultural value: gender egalitarianism, or the extent to which a society minimizes gender inequality.

"Therefore, a higher e-government preparedness in a society is associated with lower uncertainty avoidance values, lower future orientation values, lower institutional collectivism values, and higher gender egalitarianism values," writes Khalil.

Many of these findings correlate with one of Khalil's earlier studies on how cultural dimensions correlate with information dissemination, he explains. Much like a society's affinity for e-government, "the results suggest that higher levels of web applications and citizens' skills and knowledge (e.g., human capital) associate with lower levels of uncertainty avoidance values, future orientation values, and institutional collectivism values, and higher gender egalitarianism values," writes Khalil.

The distribution of a nation's nine cultural values can relate to levels of e-government scope and density, writes Kahlil. Nations should take note of the maturity of e-government efforts as they can determine citizens' satisfaction with government overall, he adds. 

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