e-Government Capacity Building in Bangladesh: An Action Design Research Program

e-Government systems have the potential to improve societal conditions in developing countries, and yet design knowledge to inform interventions to encourage uptake and use of these systems is sparse. An action design research program addressed the problem of limited adoption of e-government in Bangladesh. Inadequate knowledge of the nature of e-government systems was identified as an underlying cause of many other problems. The program aimed to reduce knowledge deficiencies among key decision makers through activities that included the delivery of a custom-made training program supported by a handbook targeted at senior government officers. The project had modest resources and yet yielded significant outcomes. Critical reflection established a number of design principles for a ‘sweet spot change strategy’ for interventions of this type, with the most important principle being to first identify a ‘sweet spot’, a point of maximum leverage, and then to act on it. Issues in achieving academic outcomes from action design research are noted.