The curse of the benchmark

An assessment of the validity and value of e-government comparisons

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9961986
AutoresFrank Bannister (0000-0003-3673-0374, Department of Statistics in Trinity College, Dublin, autor de correspondencia)
Año2007
Volumen73
Número2
Páginas171-188
Fecha de publicación2007-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Review of Administrative Sciences (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0020-8523 • E-ISSN: 1461-7226
EditorialSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0020852307077959
OpenAlexW1973911210
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas49
Referencias citadas3

Benchmarking of e-government and the information society is a booming business. This phenomenon raises several interesting questions. Why does this particular part of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) world receive so much of this type of attention? Why are there so many benchmarks? What do they purport to measure? Who reads these and how much credence is given to them? Do they play a valuable role in advancing e-government and e-society or is their impact actually negative? This article looks at these and a number of related questions including the degree of consistency between different benchmarks, trends over time and the importance or otherwise that governments place on these reports. From this, some tentative theories about the role of benchmarking, the pressures that benchmarks place on public managers and their significance are proposed and some limitations of benchmarks are identified and discussed

Benchmark (surveying · Benchmarking · Business · Consistency (knowledge bases · Credence · Curse · E-Government · Economics · Epistemology · Government (linguistics · Information and Communications Technology · Phenomenon · Political science · Positive economics · Public relations · Sociology · Value (mathematics · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · E-Government and Public Services · Law · Marketing · Public Policy and Administration Research