Impact of catastrophic events on e-government services: Covid-19 pandemic as a lesson for preparedness in future catastrophic events

The purpose of this project is to improve the understanding of how catastrophic events, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, impact the availability of e-government (electronic government) services and/or the participation or non-participation of citizens in these services. In other words, this project endeavors to determine whether or not a catastrophic event like the Covid-19 pandemic will affect the government services offered and/or change citizen preferences to use these public services provided over the Internet, or rather make personal visits to public agencies or use traditional mail to conclude their business. The specific goal of this project is to develop a model to better understand the impact of wide-ranging catastrophic events on the supply for and demand of e-government services and to provide a framework and guidelines for public decision makers for managing and responding to such events so as to help maintain and perhaps improve the e-government services that are most needed and demanded by the affected populace. The primary outcomes of this project include a framework that explains how specific factors resulting from catastrophic events impact the need for, the delivery of, and the citizen acceptance of e-government services. Primary outcomes also include specific guidelines to public decision makers for managing e-government services during and in the aftermath of catastrophic events to help maintain and improve the services most needed and demanded. Primary outcomes furthermore include a high-level theoretical model explaining the impact of catastrophic events on e-government services, which may serve as guidance for future research. These outcomes will be published in academic papers in high-quality international journals. Preliminary results will be presented at international conferences. It is expected that at least four academic papers will be published in high-quality international journals. Thus, this project will expand the repository of knowledge and provide foundation and inspiration for future research projects.