Accenture's fifth annual global e-government study

Appendix—research methodologies
Overall maturity
By combining service maturity and customer relationship
management, we were able to allocate a
ranking to each country within the 22 countries
sampled (overall maturity). We allocated a 70 percent
weighting to service maturity and a 30 percent
weighting to customer relationship management to
reflect our focus on the evolution of electronic service
delivery within the overall approach to managing
interactions with citizens and businesses.
Regular Internet users
(percent of population)
For each country, percentages were calculated using
the total number of Internet users per country and
the total population of the country. Internet users
are defined as individuals who consistently use the
Internet with access from work, school, home or
multiple locations. Computer Economics, Internet
Users Worldwide 2003 (November 2003) provided all
statistics relating to the number of Internet users.
Data is compiled from a variety of sources, including
governmental and Internet agencies, market-research
organizations and Computer Economics’ own surveys
and proprietary methodology. CIA Factbook (July 2003)
supplied all statistics relating to population figures.
Citizen research
In addition to the base research described above, we
also conducted quantitative research on citizens’
perceptions and practices related to eGovernment in
12 countries. This citizen survey is a new addition to
our annual eGovernment Leadership report.
The citizen survey was conducted by an independent
market research company, Lansdowne Market
Research (part of the Millward Brown Group), from
January 5 through January 23, 2004. The 12 countries
sampled were Australia, Belgium, Canada,
France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Singapore, Spain,
Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Four hundred regular Internet users were surveyed
in each country (with the exception of the United
States, where 600 regular Internet users were
surveyed). 6 Regular Internet users were defined as
individuals who used the Internet at least once a
week from any location.
Polls were conducted via telephone, using randomdigit
dialing. Poll respondents in each country
included Internet users only; the survey results do
not represent a sample of the entire population of
Internet users and nonusers alike. Once participants
were identified as Internet users, they were then
asked a series of 11 questions about their attitudes
toward their countries’ eGovernment programs,
their use of eGovernment and their interests in
particular services.
Qualitative background
research
We supplemented all of our research—for the overall
findings as well as for the individual country
reports—with information about the eGovernment
environment in each of the 22 countries surveyed.
Information obtained included the history, content
and ownership of each country’s eGovernment
program, any recent political and legal developments
around eGovernment in that country, and
details on the processes being used to implement it.
This is the third year we have gathered information
about the eGovernment environment in each of the
countries surveyed. We have revisited the areas
examined last year to measure any changes in policy
or practice, as well as analyzed a number of additional
areas reflecting a change in the eGovernment
environment over the last 12 months. We have
drawn on this background information throughout
the research report.
6
Quotas were set to match the known profile of regular users in each country.
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