KNOWLEDGE MAPPING OF E-GOVERNMENT EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES IN ARAB REGION: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

In the Arab context, the adoption of e-government applications and services is increasingly receiving high attention. Many Arab countries are among the best in the world in the implementation and utilization of emerging technologies in different governmental bodies. In this review, a systematic literature review of e-government in the Arab region is conducted.  

First, a metadata analysis of 660 articles from two databases, namely Scopus and Web of Science, using PRISMA is conducted to identify the current state of e-government in the region. Second, a bibliometric analysis of 52 documents using VOSviewer is conducted, determining the clusters, occurrences and relevance score. Third, a thematic analysis through Wordstat is used to identify the themes, word cloud and distribution of keywords. Fourth and last, a content analysis is carried out to summarize the potential development areas and challenges related to e-government in the Arab region.

The results indicate that Gulf countries, including the UAE, KSA, Qatar, and Oman, are at the top of the list in implementing e-government services and applications, while other countries face many difficulties and challenges.

This review offers insights for future work regarding e-government in the Arab region and globally.