e-Government Adoption in Ghana: Structural Conditions and Employee Affective Orientation

Globally, technological innovations are driving governments towards e-government adoption. Digitization efforts have met with more resistance and challenges in the Global South context due to high levels of financial, logistical, and technical constraints. The information and communication technology for development literature provides two lenses for examining e-government adoption: structural conditions (e.g., infrastructure, financial resources) and the affective orientations (e.g., attitudes, beliefs, values) of actors towards technology. Connecting these two lenses frames the analysis of a case study on a nascent digital nonprofit registration process in Ghana built by drawing on historical information, country context, observations, and interviews with public bureaucrats representing the central government and 17 local government authorities. The findings identify key structural conditions and affective orientations, including informal bring-your-own-device norms, that have become necessary for leveraging technological capabilities. Insights may be extended to other world regions and contexts that face similar constraints in their pursuit of digital transformations.