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Understanding Inconsistent Corruption Control through E-government Participation: Updated Evidence from a Cross-Country Investigation

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Abstract

Based on data from 133 countries, this paper unveils and empirically proves a nonlinear relationship between e-participation and corruption control and further examines the moderating roles of voice and accountability and ICT infrastructure. The empirical analysis suggests that (1) e-participation has a curvilinear (U-shaped) relationship with corruption control; (2) voice and accountability negatively moderate the relationship between e-participation and corruption control; (3) ICT infrastructure positively moderates the relationship between e-participation and corruption control. Our findings identify the relationships among e-participation, voice and accountability, ICT infrastructure, and corruption control, and provide implications for combating corruption in implementing e-participation initiatives for e-government.

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Notes

  1. According to United Nations (2014, 2016), the Telecommunication Infrastructure Index has remained largely unchanged since 2010, except for the replacement of personal computer (PC) users with fixed Internet subscriptions in 2012; and the replacement of fixed Internet subscriptions with wireless broadband subscriptions in 2014 and 2016.

  2. The Survey in 2014 and 2016 introduced two new components to the human capital index, namely: expected years of schooling and mean years of schooling. That is, the Human Capital Index consists of four components, namely: (1) adult literacy rate; (2) the combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio; (3) expected years of schooling; and (4) average years of schooling.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the anonymous reviewers and Associate Editor for their insightful and constructive comments on earlier versions. This study was supported financially by the National Social Science Foundation of China (NSSF, 13CGL145).

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  1. School of Economics and Finance, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

    Lihua Wang

  2. Anderson School of Management, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA

    Xin(Robert) Luo & M. Peter Jurkat

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Wang, L., Luo, X. & Jurkat, M.P. Understanding Inconsistent Corruption Control through E-government Participation: Updated Evidence from a Cross-Country Investigation. Electron Commer Res 22, 979–1006 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-020-09444-x

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