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The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications of e-government for horizontal/social accountability (to citizens) by looking into its shifting location. Its main purpose is to show how the introduction of information and communication technology in the public sector changes how public sector work is organised, shifting the traditional sources of accountability and to discuss the implications of those changes.

The study comes from desk-based research that brings together the literature on electronic government and accountability studies and situates them in the context of a bureaucratic public sector.

It shows that e-government entails digitalization of public sector work by restructuring work, re-organising public information and knowledge and re-orientating officials-citizens relation. It argues that in the e-government era accountability is inscribed in the technology and its embodied standards; is a horizontal technological relation that renders officials accountable to the handling of digital interfaces; and renders citizens co- producers of digital information responsible for bringing the public to account. The paper shows that these changes do not necessarily bring better or worse accountability results but change the sources of accountability bringing shifts in its locations, thereby rendering it more precarious. The paper ends by discussing the implications of digital accountability for good public administration.

With the unprecedented level of attention currently being paid to “digital government” at the moment, this is a timely paper that seeks to address the accountability implications of these shifts. The study offers a practice-based, relational definition of accountability and a Weberian account of bureaucratic government, followed by an exploration of ways in which this is being challenged or replaced with a new informatisation enabled/supported by new “technologies of accountability”.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between performance monitoring technology and accountability in electronic government initiatives. Specifically, it aims to investigate how performance monitoring technologies are deployed in electronic government and the consequences that may arise from their implementation on public service accountability.

The paper draws upon an in‐depth empirical study of several Greek Citizens Service Centres (CSCs). CSCs are a central component of Greece's e‐government strategy. Qualitative methods are deployed during fieldwork and data are analysed in line with the social constructionist paradigm.

Contrary to the mainstream e‐government literature, the paper argues that the introduction of performance monitoring technology does not always ensure accountability in the public sector. Overall, it suggests that performance technology may not necessarily lead to a form of accountability that always has the interests of the public at its heart. Instead it argues that it may lead to a narrowing down of accountability and the emergence of an instrumental rationality.

The paper argues that the critical literature on management accounting provides important insights in understanding the consequences of performance monitoring in e‐government projects and conceptualising the relationship between performance and accountability.