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The purpose of this paper is to explore and validate the adoption lifecycle phases and perform the mapping of factors influencing the decision making process for enterprise application integration (EAI) adoption on the adoption lifecycle phases in two local government authorities (LGAs).

A case study based research approach using interviews with the decision makers is utilised to investigate the less acknowledged phenomena like EAI adoption. This approach assists in examining the phenomenon in its natural setting, examining the in‐depth complexities and processes, and providing considerable flexibility during interviews and observations.

According to the empirical findings, the factors influencing EAI adoption and the adoption lifecycle phases are appropriate for studying the research context. The analysis and study of the factors and adoption lifecycle phases is made carefully and specifically to fit and be compatible within the context of LGAs. As a result, it is apparent from the empirical findings that most of the factors influence the decision making process for EAI adoption on each phase of the adoption lifecycle in the case organisations with exception to few factors.

The combination of theoretical discussions, analysis of the literature and empirical research presented in this paper illustrates the start of research on EAI adoption in LGAs. However, the theoretical and empirical data collected are confined to the limited context of two LGAs within the region of England. The structure of LGAs varies in different parts of the UK. In the light of the reflections and the research limitations of this paper it is recommended that further work could usefully be pursed to validate the adoption lifecycle phases and perform the mapping of the factors at each phase of the adoption lifecycle in the context of other types of LGAs, different cities and countries.

From a conceptual and empirical point of view, none of the existing EAI adoption studies investigated the mapping of the factors influencing EAI adoption on the adoption lifecycle phases. In doing so, the authors consider this as a literature void and report that it is important to understand and manage the EAI adoption process in LGAs. The mapping of factors process is substantial as it may enhance the analysis of EAI adoption process in LGAs and further facilitate the decision makers in realising the importance of EAI adoption factors.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of the intermediary in delivering public services from government departments to different stakeholders (business and citizens) and to highlight the challenges that face the development of e‐government services in the context of Madinah City, in Saudi Arabia.

The paper uses a broad literature review to identify significant factors that contribute to e‐government adoption and diffusion success. These factors are then used as a basis for analyzing the findings from a case study that focuses on the concept of intermediaries for e‐government service delivery in Saudi Arabia. To investigate a less‐recognized phenomenon, such as the use of intermediaries in e‐government contexts, the authors adopt a qualitative case study approach to gain further understating. This method allowed examining the phenomenon in its natural settings through employing multiple methods of data collection. Further, it gave the researchers enough room to get a closer look at the reasons behind introducing the intermediary concept in the e‐government context and provided considerable flexibility during interviews and observations.

The results of this paper indicate that digital divide and poor infrastructure to conduct payments (secure transactions) for e‐government services was hindering citizens' adoption of e‐services in Saudi Arabia. Thus, the intermediary concept was facilitating citizens' access to e‐government services and helping to reduce the digital divide in Saudi Arabia. The findings also show that intermediaries helped in increasing the availability of e‐government services. Additionally, this paper finds that trust between the service provider (government) and service requester (citizens and businesses) is an important factor that influences not only e‐government adoption and diffusion, but also the role of electronic intermediary (e‐offices) in facilitating this adoption.

The authors take into account the most salient adoption factors when introducing e‐government systems. Electronic intermediaries may help to enhance the understating and analysis of those adoption factors in government settings and facilitate government departments in realizing the importance of intermediaries' role in e‐government contexts. Furthermore, this paper significantly contributes to the knowledge and practice of e‐government adoption and diffusion and provides sufficient support to decision makers in expediting e‐government adoption and diffusion.

The dilemma of implementing and adopting inter‐organisational systems (IOS) that enable information sharing in an electronic fashion has been regarded as an inevitable issue for the public sector. The majority of previous studies have mainly focused on Central or Federal level organisations, and more importantly applied so‐called old fashion theoretical lenses, hence failed to capture the extensive picture of information sharing in an inter‐organisational and inter‐departmental settings. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the barriers and enablers of information sharing in local level in order to clarify why sharing information in local level differs from the central/federal level, and why innovation adoption theories are not sufficient enough to explore an inter‐organisational phenomenon.

A systematic literature review on technology adoption in public sector is carried out in order to select a suitable theoretical lens. Hence, based on previous research on information sharing in public/private sector, inter‐organisational systems adoption, and inter‐departmental collaboration, the factors and participation phases that are relevant to the context of local government have been summarised and discussed.

This paper proposes a novel conceptual framework that can be used as a tool for decision‐making while sharing information electronically. The framework consists of four main levels: investigation and presentation of factors influencing EIS in LGAs based on external environment, organisational capacity, technology environment, EIS characteristics, and inter‐departmental environment; investigation and presentation of the processes that an LGA department should carry out to decide whether to share information with another department; mapping of the influential factors on the participation phases; and prioritisation of the factors influencing EIS in LGAs in different decision‐making phases.

The proposed framework should be tests and validated through empirical cases, focusing on inter‐departmental collaboration in local level.

From theoretical perspective, almost none of the previous research have investigated the effectiveness of DOI or TOE in studying the adoption of inter‐organisational innovation. Also, they have failed to examine and prioritise the importance of the factor influencing EIS on the participation phases.

The application of enterprise application integration (EAI) technologies in integrating heterogeneous information systems (IS) has been pursued by several private and public organisations. However, where EAI has added effectiveness and strengthened the information technology infrastructures in the private domain, local government authorities (LGAs) have been slow in adopting cost‐effective EAI solutions to significantly expand the capabilities of their conventionally inflexible IS. Despite EAI represents an attractive proposition to LGAs and offers the opportunity to leverage the IS into a seamless chain of processes, EAI has not been widely investigated in LGAs. Literature indicates several research studies mainly focusing on a number of different factors (e.g. benefits, barriers) influencing EAI adoption. However, due to plethora of different factors, it may not be sufficient for LGAs to take decisions by merely focusing on factors. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to assess and prioritise the factors influencing EAI adoption in LGAs through the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) technique.

To investigate the less acknowledged phenomena like EAI adoption in LGAs, the author follows an interpretive, qualitative case study approach to conduct this research. This approach will assist in examining the phenomenon in its natural setting, examine the in‐depth complexities and processes, e.g. analysing and prioritising the importance of factors influencing the decision‐making process for EAI adoption, and provide considerable flexibility during interviews and observations.

According to the empirical findings, the proposed EAI adoption factors are appropriate for studying the research context. The analysis and study of the factors is made carefully and specifically to fit and be compatible within the context of an LGA. As a result, it is apparent from the empirical findings that most of the factors have influenced the decision‐making process for EAI adoption except two factors that are not tested.

The author takes into consideration the literature void and prioritise the importance the factors by introducing the AHP technique. This technique is substantial as it may enhance the analysis of EAI adoption in LGAs, tests and justifies the feasibility of AHP technique by a case study, and facilitates LGAs in realising the importance of EAI adoption factors. Hence, it significantly contributes to the body of knowledge and practice in this area and providing sufficient support to the management by speeding up the EAI adoption process.