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The purpose of this paper is to assess the maturity level of the Jordanian electronic Government (e-Government) program from the citizen’s perspective. This assessment aims to help in determining whether the Jordanian e-Government strategy, set back in 2002, has achieved its main objectives which are delivering services to people across society, irrespective of location, economic status, education or ICT ability; improving the ICT readiness and infrastructure; and developing new service delivery channels and increase the involvement of citizens through the use of ICTs. Jordan started a national e-Government initiative aiming to streamline government procedures and provide government information and services to the public online. This paper reveals the levels of citizens’ awareness, acceptance, usage and willingness to use the e-Government services in Jordan. It investigates issues such as Jordan’s e-Government maturity level, citizen’s preferences when dealing with e-Government, citizen’s attitude toward using various e-services, citizen’s concerns and the required services.

To achieve the research purposes, which needed a high rate of respondents to generalize the findings, we opted for quantitative research through questionnaires as an appropriate instrument base to address the citizens’ awareness and usage of e-Government services. In total, 7,238 distributed surveys were conducted across Jordan. The average of the responses rate in the three regions was 58.6 per cent.

The citizen’s interest in e-Government services is declining, as the citizens’ level of awareness of e-Government and its services is still modest after more than ten years of the start of the e-Government program in Jordan. Citizens’ attitude toward using e-Government services is changing and determined by various factors and issues reported in the paper.

The selected governorates might not be the best governorates to represent the three regions of Jordan, the data took almost 15 months to be collected and analyzed which may have resulted in some changes to the reality. Finally, developing countries are not a homogenous group and, therefore, the results of this paper may not be generalizable.

The findings present a number of key factors that hinder Jordan’s e-Government development. These findings can be useful for researchers and practitioners, as they provide rich insights on e-Government development. The findings can be also useful to other developing countries, as they can help them in understanding citizen related challenges when designing, planning and implementing their e-Government initiatives.

The ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in sudden changes in the macro environment and market behaviour, making most enterprises urgently reconfigure their business models to cope with changes following the COVID-19 outbreak. This paper aims to present empirical data on the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), highlighting the initial conclusions regarding their crisis management. It presents factual data on how SMEs in Jordan can use entrepreneurship to combat uncertainty and promote new opportunities.

This study involves an exploratory qualitative research design, drawing from 32 semi-structured interviews of key informants from Jordanian SMEs in different stages of the crisis. The different coping strategies of the SMEs and their effectiveness in the first six months of the pandemic are then compared.

The findings show how Jordanian SMEs have adapted to cope with the changes in the business environment because of COVID-19. These strategies include modifying their operations that is moving from an ordinary business model to more tentative digitalisation, improving internal communication and restructuring ad hoc organisational culture.

The study presents important and timely implications for managers of Jordanian SMEs and policymakers by increasing the sensitisation and awareness of SMEs’ coping mechanisms. It is the first study in management that empirically analyses the impact of COVID-19 on Jordanian SMEs.

This paper describes Jordan's strategy to develop a strong ICT sector that will be internationally competitive. This strategy is analysed in two ways. First, by a comparison with two countries, Ireland and Singapore, with similarities as nation states and which are widely seen as successful in promoting and sustaining strong ICT sectors. Second, through an analysis of Jordan as a competition state where the role of the state is being redefined so as to implement policies in a globalising world. It is found that Jordan exhibits many of the characteristics of a competition state in terms of the promotion of mixtures of public and private partnerships and in developing relations with international agencies and multinational enterprises to create a strong ICT sector. Using these analyses, the prospects for Jordan's initiative are assessed and issues that will be of importance for its success are pointed out.

This study addresses the critical factors that contribute to the success of e-government programs in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states (AMS). We investigate the factors that play key roles in e-government adoption and implementation in AMS that stem from multiple dimensions.

Our qualitative study on eight ASEAN countries with different political situations and economic developments suggests that in general, institutions (formal and informal institutions), resources, leadership, organizational design and culture values determine the success of e-government.

The provision of adequate information and communication technology infrastructure alone is insufficient to ensure the success of e-government.

Our findings lead to a conceptual framework of factors that drive the success of e-government projects that advances the literature on e-government, particularly the research about e-government in the context of developing countries.

An empirical evidence and in-depth understanding suggest that different factors are associated with detrimental impacts on e-government implementation.