Public–private partnerships for e-government in developing countries: An early stage assessment framework

•Critical success factors that fit the context of electronic government and Public-Private Partnerships in developing countries settings.•A holistic comparison of an electronic government project´s risk and value, if pursued through a PPP mechanism.•A tactical framework designed to enable an early-stage recommendation of whether certain initiative is suitable for a PPP or not.•Developing countries practitioners may apply the framework to their technological, organizational, or environmental contexts. Although public–private partnerships (PPP) and electronic government (e-government) have proven to be fruitful mechanisms for economic development and emerging economies seem to recognize their importance, consistent methods for analyzing the early planning stages of e-government portfolios are lacking. The present work utilized a comprehensive literature review to understand the evaluation criteria for PPP projects throughout the early-stage planning process. A qualitative meta-synthesis was employed to identify critical factors for PPP and e-government, with a particular focus on developing countries, PPP, and e-government criteria. Our research presents a framework named “PPP4e-Gov” (public–private partnerships for e-government). The framework compares risk and value factors of e-government PPP projects and adopts a weighted scoring model that estimates the risks that should be considered in a project and how much value a given e-government initiative may generate if the PPP option is chosen. As an illustration of how the framework may be used, the paper interviewed ten practitioners in Costa Rica who tried out PPP4e-Gov and showcased how to plan their e-government initiatives.