Unboxing maturity models: A set-theoretic perspective on e-Government configurations over time

•We uncover patterns of e-Government maturity across 184 countries over a decade.•We zoom in on the best instances of developed and developing countries.•We distill several trajectories of e-Government maturity.•We extend the trajectory-turning point theory of e-Government maturity.•We stress the role of improvisational capabilities to cope with exogenous shocks. This study conceptualizes e-Government maturity from the theoretical lens of strategic change. Drawing on a multiplicity of theories, it undertakes a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of the drivers of e-Government maturity over the 2010–2020 decade. It bypasses partially conflicting findings about the contribution of human capital to high levels of e-Government maturity by showcasing instead two configurations of conditions where human capital investments become a non-trivial necessary condition over time. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications are discussed by zooming in on the configurational patterns emerging over time and, by extension, refining the notion of ‘turning point’ discussed in the literature.