Understanding the Potential of Mobile Government in Developing Countries: The Case of Short Message Service (SMS) Use by a Brazilian State Government

Mobile technologies are growing rapidly in all countries, but they are particularly important for developing countries. Since more and more citizens are using cell phones and other mobile devices, it seems clear that there is an opportunity for government agencies to provide information and services using these technologies. Despite the relative success of some growing applications and the great number of mobile phones, mobile government has not evolved as one of the main channels for interacting with citizens. Aiming to understand the configuration of mobile government projects in practice, our research question is: how environment, structure, leadership, strategy and sustainability configure and interact in mobile government business models? The research has a qualitative character with multiple cases studies based on the analysis of twenty Mobile Government Projects using short message service (SMS) in the government of Paraná, Brazil. The life cycles of the twenty cases were identified and represented, from the birth to the survival phase. The major contribution of this paper is proposing a Dynamic Business Model for Mobile Government using SMS technology, based on the phases of the project life cycle.