The Principle of E-Government Adapted to Romania's Municipalities

Abstract

This study examines the development of e-government in Romanian municipalities, focusing on the extent to which local public administrations have adapted digital governance principles to improve access to in-formation, administrative efficiency and online public service delivery. The research addresses the uneven development of municipal digitalization and the need for a clearer empirical assessment of local e-govern-ment maturity. The study uses a quantitative research design based on the evaluation of 102 Romanian municipal websites, including Bucharest, through an indicator-based scoring grid derived from the United Nations e-govern-ment maturity model and correlated with the European Commission maturity model. Each maturity stage was operationalized through specific indicators, scored and aggregated by arithmetic means. In addition, two linear regression models were used to test the relationship between e-government development and the number of inhabitants, respectively between website usage and the level of e-government development. The results show that 89.22% of municipal websites meet the minimum criteria for the emerging stage, 59.80% reach the improved stage, 47.06% reach the interactive stage, while only 46.07% partially reach the transactional stage. No municipality obtained the maximum overall score, although Alba Iulia ranked highest with a development level of 0.83. The regression analysis indicates a positive and statistically sig-nificant relationship between the number of inhabitants and e-government development, with R² = 0.276 and Beta = 0.526. A second regression also shows a positive relationship between website usage and e-government development, with R² = 0.264 and Beta = 0.514. The originality of the study lies in its municipality-level assessment of e-government in Romania, combin-ing maturity-model scoring with regression-based empirical testing. The findings provide practical guid-ance for local authorities by highlighting the need for standardized digital platforms, improved transactional services, better institutional coordination and stronger digital capacity-building within municipal admin-istrations