Research on online public service in China: a critical assessment

With the development of China's e-government, online public services (OPS) have become one of the focal areas of the service-oriented government building. In this paper, we conducted a quantitative and qualitative analyses of papers on this topic published in Chinese core Journals and the China "E-government Journal". For each paper we paid close attention to author's institutional association and department, publish journal names and issues, paper length, research themes, research methods, levels of analysis, and geographical focus in order to take a multi-faceted view. Findings from the study suggested that in terms of research methods, most papers take a descriptive approach such as experiences illustration, practice introduction and viewpoints, and only a few papers meet the typical rigorous standard for academic papers. Also, we found that most OPS studies in China focus on service construction while only a few touch service quality assessment. This study indicates that China's OPS practice was still at its early developmental stage. Although practitioners and researchers both agreed on the significance of OPS for China's administrative reform, it is clear that practices are still lagging behind.