National enabling conditions, institutional governance and online service development: longitudinal evidence from Asia

Purpose This study aims to examine how national enabling conditions and institutional governance are associated with online public service development across Asian economies. Design/methodology/approach A longitudinal panel of 46 Asian economies across eight biennial waves from 2010 to 2024 is analyzed using the United Nations Online Service Index as an outcome. Two-way fixed-effects models examine economic capacity, human capital and digital connectivity, alongside six Worldwide Governance Indicators. Primary inference uses country-clustered CR2 standard errors with Satterthwaite-adjusted degrees of freedom, supplemented by conventional country-clustered and Driscoll–Kraay inferences. Findings Economic capacity and digital connectivity exhibit robust positive within-country associations with the development of online service delivery. Human capital remains positively associated with the outcome but is only marginally significant when enabling conditions are considered. Despite positive descriptive correlations, none of the six governance dimensions exhibited a robust within-country association beyond the enabling conditions under the primary inference procedure. Originality/value This study avoids equating national enabling conditions with dynamic capabilities and separates cross-country governance relationships from the within-country evidence. The findings qualify the assumptions that broad governance improvements necessarily correspond with short-run advances in online public services and provide longitudinal evidence from a heterogeneous Asian setting.