Electronic Participation Technologies and Perceived Outcomes for Local Government Managers

US local governments are under increasing pressure to adopt electronic participation technologies to engage stakeholders in decision-making. The choice set of technologies and the ease with which they can be applied, has potentially increased the complexity of the context within which managers operate. Using data from a national survey of 850 government managers in 500 cities, we investigate whether different channels of e-participation technology and the intensity of e-participation technology use are associated with managers' perceptions of outcomes. We find that the relationships between complexity of e-participation technology and perceived outcomes depend upon the type of external stakeholder group considered.