Customer relationship management (CRM) in e-government: a relational perspective Shan-Ling Pan a , Chee-Wee Tan b , Eric T.K. Lim c, * a School of Computing, National University of Singapore, Singapore b Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Canada c School of Computing, National University of Singapore, Singapore Available online 25 December 2004 Abstract The case of the National IT Literacy Program (NITLP) as part of Singapore’s e-government initiative serves to illustrate the evolution of strategic customer relationship management (CRM) practices. The role of CRM has remained relatively consistent even though its practices have evolved in response to both environmental and technological changes. This study introduces the concepts of relational incentive, relational value and relational tool that position indirect communications as an important contender to direct communications for organizational relationship building. This study adopts a relational perspective with which to formulate a managerial strategy for CRM that is independent of direct organizational involvement. D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Customer relationship management; Relational incentive; Relational value and relational tool; E-government 1. Introduction The notion of forging intimate connections with consumers to understand the needs, preferences and potential of distinct market segments has been a crucial driving force behind organizations’ mounting emphasis on customer relationship management (CRM) [26]. In particular, corporations are growing wiser to the archaic marketing philosophy of reaching out to every customer in an identical manner [26], and look upon CRM as the means to identify profitable patrons, convert prospective clients and establish lasting strategic partnerships with beneficial business partners [20,66,83]. A more recent study by Reinartz and Kumar [60] even dispels the common myth that a loyal customer is equivalent to a lucrative one, and calls for a better approach in assessing the business worthiness of each consumer. Not surprisingly, the aforementioned phenomena have spurred an extensive amount of studies con- ducted on CRM initiatives (see [16,61,81]) and with the apparent dominion of information technology (IT) in the future, the growth of CRM in electronic 0167-9236/$ - see front matter D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.dss.2004.12.001 * Corresponding author. Block 260B Sengkang Eastway, #10-446, Singapore 542260, Singapore. Tel.: +65 6874 7355; fax: +65 6779 4580. E-mail address: limtzeku@comp.nus.edu.sg (E.T.K. Lim). Decision Support Systems 42 (2006) 237 – 250 www.elsevier.com/locate/dsw