Information systems engineering projects in e-government are confronted with high costs, lack of expertise and developing similar functionality over and over. A shared services centre might provide common services to local government organizations without affecting the autonomy of organizations and providing the flexibility to enhance and include additional functionality. As such a SSC promises tremendous economies of scale and scope. A promise is however not sufficient, research yields ambiguous results. A sound analysis of motives to use a shared services center and management issues determining success and failure is necessary.

The goal of the research presented in this paper is to explore the concept of a shared services center by investigating the motives and management issues determining its successful implementation. We explore the concept by investigating a SSC at the Dutch judicial organization.