Hemant Patel, Dublin City University Business School, Dublin, Ireland

An Assessment Of Individual, Organizational, And Digital-Divide Factors Influencing Citizen Adoption Of E-Government Services

Hemant Patel, Dublin City University Business School, Dublin, Ireland

Regina Connolly, Dublin City University Business School, Dublin, Ireland

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses empirical and theoretical studies in relation to usage of e-government services by the citizens. The purpose of this paper is to; identify the factors that predict and inhibit the adoption of e-government service by citizens; examine the relevance of these factors from the perspective of a developing country; and suggest appropriate strategies that can help overcome the digital divide. This paper takes an analytical approach to identify the key factors that affect adoption of e-government services and makes critical assessment of the research concepts; methodology, instruments and findings. The conclusions in this paper are supported by established theories concerning literature on ‘technology adoption’ and substantiated by empirical findings of studies regarding e-government service adoption by citizens. The conceptual analysis is restricted by the selection of studies that have considered strong theoretical frameworks and rigorous approach towards research methodologies. This paper makes an important theoretical contribution to the academic literature by identifying gaps in conceptual definitions and theoretical frameworks. Subsequently, attention is also drawn to the mismatch, overlap and contradiction in findings in the literature. For practitioners, this paper draws attention to individual characteristics of citizens and organizational factors that influence adoption of e-government services.

Keywords: Electronic Government, E-government, Digital Divide, E-governance

1 INTRODUCTION

The contribution of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the development of electronic commerce (e-commerce) has been well documented in the Information Systems (IS) research literature (Sheridan and Riley 2006). ICT has played an equally important role in the development of services that are delivered electronically by government organizations (Bhatnagar 2004), popularly referred to as electronic government (e-government) services. E-government is a relatively new area of study in the Information Systems (IS) field that is concerned with use of ICT by government agencies to electronically deliver its services (The World Bank website). The evolution of e-government services is related to growth in e-commerce (Sheridan and Riley 2006) and researchers have tried to investigate if “technology allows government to service citizens in a more timely, effective, and cost efficient way” (Evans and Yen 2005, p.354). Besides, researchers have also attempted to investigate the adoption behavior of citizens as consumer of electronic services provided by public administration or government organizations (Carter and Belanger 2005; Gilbert et al. 2004; Horst et al. 2007).

Much recently, in a comprehensive review of the e-government studies, Titah and Barki (2006) concluded that the most e-government studies fall under five distinct categories; that explore the influence of; a) managerial practices, b) individual and organizational characteristics, c) IT characteristics, d) measurement of e-government, e) government subcultures; on e-government services adoption. The main focus of this paper is to examine the influence of individual and organizational characteristics on the adoption of e-government services. This paper is also concerned with examining the influence of digital-divide which “has largely been discussed as an American problem between haves and have-nots (benefits of ICT)” (Evans and Yen 2005, p. 367) on e-government services adoption. For the sake of analysis this paper concentrates primarily on the relationship that exists between government and its citizens, referred in its abbreviated form as G2C (Government to Citizen). A brief discussion on other relationships between government and various distinct entities is summarized in the next section. E-government has received considerable attention of the research community in US and Europe in comparison to the developing countries (Fors and Moreno 2002). The early adoption of ICT and the higher levels of awareness regarding the use of technology has aided e-government research to prosper in the developed nations (Sheridan and Riley 2006). On the other hand, citizens in developing countries are far behind in adoption of ICT (Nikam et al. 2004). In India, for instance, e-government research is in embryonic stage (Gupta and Jana 2003) and a country with a huge population can not afford to neglect the benefits of implementing e-government (Bhatnagar 2004). Despite India’s economic prosperity and emerging influence in the development of Information Technology (IT) sector in south-east Asia (Chandrasekhar 2006), there are limited studies that have addressed adoption of e-government in India.

This paper will take a closer look into the theories that support the research models that have been extensively used to study the factors that influence adoption of e-government. There are number of empirical studies undertaken in different countries to study e-government services adoption; e.g. Singapore (Fu et al. 2005); The Netherlands (Horst et al. 2007); Turkey (Akman et al. 2005); USA (Carter and Belanger 2005). To the best of our knowledge, only one empirical study partially discusses the factors of e-government services adoption in India (Dossani et al. 2005) and a few case studies that illustrate the merits of implementing e-government services ( e.g. Bhatnagar 2004; Cecchini and Scott 2003; Rao 2004a; 2004b). There are number of studies that discuss the potential advantages of implementing e-government, based on a few successful regional e-government programs (e.g. Bajwa 2003; Mathur and Ambani 2005; Singh 2005; Thomas 2007). These studies are conceptual, descriptive and exploratory in nature and fail to provide relevant facts regarding the current state of e-government in India. This paper will begin with conceptual definition of e-government; analyze the impact of individual and organizational characteristics on e-government services adoption; discuss the influence of digital divide factors; discuss e-government initiatives in India. Further, critical assessment of factors influencing e-government services adoption by citizens will be followed by discussion on e-government services adoption studies focusing India. An attempt is made to identify the gaps in literature that would have implications for future theoretical research and provide valuable insight to practitioners.

2 DEFINITION OF E-GOVERNMENT

E-government “represents the free flow of information (between government and citizens) that improves knowledge, opportunity, and time effectiveness” (Evans and Yen 2005, p.371). In simplest terms, Moon and Norris (2005) provides a definition of e-government which is perceived as "means of delivering government information and service" (p.43) a much popular definition off the World Bank states that "E-Government refers to the use by government agencies of information technologies (such as Wide Area Networks, the Internet, and mobile computing) that have the ability to transform relations with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government” (The World Bank website). E-government is the most frequently cited term in comparison to e-governance, online government, one-stop government and digital government (Andersen and Henriksen 2006). Saxena (2005) highlights the remarkable distinction between 'governance' and 'government' by stating " Government is the institution itself, whereas governance is a broader concept describing forms of governing which are not necessarily in the hands of formal government" a concept supported by Keohane and Nye (2000) in their definition "....non governmental organizations and association of NGOs, often in association with governmental bodies, create governance; sometimes without governmental authority" (c.f. Saxena 2005, p.499). Riley (2003) refers to 'government' as a superstructure that deals with decisions, rules, implementation and outputs of its policies; whereas 'governance' refers to functioning based on processes, goals, performance, coordination and outcomes. Saxena (2005) argues that e-governance refers to the ‘outcomes’ as a result of ‘effects produced’ by public administration, whereas, e-government refers to the ‘outputs’ as a result of ‘efforts expended’ by the public administration; and mentions that e-government is perceived to be a sub-set of e-governance. In an attempt to provide a synthesized definition of e-government from extant literature, Yildiz (2007) mentions that e-government refers to the use of ICTs by public administration to create a networked structure for; interconnectivity, service delivery, efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, and accountability.

Various categories of e-government have been proposed so far. Hiller and Belanger (2001) has suggested six categories: “government delivering services to individuals (G2IS), government to individuals as a part of political process (G2IP), government to business as a citizen (G2BC), government to business in the marketplace (G2BMKT), government to employees (G2E), government to government (G2G)” (Carter and Belanger 2005, p.6). Brown and Brudney (2001) proposes three main categories as: government to citizens (G2C), government to business (G2B), and government to government (G2G) and Yildiz (2007) adds two more categories of; government to civil societal organizations, and citizen to citizen (C2C) (Yildiz 2007). Of all the categories, this paper focuses on studies in relation to government to citizen (G2C) services and the use of its abbreviated form is used extensively in the literature and also used by the US government’s General Accounting office (GAO) and Office of Management Budget (OMB) (Carter and Belanger 2005).

3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF E-GOVERNMENT ADOPTION STUDIES

The theoretical framework of some G2C e-government studies is derived from Rogers' (1983) diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory; Fishbein and Ajzen's (1975) theory of Reasoned action (TRA); Ajzen's (1985) theory of planned behavior (TPB), Davis' (1989) technology acceptance model (TAM) (Carter and Belanger 2005; Dimitrova and Chen 2006; Gilbert et al. 2004; Horst et al. 2007). The models based on these theories have provided a better theoretical understanding of the influence of individual’s beliefs on ‘intention to use’ the technology. In some e-government studies the belief constructs of TAM model (Dimitrova and Chen 2006; Gilbert et al. 2004); and TPB model (Horst et al. 2007; Warkentin et al. 2002) have been used in conjunction with other belief constructs to predict the intention to use e-government by citizens. E-government studies that consider adoption as a process of innovation have considered two factors (out of five) of Roger’s (1983) diffusion of innovation theory; such as relative advantage (Carter and Belanger 2005), and compatibility (Fu et al. 2005; Schaupp and Carter 2005); significant in predicting the intention to use e-government. Other than these theories, the literature on barriers to adoption of technology also contributes in developing a thorough understanding of the factors that inhibit the use of e-government by citizens (Choudrie et al. 2005; Dossani et al. 2005; Pilling and Boeltzig 2007). A literature review by Titah and Barki (2006) provides categorical and exhaustive list of studies that addresses adoption and acceptance issues pertaining all categories of e-government.

According to Al-Qirim (2007) organizational and individual characteristics of adoption of Information Systems have made an enormous contribution in understanding of the acceptance/adoption of e-government services by citizens. The third and the less investigated environmental characteristic of adoption, as discussed by Al-Qirim (2007) has been restricted to the domain of e-commerce because of its functionality that is driven by the forces of competition in an industry. The environmental characteristics has recently received attention of the research community, and Al-Qirim (2007) draws attention to the criticism of diffusion of innovation theory by Kwon and Zmud (1987) to sideline the significance of 'market characteristics' on Information Systems adoption. E-government services do not have to face competition from the private sector, NGO's and not-for profit organizations, therefore the environmental characteristics are assumed to be less significant in their ability to affect the adoption decision of the citizens. Rather the literature on barriers to adoption of e-government services considers a different view on the ability of the non-governmental organizations to affect the adoption of e-government services. Instead of the forces of competition, there is an emphasis on the need of utilizing the synergy of association with the non-governmental organizations to make the e-government services easily accessible to the citizens (Jaeger 2003, Keniston 2002, Schware 2000). Apparently this paper stresses more on the individual, organizational and digital divide factors which have been discussed in details in the ensuing sections.

4 ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS

According to Al-Qirim (2007) diffusion of innovations from an organizational perspective (including government and non-government organizations) refers to “spreading of innovations through a community of firms over time" (p. 110) and with respect to adoption of Information Systems by organizations, they suggest that "adoption is the decision (adopt/reject) within a firm to make full use of a new idea as the best course of action" (p.110). Titah and Barki (2006) have identified five main research streams in the e-government studies that is concerned with the influence of; managerial practices, organizational and individual characteristics, government sub-cultures, IT characteristics, and measurement of e-government impacts on e-government use and acceptance. This paper is concerned with the influence of organizational and individual characteristics on adoption of e-government. As a result of the analysis of various studies related to the stream of research investigating the organizational factors, Titah and Barki (2006) suggest that organizational size and bureaucracy in the organization, strongly affects adoption. Moon (2002) addressed this issue by proposing a theoretical framework for understanding the organizational factors responsible for adoption of e-government by municipalities in US and "the survey result show that municipality size and type of government are significant institutional factors in the implementation and development of e-government" (p. 431). This theoretical framework was empirically justified in a longitudinal study conducted by Norris and Moon (2005), which asserted that adoption is related to "local government demographic characteristics, including type and form of government, metropolitan status, and region (p.72). The findings of these study are encouraging as the longitudinal study involved a time frame of 2 years and the authors have suggested that a time frame of longer duration could provide a greater insight into the organizational factors (such as professionalism, slack resources, and administrative performance etc.). The results of these studies are important, but whether the results can be replicated for other governments remains to be seen.

5 INDIVIDUAL FACTORS

This paper is also concerned with the individual characteristics of citizens that are important in adoption of e-government. In a business to consumer electronic commerce environment, individual beliefs such as perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU) have been considered as the dominant beliefs that affect the intention to adopt or use the technology in question (Warkentin et al. 2002). These beliefs are the major construct of technology acceptance model (TAM) proposed by Davis (1989) and various extensions of this model have been used since then to predict the factors that influence adoption/acceptance of technology. The framework of TAM is theoretically derived from TRA and to a certain degree, its dominant constructs; PU and PEOU overlap with ‘compatibility’ and ‘complexity’ constructs of DOI (Venkatesh et al. 2003). In a business to consumer (B2C) e-commerce, TAM has been consistently used along with various extensions to analyze different types of technologies. The e-government studies that have been tested empirically, support the findings of the generic TAM model (Carter and Belanger 2005; Dimitrova and Chen 2006; Hung et al. 2006; Schaupp and Carter 2005). In G2C e-government studies, other beliefs that have been tested along with the dominant beliefs of PU and PEOU are perceived risk (Fu et al. 2005); perceived barriers (Gilbert et al. 2004); perceived uncertainty and civic mindedness (Dimitrova and Chen 2006); trust in e-government (Carter and Belanger 2005; Schaupp and Carter 2005); self-efficacy (Hung et al. 2006); worry about e-government (Horst et al. 2007); culture (Warkentin et al. 2002). Few studies have also analyzed the demographic factors such as gender and education (Akman et al. 2005); and experience and skill to use internet and computer (Pilling and Boeltzig 2007). From these studies, it is obvious that individual factors and characteristics play a significant role in the adoption of e-government by citizens.