Evaluating citizens' readiness to embrace e-government services

Abstract

To encompass the multi-dimensional nature of e-government systems the current study presents a framework of citizens' adoption of e-government services by integrating technology acceptance and information systems success literature along with citizens' attitudinal beliefs. In the proposed framework, it has been posited that the qualities of e-government websites such as perceived system quality, perceived information quality and perceived service quality influence adoption of e-government services, by citizens, directly and indirectly through perceived ability to use, perceived functional benefit, trust in the medium, trust in the government and user satisfaction. We have used Structural equation modeling to test the proposed hypotheses. We find evidence that the effect of perceived information quality and perceived system quality on adoption of e-government services is totally mediated by perceived ability to use, perceived functional benefit, trust in medium, trust in government and user satisfaction. Moreover, we find significant effect of gender, education level, experience with internet and with e-government websites on citizens' adoption of e-government services. We expect that in developing countries, the findings will be useful for practitioners and implementers of e-government. These will help them in designing and implementing policies and strategies which will increase the adoption rate of e-government services. This will also help reduce confusions in the minds of citizens regarding e-government adoption.