Theories and Theoretical Models for Examining the Adoption of e-Government Services

After more than a decade of research in the field of e-government, it is now timely and appropriate to reflect upon the overall developmental directions in the area. The purpose of this paper is to explore research progress to date by systematically analyzing the existing body of knowledge on e-government related issues, and to reveal if there is a lack of theoretical development and rigor in the area. Usable data relating to e-government adoption research currently available were collected from 434 research articles identified from the ISI Web of Knowledge database, and by manually identifying relevant articles from journals dedicated to electronic government research such as Transforming Government: People, Process, and Policy (TGPPP), Electronic Government, an International Journal (EGIJ), and International Journal of Electronic Government Research (IJEGR). Based on our investigation of this extant literature, our findings revealed that generic e-government applications were explored more than any specific applications, and the technology acceptance model (TAM) was the theory most often utilized to explain research models. It was also revealed that except for DeLone and McLean’s (1992, 2003) IS success model, all other theories and models (for example, TAM, diffusion of innovation (DOI), unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT), and theory of planned behavior (TPB) have performed consistently with acceptable variance across various studies in the context of e-government adoption research. Although a large number of theories and theoretical constructs were borrowed from the reference disciplines, their utilization by e-government researchers appears to be largely random in approach. The paper also acknowledges the limitations of the study and suggests research directions for future researchers.