Investigating the impact of metaphors on citizens’ adoption of e-governance in developing countries

A citizen-centric approach to understand the effectiveness of e-government web portals: Empirical evidence from India

A citizen-centric approach was used to understand the effectiveness of e-government web portals in India. So, the study aims to find the factors of e-government (i.e., information clarity and appropriateness, relevance & usefulness, information accuracy & completeness, system security, users’ privacy, system stability, and interactive services) and their influence on citizen perception, citizen satisfaction, and users’ intention. Since the e-government web portal is for the citizen of a country and random sampling is more appropriate. So, our study did the same with a modified scale. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) model was applied to show model fit and multiple regression analysis was employed to analyze the final data. The results revealed that the factors of e-government positively impact quality perception, citizen satisfaction, and Users’ intention toward e-government. Further, data analysis has enough evidence to say e-government quality perception and citizen satisfaction mediate the relationship between factors of e-government and Users’ intention. This investigation outlines how the government designs its e-government portal to enhance citizen satisfaction, citizen perception in terms of e-government quality, and users’ intentions.

Determinants of Smart Digital Infrastructure Diffusion for Urban Public Services

Government of India’s ‘Digital India’ initiative intends to build robust digital ecosystem that fosters innovation & entrepreneurship enabling better citizen service & citizen empowerment. Digitization in India involves geo-demographic & socio-economic dependency, choice of smart technologies undergoing rapid innovation, strategic roll-out planning & flawless implementation as prerequisite of technology diffusion & benefit realization. This study identifies technical & non-technical determinants of smart digital framework roll out that can accelerate digital diffusion in urban public services in India. This study follows inductive exploratory method, combining grounded theory & text mining for primary data analysis. Study reveals digitization is an ecosystem of private & public enterprises and citizen participation, identifies integrated use analytics & IoT can enable connected smart city, whereas technology cost, digital literacy & sustainable innovation as non-technological determinant towards resilient urban digital infrastructure in India.

Weibo to the Rescue? A study of social media use in citizen–government relations in China

Purpose

In this study, the authors explain citizens’ adoption of social media in citizen–government relations in China, a country that blends an authoritarian governance regime with limited tolerance of and responsiveness to online citizen participation.

Design/methodology/approach

Original survey data were gathered using a vignette survey among 307 respondents living in the People’s Republic of China. Multivariate analysis of the data was used to test four hypotheses and identify antecedents of Chinese citizens’ social media adoption for “thin” participation purposes.

Findings

Citizens’ perceived impact of “thin” participation, citizens’ skills and capabilities and citizens’ trust in institutions are significantly associated with citizens’ social media adoption. Social media anxiety was found not to be associated with Chinese citizens’ social media adoption.

Research limitations/implications

This study demonstrates how vignettes can be used to study adoption of technological and institutional innovations in an authoritarian governance regime and how in this context existing adoption theories can be extended with notions of institutional trust to adequately explain citizens’ adoption of technological and institutional innovations in citizen–government relations.

Social implications

Although some argue that social media activity could potentially mitigate democratic deficits caused by the state, in the case of China, the intertwinement of state and social media platform renders this argument unsustainable.

Originality/value

This study is one of the few systematic survey studies focusing on Chinese citizens’ adoption of social media in citizen–government relations.

An examination of citizen satisfaction with mandatory e-government services: comparison of two information systems success models

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the utility of information systems (IS) success models in mandatory e-government services, as opposed to the volitional ones that have been the focus of previous studies. The models include the technology acceptance model (TAM) (1989) and Seddon’s model (1997), which involve three (ease of use, usefulness and citizens satisfaction) and four variables (system quality, information quality, usefulness and citizen satisfaction).

Design/methodology/approach

The models were compared based on a survey conducted on 780 foundation year students of government universities in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Government has launched a mandatory e-government service geared to assist high school graduates in the university academic admission process. The goodness-of-fit and parsimony of fit indices and the explanatory power were used to compare the two models.

Findings

The structural equation modeling techniques revealed that overall, the two models both exhibited reasonable fit with the collected data, whereas TAM showed the best fit to the sample data and yielded superior goodness-of-fit indices over Seddon’s model. In terms of explanatory power, Seddon’s model predicted 28% (R2 = 0.28) of the variance explained for citizen satisfaction, whereas TAM predicted 21% (R2 = 0.21). All the parsimony of fit indices favored TAM over Seddon’s model.

Research limitations/implications

This study examined the validity of TAM and Seddon’s model, using citizen satisfaction as the dependent variable to compare them. TAM and Seddon’s model were modified to better fit the current research context of mandatory e-government services; thus, the findings may not hold for their original or other voluntary settings. In addition, the focus on a single survey for a certain time in a certain territory of mandatory e-government service may have limited the generalizability of the results to other mandatory contexts. Future research should make use of large, cross-sectional samples in different mandatory contexts to enhance result generalization.

Practical implications

This study’s findings can provide e-government practitioners with deeper perceptions of how to address citizen satisfaction with mandatory e-government services. The results exposed usefulness as the common and major construct, having the strongest influence on citizen satisfaction in both TAM and Seddon’s model; thus, maximizing the benefits of e-government services for citizens is crucial to their success. The causal relationship between information quality and citizen satisfaction was not supported. This supports the perspective that e-government services are currently evolving quickly, becoming more integrated and easier-to-use, generally requiring only a few clicks and less information.

Originality/value

This study has extended the assessment of the validity of IS success models to a mandatory IS usage setting. The comparison study of different IS success models is crucial as it acts as a guide for researchers to determine the trade-off between the models used to conduct research on a particular context. The study concludes that TAM is the most parsimonious and universal model for the study of user satisfaction in mandatory contexts. The findings will provide e-government practitioners with insights into IS success measures suited to enhance the effectiveness of newly and future mandated e-government services.

Determinants of individuals’ intention to use mobile health: insights from India

Purpose

This study aims to examine the determinants of mobile health technology and applications use intention. The factors are delineated from prior literature and theories of individual traits and adoption characteristics, technology acceptance and health belief.

Design/methodology/approach

Data from 409 respondents were collected from Indian participants through a questionnaire survey. The construct “use intention” was measured using individual traits to mobile services, subjective norm, health consciousness, awareness and perceived usefulness, and the model was tested.

Findings

The study found that mobile health technology and the applications awareness and personal innovativeness influence intention to use.

Originality/value

Previous studies have often looked at technology adoption and acceptance models separately and are less adequately discussed in the Indian context. The components that determine mobile health technology and the applications’ acceptance by literature and theories of individual traits and adoption characteristics, technology acceptance and health beliefs were also inadequately discussed. The significant contribution of this research also includes policy recommendations for improving mobile health acceptance in India.