Attitudes Towards Egovernment Services

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

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Institution

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E-government is an area of government policy and communication which originates from the advancing and new information technologies (Alryalat et al, 2012). E-participation deepens and broadens political participation enabling the citizens to connect with the representative they elected (Shareef et al, 2012). Citizens being main target of focus, have had both a positive and negative outlook regarding the service (Alomari et al, 2012). Although many countries have invested huge sums of money in the implementation of e-government services, the rate of adoption has been very low and feedback about the service has also been negative especially in third world countries (Carter & Bélanger, 2005).It is because of this that more and more government institutions have taken a step further to endorse users to adopt the service. The majority of citizens who have had an opportunity to use e-government servoice have provided positive feedback regarding the same. This has been echoed on social media sites such as facebook and twitter where they have expressed their opinions regarding the service.The adoption rate has been very low due to various reasons such as demographic, political and social (Lin et al, 2012). Therefore this study attempts to research and identify reasons that could lead to poor performance of e-govenrment services in the developing world by investigating the relationship between citien attitude and service adoption.

The rate of adoption among citizens for the services of e-government determines whether it will succeed or fail (Al-Hujran et al, 2011). The adoption of e-government and its success depends on the persuasive nature of government towards the citizens to accept and use the online services of public (Al-Sobhi et al, 2011). The factors that are indepensent in delivery should be adopted by users wishing to participate in the service. The paper reviews various literature works on the attitudes towards e-government services and it focuses on the factors affecting use of e-participation service via social network sites (Alomari et al, 2012).

The perception which the citizens have on the quality of information has a positive relation to the adoption of e-government (Al-Hujran et al, 2011). Many researchers have confirmed that customer service is available and this will ensure frequent use of the e-government (Al-Sobhi et al, 2011). The quality of services offered will differentiate the performance of different organizations (Alomari et al, 2009). This helps bring about independence and facilitates standardization in the services offered. This is very important in ensuring accountability and reliance for the resources offered. The frequent e-government users will achieve attitudes to adopt e-government if the perception of customer in e-government is higher.

E-government and the traditional government services have different approaches (Al-Sobhi et al, 2011). If the level of customer service is higher in e-government than the one offered in traditional government office as perceived by the citizens, the adoption of e-government will become easy (Al-Hujran et al, 2011). Therefore, the quality of service offered will lead to satisfaction thus ensuring the regular use of e-government (Alomari et al, 2009). This quality assurance is pegged on the ability of the user to provide credible feedback and information on service delivery. The quality of service could be due to functional or process quality, output or technical quality (Hung et al, 2006).

The use of e-government becomes very difficult when there is no awareness and experience in the use of modern Information Communication and Technology (ICT) (Al-Sobhi et al, 2011). It is not possible for a user to arrive at an intention of using e-government services which require the use of computer knowledge to get an advantage which is competitive if the user has no competence and experience in the use of ICT (Al-Hujran et al, 2011). The user must therefore put in place stepsto increase their knowledge in computers as they arecrucial in effecting an e-government system and managing necessary resources.From the perspectives of behavioral, technological, organizational and economical, it is argued that the failure of getting experience of technology will not create an attitude in the user which is favorable in the adoption of e-government services (Alomari et al, 2009).

The lack of computer knowledge makes it difficult for the user to perceive the economic advantage of e-government (Al-Hujran et al, 2011). The structure of e-government is mainly organized based on the computer and internet based (Al-Sobhi et al, 2011). On the other hand, users view traditional government services as that which does not require the knowledge of computer (Alomari et al, 2009). This is a conservative approach in whihic most people view traditional government. In some cases, some citizens may choose to remin with the old principle sof the traditional government as compared to adopting new policis. Depending on the organization of both governments self efficacy of the computer will determine whether a user will adopt the system of e-government rather than using the services of traditional government (Carter & Bélanger, 2005).

In most developing countries, the adoption of e-government has become difficult due to various barriers (Harfouche & Robbin, 2012). The barriers include scarcity of electricity, computers, internet, telephones and other related accessories (Al-Sobhi et al, 2011). The government supports like resource centre, cyber cafes and call centre (Alomari et al, 2009). The use of e-government services by citizens is limited unless freedom of utility required to use Information Communication Technology based e-government is given.

Technology acceptance model (TAM) has been used by researchers as a framework to predict and explain various behaviors of human in the adoption context of IT (Al-Sobhi et al, 2011). TAM explains that causal linkages flow in a sequence of intentions, beliefs, behaviors and attitudes (Alomari et al, 2009). In order to examine the actual system use of an individual, focus is made on the factors which affect the intention of system of an individual (Al-Hujran et al, 2011). Perceived usefulness refers to the belief an individual have that his job performance will be enhanced by using a particular system (Harfouche & Robbin, 2012).

TAM shows that the attitude of the user on using system of e-government positively affects intentions behavior (Al-Hujran et al, 2011). The perceived e-government services usefulness has a positive effect on behavioral intention of the user (Al-Sobhi et al, 2011). The perceived usefulness of services of e-government has a positive effect on the attitudes of a user with regard to internet use (Alomari et al, 2009). The service also borderson the perspective that the user wishes tocdarw and covers various apects of integration. The user attitude is also influenced positively by the perceived ease of e-government use (Hung et al, 2006). The quality of information about e-government system affects the perceived usefulness of using the internet. This is dependent on the effects and impact that the user wishes to avert and can be placed to affect them in varios ways.

In conclusion, the country should make skills and resources necessary for using e-government available equally to all citizens to enable the adoption of the e-government system. Therefore the government should reduce the digital divide by promoting equality in resources of using system of e-government and knowledge in order for the adoption of e-government to be successful. They should also increase public awareness regarding the resources they entail as this can in a way help promote and influence people’s attitude towards e-government.