Exploring the quality of e-government service from citizens' perspectives
Creators: name: Dodeen, Wafa'a
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 460908
subject: Information systems organisation and management

description: Electronic government - e-government - has become a major area of research for the field of information systems (IS) and a leading area of development for governments worldwide. This study defines e-government as the use of ICT for using and delivering government services, which considers the use of the service (rather than just the technology) and accounts for government and citizen aspects. Although there is a rich body of evidence that demonstrates the benefits of e-government for citizens, businesses, and governments (Alshomrani and Qamar 2013; Alenezi, Tarhini, and Sharma 2015; Ashaye and Irani 2014), citizens and governments continue to face challenges around the increased greater use of e-government (Alshehri and Drew 2010; Chen and Hsieh 2016; Nurdin, Stockdale, and Scheepers 2015). Most notably, these challenges differ between developing and developed countries (Choi et al. 2016; Sharma 2012; Srivastava and Panigrahi 2016). This research explores the quality of e-government services from the perspective of Jordanian citizens (Jordan is a developing country in the Middle East). More specifically, it aims to: examine and describe the experience of e-government service quality; analyse how expectations of e-government service quality is formed; and explain the impact of e-government services quality on citizen’ trust and continuous use of e-government services.<br><br>The research is motivated by three goals. First, research must be more specific when it comes to the quality of e-government service, suggesting that its conceptualisation and measurement should be based on users’ perceptions and be context specific. Thus, this study investigates e-government service quality from Jordanian citizens’ perspectives. Jordan is one of the leading countries in the region regarding the availability of national information technology (IT) infrastructure for online services. Also, the population's motivation and ability to conduct online transactions are amongst the highest regionally (Alawneh and Hattab 2008). However, there are still issues around trust and the quality of e-government services (Abu-Shanab and Al-Azzam 2012). Second, there is a need to understand citizen expectation about e-service quality using qualitative research in order to provide more in-depth insights and go deeper and understand reasons and mechanisms leading to satisfaction and for enabling trust (or not) in e-government services. Third, one notable area that is missing in the existing e-government body of knowledge is how citizens form their expectations of e-government service quality and the association between perceptions of e-service quality and satisfaction and the decision to continually use e-government services. These motivations led to three research questions which are addressed in the context of Jordan:<br>(a) What is the citizen’s perspective about the quality of e-government services?<br>(b) How are citizens’ expectations of quality e-government service formed?<br>(c) How does quality of e-government services impact on citizens’ trust of e-government services?<br><br>To address these research questions, conceptually, the study draws ideas from e-government services literature, expectation and spillover effects and trust theory. Empirically, this study undertakes a qualitative study, relying on interviews with users of the e-government service in Jordan. The data collection involved 20 interviews undertaken with e-government service users in Jordan from different geographical locations. To help understand the types and functions of e-government services, supplementary secondary data was obtained from government websites used by participants.<br><br>The study findings illuminate the quality of e-government services from the participant’s viewpoint. In particular, the findings point out areas where the quality of e-government service needs to improve. There are significant concerns and difficulties of use e-government which can limit the use of e-government services and give the participant a low perspective on the quality of service. Moreover, the findings provide a brief discussion on the quality of e-government service from the user’s perspective, to help in understanding the factors affecting the citizen’s perspective in measuring the quality of e-government service success, through comparing the e-government service with other online services such as social media e-shopping and e-banking service. The study also identifies issue around the quality of e-government service based on the citizen’s trust. The study provides suggestions to improve the quality of e-government service and trust based on the participant’s experience with e-government and other online services.<br>