Factors Affecting Citizens’ Adoption of e‐Government Moderated by Socio‐Cultural Values in Saudi Arabia
Mohammed Alsaif University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK MOA015 @ adf. bham. ac. uk
Abstract: This study aims to consider the problems associated with the low response of citizens to the adoption of e‐ Government in developing Arab countries, with a predominant focus on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The study has validated the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology( UTAUT) in Saudi Arabia and has extend the theory by including further variable such as the trust, compatibility, awareness and the service quality which proposed to influence citizens adoption of e‐Government in Saudi Arabia. As the adoption consider as an efficient method to evaluate the success of the implementation. It is necessary for this new innovation to be tailored to citizens’ wishes, and taking into account the religious, cultural, traditional and other beliefs to ensure the widespread adoption of this innovation. The finding reveals that performance expectancy is the strong predictor of the intention to use e‐Government followed by the trust of the internet. On the other hand, intention to use behaviour, computer self‐efficacy and availability of resources found to be significant predictors of the usage behaviour.
Keywords: e‐government, citizens, adoption, culture, UTAUT, Saudi Arabia
1. Introduction
According to Abramson and Means( 2001; P2) who consider the life cycle and the beneficial of the system, e‐ Government can be defined as " the electronic interaction( transaction and information exchange) between the government, the public( citizens and businesses) and employees ".
Many governments around the world have accelerated their implementation of e‐Government, in order to enhance the efficiency, effectiveness, quality, speed and accessibility of their services( Carter and Belanger, 2005). However, there is no universal model that may be applied to governments worldwide. Each government implements its own individual programme, whilst taking into account the characteristics of the country that involve social, cultural, economic and political factors. Characteristics such as these may assist or hinder the implementation and adoption of e‐Government. However, the implementation of e‐Government is not an easy task and the governments are faced by technical, political, organisational and social challenges which hinder the implementation process. According to Heeks( 2006) 35 % of the e‐Government project in the developing countries had completely failed while half of these projects had partly failed and only 15 % consider as successful projects.
The global index reveals that Saudi Arabia is above average in terms of e‐services, infrastructure, human resource, yet is below average in e‐participation( UN, 2010). Yesser( 2011) conducted a survey to measure customer preparedness for the use of e‐Government services, which revealed a high level of awareness of the programme at 82 %, and a high score of trust level of 92 %. However, both usage and satisfaction were at low levels, with scores of 58 % and 55 % respectively( ibid). Therefore it is clear that e‐Government should consider the perspectives of users as a means to achieving high adoption levels, and to achieve successful implementation.
E‐Government adoption had been studied widely from the perspectives of technical and management factors. There is a need for further research to examine the human factors involved, and particularly the cultural, social and psychological elements of users in developing countries. This is seen as particularly relevant by the researcher, because the lives of citizens in developing countries may be influenced more by social and cultural issues than in developed countries.
The adoption by citizens of e‐Government, as well as of information technology systems across society generally, is strongly influenced by differences of national culture( Carter and Weerakkody, 2008; Al‐Gahtani et al., 2007). When the design and reality of e‐Government implementation are revealed to be mismatched in developing countries, Heeks( 2006) explains that this often leads to its failure. E‐Government adoption can also be weakened when the unique social context and national culture of a developing country are ignored by
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