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1. Introduction
The ubiquity of information technology (IT) is seen in a multitude of areas, ranging from providing
personal entertainment for individuals, improving business processes of organizations, to enabling
enhanced services from government. The last instance is termed e-Government, which refers to the
strategic application of IT, particularly the Internet, to provide citizens and organizations with more
convenient access to government information and services; and for government to interact with
business partners and transact internally (Gronlund 2002; UNPAN 2003). The World Bank (2002) has
also defined it as the use of information and communications technologies to improve the efficiency,
effectiveness, transparency and accountability of government.
Since the late 1990s, numerous governments have made huge investments in electronic
government services to link government networks and deploy a variety of service infrastructure to
37
provide extensive and proactive services. However, low levels of user acceptance of these services are
recognized as an endemic problem for government policy makers, government agencies, and eGovernment services providers. Behavioral issues of e-Government research are markedly more
important than technological ones. More empirical studies on user acceptance of e-Government
services are needed to assist governments in improving the effectiveness and quality of e-Government
services. Now the need for discovering determinants of adopting e-Government is enormous, but few
empirical studies can be found addressing the issue.
Based on the above motivation, this study aims to develop an integrative model of users
acceptance of e-Government services in Tehran city as a capital of Iran country. Tehran municipality is
established electronic services office as a tool to e-government realization. since 2008, e-services
offices have began delivery of services such as; make of urbanism file, emission of mark of traffic
plan, tenders of municipality, public supervision program and to Iranian citizens. Towards this end,
we review literature in Technology and Information System (IS) acceptance in order to identify
potential antecedents of users acceptance of these services and integrate them into a model.
2. Relevant is Literature
Lack of user acceptance has long been an impediment to the success of new information systems.
Explaining user acceptance of new technology is often described as one of the most mature research
areas in the contemporary information systems (IS) literature. Research in this area has resulted in
several theoretical models, with roots in information systems, psychology, and sociology, that routinely
explain over 40 percent of the variance in individual intention to use technology (e.g., Davis et al.
1989; Taylor and Todd 1995; Venkatesh and Davis 2000). Researchers are confronted with a choice
among a multitude of models and find that they must pick and choose constructs across the models, or
choose a favored model and largely ignore the contributions from alternative models. Thus there is a
need for review and synthesis in order to progress toward a unified view of user acceptance. Therefore
This research has yielded a number of determinants of IS use and several theories (TAM, TPB) that
have been applied to investigate IS acceptance. Figure .1 shows Basic concepts underlying user
acceptance models.
Figure 1: Basic Concept Underlying User Acceptance Models
Individual reactions to
using information
technology
Intentions to use
information
technology
Actual use of
information
technology
38
applied contexts for forecasting and evaluating user acceptance of information technology. According
to Davis, Bagozzi, and Warshaw (1989), the goal of TAM is to provide an explanation of the
determinants of computer acceptance that in general is capable of explaining user behavior across a
broad range of end-user computing technologies and user populations, while at the same time being
both parsimonious and theoretically justified (p. 985). TAM has been supported by a large number of
empirical studies (Legris et al. 2003; Lederer et al. 2000; Moon & Kim 2001; Lee and Jun. 2007;
Pavlou. 2003., Plouffe et al,2001., Hu et al,1999., Gentry and Calantone, 2002).
Figure 2: TAM (Davis et al,1989: 985)
perceived usefulness
External
variables
Attitude
Behavioral
intention
Actual
usage
Behavioral
intention
Actual
usage
perceived
behavioral control
39
maintaining their privacy (Culnan and Armstrong 1999; Culnan 1993; Dinev and Hart 2003; Hoffman
et al. 1999a; Smith et al. 1996). To mitigate these privacy concerns, trust in online companies has been
established as an important determinant of consumer behavior in the context of e-services (Liu et al.
2004; Luo 2002; Malhotra et al. 2004). Most recently, e-commerce researchers have started to study
trust in online contexts (Gefen et al. 2003; McKnight et al. 2002a; Pavlou 2002). Mayer et al. (1995)
proposed an integrative definition of trust as the willingness of a trustor party to be vulnerable to the
actions of trustee party based on the expectation that the trustee party will perform a particular action
important to the trustor party, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control the trustee party.
Consumers perceive significant risks and uncertainty when dealing with online services, because of
factors such as, uncertainty about vendor attributes and behavior, inability to inspect the product and
services, inability to monitor the actions of the online company, privacy and security of personal
information et cetera. Risk perception is defined as the subjective probability of suffering a loss in
pursuit of a desired outcome. In the absence of direct measures to control social complexity in an
online environment, trust is often viewed as an important factor to reduce risk and uncertainty
(Luhmann 1979). Trust in companies increases the likelihood that consumers will participate in eservices transactions (McKnight et al. 2002b). in attention to above reasons, we added mentioned
constructs to research model. Other constructs of the model which is adapted of TAM & TPB is
defined as below.
Personal innovativeness Defined as the willingness of an individual to try out any new
information technology (Agarwal and Prasad 1998: 206). Perceived usefulness is defined as the extent
to which a person believes that using a particular system will enhance his or her job performance
(Davis, 1989: 320., Venkatesh et al,2003: 447). Perceived ease of use is defined as the extent to which
a person believes that using a particular system will be free of effort (Venkatesh & Davis,2000:187;
Venkatesh et al,2003:450). Self Efficacy is defined as peoples judgment of their capabilities to
organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performance
(Bandura,1986: 391.,Taylor & Todd,1995a: 149-150). Perceived facilitating conditions Defined as the
degree to which an individual believes that an organizational and technical infrastructure exists to
support use of the system(Venkatesh et al,2003: 453). Attitude toward the behavior reflects an
individuals evaluation or general feeling toward a target behavior. It indicates an individuals positive
or negative evaluation about performing the behavior. The attitude toward a behavior is a product of
beliefs about the behavior and the individuals evaluation of the outcome resulting from that behavior
(Fishbein & Ajzen,1975: 216). Social influences defined as the degree to which an individual
perceives that important others believe he or she should use the new system (Venkatesh et al, 2003:
451., Mathison,1991: 181). Perceived behavioral control reflects an individuals perception of ease or
difficulty of performing a target behavior. It is a product of control beliefs about a certain behavior and
the individuals perceived facilitation of each control belief (Taylor & Todd,1995a: 149-150).
Behavioral intention is defined as ones intention to adopt a certain behavior(Morris & Dillon,1997:
61).
40
Personal
innovativeness
H2
H10
H3
Perceived
usefulness
Attitude
H4
Perceived ease
of use
H11
Social influences
Behavioral intention
H5
Security
concerns
H12
H6
privacy
concerns
Trust beliefs
Self efficacy
Perceived facilitating
conditions
Perceived risk
H7
H8
H13
Perceived behavioral
control
H9
41
4. Research Method
The data were collected using a paper questionnaire survey. First, this study used a stratified cluster
sampling frame based on the geographical direction in Tehran city, including: north, south, west and
east as a cluster. within each cluster, three zones and in each of zone, two e-services offices is selected
randomly. Therefore we selected 24 offices among 69 ones in Tehran city. 16 questionnaires is
distributed between individuals who were customers of these offices. Then, 349 usable responses of
384 questionnaires were collected and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). To verify
the construction of the research model and measurement instruments, several professors and users were
also interviewed to modify the research model and the construction of the questionnaire.
Variable
Personal innovativeness
Perceived usefulness
0.875
Security concerns
privacy concerns
Trust beliefs
0.844
0.794
0.832
Self Efficacy
0.806
Perceived facilitating
conditions
Attitude
Social influences
Perceived risk
Perceived behavioral control
Behavioral intention
0.734
Source
Agarwal & Prasad 1998,
Venkatesh et al. 2003, Davis 1989, Koufaris,
2002, Thompson et al 1991, Compeau and
Higgins 1995.
Venkatesh et al. 2003, Davis 1989, Koufaris,
2002, Davis et al 1989, Thompson et al 1991.
Smith et al. 1996, Salisbury et al 2001,
Malhotra et al. 2004, Smith et al. (1996)
Koufaris & Hampton-Sosa 2002, Bhattacherjee
2002,
Venkatesh et al. 2003, Compeau and Higgins
1995.
Venkatesh et al. 2003, Thompson et al 1991.
0.902
0.820
0.854
0.741
0.914
42
SEM. This study selected LISREL for Windows (version 8.8) as the SEM approach for estimating the
model.
Variable
Gender
Age
Education
Marriage status
Male
Female
<20 years old
21-30 years old
31-40 years old
41-50 years old
>50 years old
Senior high school graduate
Bachelor
Master or above
Single
Married
Count
255
94
27
110
126
84
2
42
211
96
91
258
Percentage
73.1
26.9
7.7
31.45
36.2
24.1
0.55
12
60.4
27.5
26.1
73.9
43
zero and one. the p-value is the probability, under the assumption of a hypothesis H0, of obtaining data
at least as incompatible with H0 as the data actually observed.
Goodness of fit indexes (GFI & AGFI) determines if the model being tested should be accepted
or rejected. These overall fit tests do not establish that particular paths within the model are significant.
If the model is accepted, the researcher will then go on to interpret the path coefficients in the model
("significant" path coefficients in poor fit models are not meaningful).
RMSEA is a popular measure of fit, partly because it does not require comparison with a null
model and thus does not require the author posit as plausible a model in which there is complete
independence of the latent variables. Also, RMSEA has a known distribution, related to the non-central
chi-square distribution, and thus does not require bootstrapping to establish confidence intervals.
RMSEA is computed as ((chisq/((n-1)df))-(df/((n-1)df)))*.5, where chisq is model chi-square, df is the
degrees of freedom, and n is number of subjects. there is good model fit if RMSEA less than or equal
to .05. There is adequate fit if RMSEA is less than or equal to .08. More recently, Hu and Bentler
(1999) have suggested RMSEA .06 as the cutoff for a good model fit.
Table 3:
Fit index
Chi-square/degree of freedom
p-value
GFI (goodness-of-fit index)
AGFI (adjusted goodness-of-fit index)
RMSEA (root mean square error of
approximation)
Recommended Criteria
<3
>0.05
>0.9
>0.9
<0.05
0.044
In these results, the structural model presented here indicates adequate fit with the observed
data, compared with the suggested fit criteria.
The second step in model estimation was to examine the significance of each hypothesized path
2
in the research model, as well as the variance explained (R value) by each path. LISREL reports raw
and standardized estimates for all specified paths, along with standard errors and test statistics for each
path. The results are shown in Fig. 5 (the measurement model and belief correlations are omitted for
clarity). Twelve of the hypothesized thirteen paths are significant at the 0.01 or 0.05 level.
Fig. 5 displays all structural relationships among the studied constructs. The figure indicates
that variance in E-services office acceptance intention explained by the model is 72 percent, which is
very high given that numerous factors may affect acceptance intention for this services. Variance in
individual intention towards E-services office adoption was totally explained 72 percent by attitude,
perceived behavioral control, perceived risk, and social influences. As noted in the TPB, intentions to
accept the E-services office can be effectively explained by attitude, social influences, and perceived
behavioral control. Furthermore, the results showed that variance in individual intentions towards
accepting the E-services office can be explained by the large proportion of attitudes and perceived
behavioral control in the sample, along with a relatively small proportion of perceived risk and social
influences.
In this context of the E-services office acceptance, attitude is mainly determined by perceived
usefulness, perceived ease of use, and Personal innovativeness. perceived ease of use is not significant
in explaining variance of perceived usefulness toward E-services office acceptance. Regarding total
variance of attitude, perceived usefulness can explain 41 percent of the variance, along with perceived
ease of use (28 percent), Personal innovativeness (18 percent). Furthermore, total variance of selfefficacy to accept these services can explain 49 percent of the perceived behavioral controls variance,
and 36 percent of the variance can be explained by facilitating conditions. Regarding total variance of
perceived risk, trust beliefs can explain 32 percent of the variance, along with privacy concerns (18
percent) and security concerns (11 percent). Therefore, perceived usefulness, trust beliefs, privacy
44
concerns, and self-efficacy are more important than other determinants for the E-services office
acceptance.
Figure 5: Results of the model
Personal
innovativeness
Perceived
usefulness
Perceived ease
of use
Security
concerns
privacy
concerns
0.26
0.26
0.53
0.53
0.69
0.69
Social influences
R
R22=0.12
=0.12
0.188
0.188
0.39
0.39
0.152
0.152
0.241
0.241
Perceived risk
Behavioral intention
R
R22=0.72
=0.72
-0.302
-0.302
22
R
R == 0.408
0.408
Trust beliefs
-0.483
-0.483
Self efficacy
0.571
0.571
Perceived
facilitating conditions
Attitude
R
R22== 0.69
0.69
Perceived behavioral
control R
R22== 0.58
0.58
0.419
0.419
0.424
0.424
As shown in figure.5, twelve of the thirteen hypotheses were significantly supported, and only
hypothesis H1was not empirically supported in this study. The results indicate that perceived ease of
use did not significantly affect perceived usefulness of e-government services.
Consistent with the proposed research model, the results suggest that privacy and security
concerns, and trust beliefs had effects on risk perception. Among these effects, trust had the largest
effect followed by privacy and security concerns. The effect of privacy concerns on risk perception
was larger than that of security concerns. As the consumers get more experienced and sophisticated
using the Web, the security concerns which they may have had at the beginning are not reflected in
their risk perceptions. Its likely that they have adopted protective measures on their own to protect
their privacy online. In contrast to privacy concerns, security concerns are evolutionary beliefs. These
beliefs can be transformed over time with more awareness and Internet experience. As consumers
become familiar with ongoing threats of privacy intrusion, such as the uses of information gathering
technologies like spyware, malware and adware; they are more likely to adopt protective measures.
Such protective measures may be installing and updating firewall, virus definition files, anti-spyware
tools et cetera. With the adoption of protective measures, consumers become more confident in taking
part in e-government services since they are able to mitigate their security concerns to some extent.
The effect of trust was the largest among the predictors of risk perception. Online government
develop trust beliefs in consumers by assuring them of their expertise in performing electronic
45
transactions, being fair in its conduct of customer transactions and keeping the customers best
interests in mind. Besides these actions, online government can also encourage consumers to do
affaires with them by assuring the protection of their personal information. Such measures include the
use of trust and security seals on their websites. By developing trust in consumers, online government
are able to compromise the effects of privacy and security concerns to a greater extent and thereby
encourage the consumers to take part in e-government. Developing trust beliefs is a necessary
condition for consumers to participate e-government since the online government have no
opportunities of creating personal relationships as in an offline environment.
Furthermore, risk perception had effects on behavioral intention. Similarly, attitude, perceived
behavioral control, and social influences had a positive and direct effect on intention to take part in egovernment services. Among the predictors of intention, attitude was the most influential followed by
perceived behavioral control, perceived risk and social influences. attitude is the most important
implying that consumers are most likely to decide to take part in e-government based on their favorable
opinion of the online government.
Conclusion
An empirical study was conducted to identify determinants of user acceptance for e-Government
services. Some preliminary lessons can be drawn from the above analytical results. Clearly, much of
the path significance and variance explained are consistent with prior empirical findings (Jarvenpaa et
al. 1999; Jarvenpaa et al. 2000; Kimery and McCord 2002; van der Heijden 2003 Pavlou and Gefen
2004 Miyazaki and Fernandez. 2001)). That is, e-Government services acceptance intention can be
explained in terms of attitude, perceived behavioral control, perceived risk and social influences. The
academic value of this study is threefold. First, this study proposed a comprehensive theoretical
framework to identify determinants of e-Government services acceptance. Second, by comparing two
intention-based theoretical models (TAM and TPB), this study confirmed that the proposed model has
2
a high explanatory power for intention (R = 72 percent). Compared with previous studies, the total
variance in intention to accept e-government services was higher or comparable to prior studies (e.g.,
2
2
2
R = 70 percent in Venkatesh et al., R = 60 percent in Taylor and Todd, and R = 62 percent in
Mathieson). Third, the sample group was real user of e-services offices. Thus, the validity of the
findings is not limited. In addition, managerial implications for government policy makers, government
agencies, and system developers are also discussed. The findings can provide useful recommendation
to development of practice and policy making, which are customer oriented and evidence based. For
governmental policy makers responsible for future strategic planning of e-Government services or
effective e-services offices in particular, this study provides the following recommendations:
Several studies pointed out lacked appropriate performance measurements for e-Government
services. The eight important antecedents (i.e., personal innovativeness, perceived usefulness,
perceived ease of use, security concerns, privacy concerns, trust beliefs, self-efficacy, and
perceived facilitating condition) of user acceptance of e-services offices were identified.
Accordingly, to effectively evaluate the performance of e-Government services, we suggest that
policy makers can improve strategic planning for e-Government services investments through
monitoring these eight factors as performance indicators.
to retain e-Government service adopters, we suggest policy makers that marketing strategies
for e-Government services seeking to increase user loyalty and retention can focus on these
eight points. Alternatives include improving user interface of e-Government services,
enhancing services security mechanisms, employing mass media marketing, and increasing the
availability of necessary hardware and software for e-Government service use. Furthermore, for
supporting and marketing e-Government service adoption, we suggest that policy makers
should emphasize the advertising of adopters successful experience to attract non-adopters.
46
Social influences significantly affect adopters intention to use e-services offices, as well as
perceived behavioral control significantly affects adopters intention to use. hence, we suggest
that policy makers should make plans of action on enhancing external and internal influences
for citizens and continuously increasing users self-efficacy and providing resources required to
use e-Government services for citizens.
For governmental agencies responsible for developing implementation strategies for eGovernment services, this study provides the following recommendations:
Important determinants of e-Government services use in sequence are attitude, perceived
behavioral control, perceived risk and social influences. To successfully implement eGovernment services given constraints in resources, we suggest that governmental agencies can
set priorities based on the relative importance of the factors.
To increase positive attitude towards e-Government services, we suggest that governmental
agencies should develop implementation strategies that emphasize the usefulness and ease of
use of e-Government services.
To manipulate social influences, we suggest governmental agencies that marketing strategy
should seek to produce family members, friends and peer impacts. For example, encouraging eGovernment service adopters to enhance their referred groups (family, friends and peer)
influence through various channels; endorsing e-Government service by well-known stars.
To increase perceived behavioral control in using e-Government services, we suggest
governmental agencies that a market segment focus on high self-efficacy user will clearly be
the most efficient means of achieving an increase in perceived behavioral control. high selfefficacy users have higher perceived behavior control than other users. Relatively, their
perceived behavior control has a strong multiplier effect on e-government service adoption. We
thus can train and educate citizens to increase users self-efficacy.
Privacy concerns, security concerns, trust, and perceived risk are key factors influencing user
acceptance of the e-Government services. Therefore, we suggest that system developers should
provide a user-friendly interface, reinforce security mechanisms and privacy protected tactics
for e-Government services.
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