AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE DETERMINANTS OF USER

ACCEPTANCE OF e-GOVERNMENT IN PUBLIC SECTOR

Sinawong Sang, Jeong-Dong Lee and Jongsu Lee

International IT Policy Program (ITPP), Technology Management, Economics and Policy Program (TEMEP)

Seoul National University, Republic of Korea

Keywords: e-Government, Public Sector, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Extended Technology Acceptance

Model (TAM2), Diffusion of Innovation (DOI), Trust, Cambodia.

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of user acceptance of e-Government in public

sector by using the technology acceptance model (TAM) as a based theoretical model. The model of

e-Government acceptance in public sector integrates constructs from TAM, the extended TAM (TAM2), the

diffusion of innovation (DOI), and trust literature. To empirically test the model, the data were collected

from 112 public officers in 10 ministries in Cambodia. The finding shows that image and output quality are

significant influential determinants toward perceived usefulness. Perceived usefulness, relative advantage,

and trust are significant determinants toward the acceptance of e-Government usage in public sector.

1 INTRODUCTION

Since the advent of a worldwide revolution in

information and communication technologies many

governments in the world have become aware of the

potential of using it, particularly internet as a tool in

enhancing their services and increasing their

efficiency in terms of accessing information and

transaction services. These electronic services often

referred to as e-Government (OECD, 2003).

However, not all e-Government initiative is success.

Although many governments have promoted these

e-Government services for many years, its uses and

achievement are few. According to Gartner (2007),

more than 60 percent of all e-Government initiatives

either fail or fall short of expected outcomes. Heeks

(2008) has analyzed more than 40 e-Government-

for-development projects in developing / transitional

countries and estimates that 35 percent of these were

total failures, while 50 percent partially failed, and

only 15 percent were successes.

A key problem from this higher rate of

e-Government failure particularly in most

developing countries is a lack of awareness of the

potential factors that help citizens to adopt

e-Government services. However, before electronic

transactions with citizens can be successful in

providing information and services to citizens,

government users at all levels must first enhance and

update their own internal systems and procedures

which involves sharing data and conducting

electronic exchanges between governmental actors

(Jeffrey, 2003). These electronic services often

defined as Government-to-Government (G2G)

e-Government setting. This G2G e-Government is

considered as a backbone of e-Government

implementation and development (Jeffrey, 2003)

because it will pave the way for e-Government

usage in the country as a whole. Hence, the objective

of this study is to examine the determinants of user

acceptance of e-Government services in public

sector by using Technology Acceptance Model

(TAM) as a based theoretical model. The results

would help government decision makers develop

policies and strategies to increase the use of

e-Government services in public sector.

The remainder of this paper is organized as

follows. Section 2 provides literature review,

followed by the research model of public officers’

acceptance of e-Government services as well as

hypotheses development presents in section 3.

Section 4 describes the research method. Section 5

presents the results of the study. Section 6 discusses

the results of the findings. Section 7 brings this

paper to a conclusion including implications and

suggestion for future research.

540

Sang S., Lee J. and Lee J.

AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE DETERMINANTS OF USER ACCEPTANCE OF e-GOVERNMENT IN PUBLIC SECTOR.

DOI: 10.5220/0001839905400545

In Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies (WEBIST 2009), page

ISBN: 978-989-8111-81-4

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Technology Acceptance Model

As shown in Figure 1 (Davis et al., 1989), TAM

proposed that two particular beliefs are the primary

drivers for technology acceptance perceived

usefulness (“the degree to which a person believes

that using a particular system would enhance his or

her job performance”) and perceived ease of use

(“the degree to which a person believes that using a

particular system would be free of physical and

mental efforts). Perceived usefulness and perceived

ease of use influences one’s attitude towards system

usage, which influences one’s behavioral intention

to use a system, which, in turn, determines actual

system usage (Davis et al., 1989). However, the

external variables which impact the perceived

usefulness and perceived ease of use are not fully

explored in TAM. Moreover, Davis et al. (1989) also

found that attitude did not fully mediate perceived

usefulness and perceived ease of use. Based on these

complimentary findings, therefore, a more

parsimonious TAM was suggested which removed

the attitude towards usage construct from the model

(Carter and Bélanger, 2005; Davis et al., 1989).

External

Variables

Perceived

Usefulness

Perceived

Ease of Use

Attitude

To wa r d

Using

Behavioral

Intention to

Use

Actual

System

Use

Figure 1: Technology Acceptance Model.

2.2 The Extended Technology

Acceptance Model

Venkatesh and Davis (2000) proposed an extended

TAM, TAM2, which consist of social influence and

cognitive instrumental processes as the determinants

of perceived usefulness, but it omitted attitude to use

due to weak predictors of either behavioural

intention to use or actual system use.

As shown in Figure 2 (Venkatesh and Davis,

2000), the social determinants are subjective norm

(the influence of others on the user’s decision to use

or not use the technology), image (the desire of the

user to maintain a favourable standing among

others), voluntariness (it reflects whether usage is

mandated or voluntary). The cognitive determinants

are: job relevance (the degree to which the

technology was applicable), output quality (the

extent to which the technology adequately

performed the required tasks), and result

demonstrability (the production of tangible results).

Experience and voluntariness were included as

Subjective

Norm

Perceived

Usefulness

Perceived

Ease of Use

Intention to

use

Usage

Behavior

VoluntarinessExperience

Image

Job

Relevant

Output

Quality

Result

Demonstrability

Technology Acceptance Model

Figure 2: The Extended TAM.

moderating factors of subjective norm.

2.3 Diffusion of Innovation

The diffusion of innovation theory has been used

extensively to explain the acceptance of IT

innovations in an organization or society

(Urbaczewski et al., 2002). The rate of diffusion of

innovation is affected by five attributes (Rogers,

2003): relative advantage (the degree to which an

innovation is seen as being superior to its

predecessor), compatibility (the degree to which an

innovation is seen to be compatible with existing

values, beliefs, experiences and needs of adopter),

complexity (the degree to which an innovation is

seen by the potential adopter as being relative

difficult to use and understand), triability (the

degree to which an idea can be experimented with

on a limited basis), and observability (the degree to

which the results on an innovation are visible).

2.4 Trust

Trust is defined as “a set of beliefs that other people

would fulfil their expected commitments under

conditions of vulnerability and interdependence”

(Rousseau et al., 1998). Lack of trust on the online

transactions has been identified as one of the major

obstacles in the adoption of e-Government services

(Carter and Bélanger, 2005) because performing

transactions over the internet involve many

uncertainties and risks (Bélanger and Carter, 2008).

3 RESEARCH MODEL AND

HYPOTHESES

Based on the preceding theoretical background,

TAM, TAM2, DOI, and trust literature are

incorporated to propose a model of user acceptance

of e-Government in public sector (see Figure 3).

AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE DETERMINANTS OF USER ACCEPTANCE OF e-GOVERNMENT IN PUBLIC

SECTOR

541

Perceived

Usefulness

Job

Relevant

Output

Quality

Perceived

Ease of Use

Relative

Advantage

Compatibility

Acceptance of

E-government

Trust

DOI

TAM

TAM2

Subjective

Norm

Image

Perceived

Usefulness

Job

Relevant

Output

Quality

Perceived

Ease of Use

Relative

Advantage

Compatibility

Acceptance of

E-government

Trust

DOI

TAM

TAM2

Subjective

Norm

Image

Perceived

Usefulness

Job

Relevant

Output

Quality

Perceived

Ease of Use

Relative

Advantage

Compatibility

Acceptance of

E-government

Trust

DOI

TAM

TAM2

Subjective

Norm

Image

Figure 3: The Research Model.

3.1 e-Government and TAM

Over the years, many researchers have found that

perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use

explained a large portion of the variance for

intention to use IT (Davis et al., 1989; Gefen et al.,

2000). In the context of e-Government, public

officers will perceive e-Government services as

useful if it can help them to find the information that

they want, to conduct or facilitate administrative

procedure transaction. So, high level of usefulness is

likely to increase user’s intention to use. Moreover,

they will perceive easy to use when they find

e-Government system (e.g. website format,

administrative process, and accessing speed) are

clear and understandable and not require a lot of

mental effort. Thus, high level of ease of use is

likely to increase user’s intention to use. It will also

contribute to higher perceived usefulness of the

system.

 H1. Perceived usefulness will be positively

related to intention to use of e-Government.

 H2. Perceived ease of use will be positively

related to intention to use of e-Government.

However, in public sector, usually public officer

who have adopted the new innovation like

e-Government service may impress others that they

don’t adopt. This may enhance their social status. As

such, public officers having a higher need for social

recognition are likely to perceive the usefulness of

e-Government services.

 H11. Subjective norm will be positively related to

perceived usefulness of e-Government.

 H12. Image will be positively related to perceived

usefulness of e-Government.

 H13. Job relevant will be positively related to

perceived usefulness of e-Government services.

 H14. Output quality will be positively related to

perceived usefulness of e-Government.

3.2 e-Government and Trust

Trust is very important in e-Government services

because when public officers browse government

website, they expect the information presented to be

accurate, correct, and timely. Because governmental

agencies may be required by law to share

information with other agencies or with the public

officers, the need for trust in the maintenance of

accurate public officers’ information will increase

(Wang and Liao, 2008).

 H3. Trust will be positively related to intention to

use of e-Government.

3.3 TAM and DOI

TAM was modified with adding the DOI theory as a

factor affecting the intention to use technology and it

is found that only relative advantage, compatibility

and complexity are more important than others in

predicting user intention to use a technology,

particularly e-Government (Carter and Bélanger,

2005; Agarwal and Prasad, 1998; Urbaczewski et

al., 2002). In addition to this, it is suggested that the

complexity construct in the DOI is often considered

to be perceived ease of use construct in TAM

(Moore and Benbasat, 1991). Hence, it is arguable to

include only relative advantage and compatibility

constructs in the model.

 H4. Compatibility will be positively related to

intention to use of e-Government.

 H5. Relative advantage will be positively related

to intention to use of e-Government.

4 RESEARCH METHOD

4.1 Sample

This research was accomplished by conducting a

questionnaire survey. We administered a survey to

112 public officers within 10 ministries in

Cambodia. Of the 112 surveys administered, all

were complete and use in the analyses. Table 1

presents the profile of the demography of the

respondents to the survey questionnaire.

4.2 Instrument Development

The items used in this survey were adapted from

previous studies (Davis, 1989; Carter and Bélanger,

2005; Gefen et al., 2000, Venkatesh and Davis,

2000) with minor changes to the context of

e-Government in public sector. Each item is rated on

a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly

disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The reliability of the

items was examined using the Cronbach’s alpha

(Cronbach, 1970). The reliability for each construct

is illustrated in Table 2. All of the items are above

WEBIST 2009 - 5th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies

542

the acceptance level of 0.7 (Hair et al., 2006).

Table 1: Demographic profile of respondents.

Category Frequency Percentage

Gender

Male 91 81.2%

Female 21 18.8%

Age

18 – 25 13 11.6%

26 – 35 78 69.6%

36 – 45 20 17.9%

46 – 55 1 0.9%

Level of

education

TAFE 4 3.5%

Bachelor 67 59.8%

Master 39 34.8%

Doctor 2 1.8%

Position

Top level 5 4.5%

Middle level 41 36.6%

Low level 57 50.9%

Others 9 8%

Place of using

internet

Office 73 65.2%

Home 4 3.6%

Both 15 13.4%

Internet cafe 20 17.9%

Experience of

using internet

< 1 year 12 10.7%

1 – 3 years 30 26.8%

4 – 5 years 28 25%

> 5 years 42 37.5%

Factor analysis was used to evaluate construct

validity. Principal Components Analysis (PCA) was

used as the extraction method and Varimax was used

a rotation technique. As can be seen from Table 3,

all of the items loaded properly on their expected

factors. However, subjective norm (SN1 and SN2)

and output quality (OQ2) were drop from further

analysis (factor loading less than .70) since the

threshold value of 0.7 for factor loading criterion

was taken (Hair et al., 2006).

Table 2: Reliability analysis.

Construct

No.

Items

Cronbach’s

Alpha

Intention to Use (IUSE) 2 .926

Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) 4 .957

Perceived Usefulness (PU) 4 .935

Subjective Norm (SN) 2 .764

Image (IMG) 3 .877

Job Relevant (JR) 2 .768

Output Quality (OQ) 2 .710

Relative Advantage (RA) 4 .929

Trust (TRUST) 2 .861

Compatibility (CP) 4 .867

5 RESULTS

Since the research model involves more than one

independent variable, multiple regression analysis is

used to test the hypotheses. Because linear

regression cannot test all relationships in a single

statistical test, it is necessary to use two separate

regressions to test the model fully (See Table 4).

Table 3: Factor analysis.

Construct Items

Component

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Perceived Ease of Use

(PEOU)

PEOU1 .926

PEOU2 .898

PEOU3 .927

PEOU4 .948

Perceived Usefulness

(PU)

PU1 .848

PU2 .840

PU3 .897

PU4 .743

Relative Advantage

(RA)

RA1 .835

RA2 .885

RA3 .873

RA4 .844

Compatibility

(CP)

CP1 .853

CP2 .791

CP3 .782

CP4 .757

Image

(IMG)

IMG1 .790

IMG2 .771

IMG3 .795

Trust

(TRUST)

TRUST1 .796

TRUST2 .846

Intention to Use

(IUSE)

IUSE1 .808

IUSE2 .829

Job Relevant

(JR)

JR1 .879

JR2 .847

Output Quality

(OQ)

OQ1 .773

AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE DETERMINANTS OF USER ACCEPTANCE OF e-GOVERNMENT IN PUBLIC

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Table 4: Regression variables and results.

First regression variables and results

Dependent

variable

Independent

variable

items

Mean Std. Dev.

PU 4 5.6183 .9562

IMG 3 4.8929 1.1575

JR 2 5.0000 .9275

OQ 1 4.9018 1.2463

Model Summary

R R Square Adjusted R

square

Std. Error of the estimate

.522 .272 .252 .8269

Hypothesis Testing

Variable Coeff. t-value Sig. Supported

H11 SN n/a n/a n/a n/a

H12 IMG .378 4.266 .000 Yes

H13 JR .125 1.496 .138 No

H14 OQ .191 2.162 .033 Yes

Second regression variables and results

Dependent

variable

Independent

variable

items

Mean Std. Dev.

IUSE 2 5.5759 .9959

PU 4 5.6183 .9562

PEOU 4 5.0737 1.1388

TRUST 2 4.8839 1.1230

CP 4 4.7790 1.0082

RA 4 5.6763 1.0508

Model Summary

R R Square Adjusted R

square

Std. Error of the estimate

.552 .305 .272 .88495

Hypothesis Testing

Variable Coeff. t-value Sig. Supported

H1 PU .347 3.650 .000 Yes

H2 PEOU -.146 -1.670 .098 No

H3 TRUST .257 3.125 .002 Yes

H4 CP .094 1.017 .311 No

H5 RA .212 2.275 .025 Yes

6 DISCUSSION

The Hypothesis 1 (H1) is supported. As shown in

Table 4, the coefficient for perceived usefulness of

e-Government acceptance is .347, which is

statistically significant at the .000 level. This

indicates that the perceived usefulness of

e-Government services is a major determinant of

user acceptance of e-Government services in public

sector. It implies that an increase in perceived

usefulness is positively influencing on the user

acceptance of e-Government in public sector, i.e.,

public officers use e-Government services if they

perceive it is efficiency and effectiveness to their

job. Government’s web portals, for example, should

be simple but more important tools that allow public

officers to complete the information search they

want or administrative procedure quickly and

accurately. In addition to this, the web portals need

to be updated on a regular basis in order to prevent

from having inaccurate information, broken links,

and incorrect email contact information. By

maintaining the portal sites and placing more

materials online, government would be encouraging

public officers, citizens and members of the business

community to go online and use e-Government

resources (West, 2008). Moreover, each government

agency should concentrate on how the delivery of

their services online could save citizens time and

money. Each government agency could make its

own public officers understanding the important of

e-Government by providing further training to make

the system attractive to them. Training programs

should stress the potential of e-Government system

rather than concentrate on only basic skills (e.g.

typing skills) because some public officers do not

need to type document by themselves.

The Hypothesis 12 (H12) and Hypothesis 14

(H14) are supported, i.e., the two main determinants

of the perceived usefulness in the model – image and

output quality – have a direct effect on perceived

usefulness. It implies that as the public officers

perceive of having e-Government as a status symbol

of their organization, they consider the

e-Government services to be important.

Furthermore, they perceive e-Government to be

useful when it is adequately performed the required

tasks or the quality of the output they get from the

system is high. Hence, each department or agency

within a government organization that provides

services through an electronic channel need to

ensure that the information they display on website

is useful, relevant, accurate, and up-to-date, in order

to provide a high level of information quality.

The Hypothesis 3 (H3) is also supported. The

result reveals that trust of e-Government services

have a significant effect on the user acceptance of

e-Government services in public sector. The result is

consistent with the previous studies (Carter and

Bélanger, 2005). Public officers’ acceptance of

e-Government services will increase if public

officers perceive the e-Government services to be

trust and secured because they are concerned about

the level of security present when providing

sensitive information online and they are only

willing to participate in the interactions if a certain

level of trust present. Hence, a trust and enforce

security mechanisms for e-Government services

should be developed. Furthermore, a legal

framework for e-Government services should be set

up which include laws for acceptance of document

in electronic format (such as downloaded

documents), cyber laws that protect against

unauthorized hacking, and laws to enable electronic

authentication.

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544

The Hypothesis 5 (H5) is also supported. It

indicates that higher levels of perceived relative

advantage are associated with increased public

officers’ acceptance of e-Government services. This

result is consistent with the previous studies (Carter

and Bélanger, 2005). This implies that the public

officers will use the e-Government services if these

services enhance their efficiency (e.g. in gathering

information from government agency).

7 CONCLUSIONS

The determinants of the proposed model – perceived

usefulness, relative advantage, and trust – are

significant predictors of user acceptance of

e-Government services in public sector. The model

explains 30.5 percent of the variance. At the same

time, the important determinants of perceived

usefulness include image and output quality.

The contributions of this study have both

theoretical and practical implications. From a

theoretical point of view, the study proposed a

comprehensive theoretical framework to identify

determinants of user acceptance of e-Government

services in public sector. Furthermore, it may serve

as the basis study for e-Government acceptance in

public sector because so far there have been few

studies of e-Government acceptance in public sector.

From a practical point of view, the results of this

study would help and benefit governmental policy

makers and governmental agencies to design and

implement policies and strategies to promote and

increase the use of e-Government services by public

officers, i.e., they should implement policies and

strategies that emphasize the usefulness, the

efficiency, and user trust of e-Government services.

The limitation of this study is that though the

research model explained some of the variance in

public officers’ perceived usefulness, relative

advantage, and trust, much of the variance remains

unexplained. Hence, identifying the independent

variables that account for the remaining variance is

important suggestion for future research. Moreover,

the sample is devoted to the public officers situated

in Cambodia. The view of them may differ from

those who are in the other countries. Thus, the result

may be limited to the specific location.

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