Customer empowerment: Does it influence electronic government success? A citizen-centric perspective

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2015.05.003Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We investigated the impact of customer empowerment on e-government success.

  • We proposed a theoretical model and an evaluation tool for this purpose.

  • The model was validated through a survey and analyzed using partial least squares.

  • This work may provide a new research avenue for customer empowerment.

Abstract

Electronic government (or e-government) initiatives are widespread across the globe. The increasing interest in e-government raises the issue of how governments can increase citizen adoption and usage of their online services. In this study, the fundamental argument is that citizens can be viewed as customers, and that e-government success can be measured by the extent to which customer net benefits are positively influenced. Hence, the key consequents of e-government success are customer-related, and the antecedents of such success have to be considered from the customer viewpoint. We advocate that government agencies must consider their customers’ perceptions of empowerment as a key causal mechanism in deriving value from e-government systems. However, the literature appears to lack this perspective. This study aims to fill the gap by proposing a theoretical model and an associated evaluation tool that measures the e-government performance from a customer empowerment perspective. The model was validated by a survey method and analyzed using partial least squares. The results support our argument and show that all paths in the proposed model are significant.

Introduction

Information and communication technologies (ICT) have revolutionized the processes, operations and structures of public sectors in both developed and developing countries (Alshibly and Al-Dmour, 2011, Rana et al., 2015). The application of ICT to government is considered a cost-effective solution that improves communication between government agencies and their constituents by providing access to information and services online (Vragov and Kumar 2013). Most government services are now established electronically, ranging from license registration and renewal, tax filing and payment to online voting. As a result, governments in different countries have implemented beneficial electronic government (e-government in short) initiatives, and others are following suit to enable their citizens to access services and information through the Internet (Karkin and Janssen 2014).

Generally speaking, three types of e-government systems and services exist: Government to Government (G2G), Government to Citizen (G2C), and Government to Business (G2B). Government forms and services, public policy information, employment and business opportunities, voting, tax return, license registration or renewal, fine payments and so on fall under the category of G2C services (Wang and Liao 2008). There has been a recent shift of focus on creating a more citizen-centric e-government platform (Karkin and Janssen 2014), which provides services in line with citizens’ needs and offers greater accessibility. However, this endeavor cannot be guaranteed until e-government initiatives are embraced and utilized by citizens (Alshibly and Al-Dmour 2011). Consequently, citizens’ e-governance needs have become one of the primary concerns of government decision makers.

Successful implementation of e-government depends on the ability to develop services that match the goals and requirements of citizens and stakeholders. However, limited previous research studies have investigated e-government success from a citizen-based perspective (Scott et al. 2009). Specifically, citizens’ needs or perceived net benefits have not been adequately accounted for, leaving a clearly evident gap between design and reality in e-government service provision (Al-Haddad et al. 2011). To this end, the concept of “customer” (i.e., citizen) empowerment is imperative for understanding how citizens value the services they use and what features of e-government systems and services influence their perceptions (Alshibly et al. 2015). Customer empowerment can be defined as a positive subjective state evoked by the feeling of increased control over the production of desired outcomes and the prevention of undesired outcomes relative to existing or previous systems (Hunter and Garnefeld 2008).

In this study, we aim to investigate the impact of customer empowerment on e-government success. The fundamental argument is that e-government success can be measured by the extent to which customer net benefits are positively influenced, and hence the key consequents of e-government success are customer-related. The antecedents of such success thus have to be considered from the customer viewpoint, and we advocate that government agencies must consider their customers’ perceptions of empowerment as a key causal mechanism in deriving value from e-government systems. This research may potentially help to further understand the relationship between e-government and customer empowerment. It may also provide a new research avenue for customer empowerment.

Section snippets

E-government success

An often suggested surrogate indicator of information systems (IS) success is user satisfaction. Many IS researchers have regarded user satisfaction as the most important proxy of IS success, and it is also the most employed measure (Au et al., 2002, Petter et al., 2013, Zviran and Erlich, 2003). Cyert and March (1963) were among the first to suggest the concept of user satisfaction as a surrogate of IS success. They suggested that if an IS meets the requirements and needs of its users, then

Sampling and data collection

In this study, a self-completion questionnaire was designed. It was decided that the questionnaire should be circulated to citizens who are familiar with e-government services. Accordingly, purposive sampling was used. A field survey carried out by the Department of Statistics in Jordan in 2012 indicated that 43% of Jordanian families did not have computers due to financial constraints, while 47% of Jordanian households were online. The field survey also indicated that only 6.6% of Jordanians

Research results

Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used for data analysis and hypotheses testing through the SmartPLS software version 3.1.7 (Ringle et al. 2014). PLS-SEM can analyze structural equation models involving multi-item constructs, with direct and indirect paths. It works by extracting successive linear combinations of the predictors and is effective in explaining both the response and predictor variations (Davcik 2014).

More importantly, PLS-SEM has the ability to

Discussion, implications, limitations, and future research

The goal of this study was to investigate the impact of customer empowerment on e-government success. We argued that e-government success can be considered as the extent to which “net benefits” experienced by a citizen using an e-government system are positively influenced. This means it is important to take the “customer” (i.e., citizen) viewpoint into consideration. Following this perspective, the concept of customer empowerment was introduced as a key factor in determining e-government

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