Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
offer to deliver public services rather than actual users' needs and requirements.
Verdegem and Verleye (
2009
) among others call for a more comprehensive under-
standing of users' needs and satisfaction to improve users' uptake of e-services.
The OECD (
2009
) report stated that governments need to improve the uptake of
e-services by transforming their e-government strategies. The report recognizes the
shift of focus and approach of online public services from government-centric to
user-centric by placing more attention to the context, such as social, organization,
and institutional factors, in which e-government services are delivered is needed.
This implies that the sociocultural factors in which e-government projects are
implemented must be considered from both the supply side (governments) and the
demand side (users).
7.3.1 Sociocultural Factors and the UN Report
The UN report described EGDI as being a measure of the 'willingness and capacity'
of national governments to use online methods to provide government services
(UN
2012
). While it is not clear exactly what 'willingness' means at a national
level, it is likely that national culture might be a relevant factor. Zhao (
2011
)
examined the relationship between national culture and EGDI and found that
smaller power distances, higher levels of individualism and higher long-term
orientation are all related to increased e-government development; it is possible
that these might have some relationship with the willingness that EGDI attempts to
measure.
However, it may be a mistake to make conclusions about countries' willingness.
Countries with lower per capita GDP might be extremely willing to increase their
e-government readiness but lack capacity due to economic constraints.
While the UN report does not explicitly talk about the impact of countries culture
on their e-government development, the report recommends government depart-
ments and agencies to change their culture in the form of promoting information
sharing, cooperative knowledge management to make the transformation to a more
citizen-centric approach possible. The report does not address the cultural changes
required towards e-government from the users' side, including citizen trust in
government and their willingness to voluntary participate in online services. It
is arguable that such a change is critical factor in shaping users' attitudes towards
governments' ITeS because as Evans and Yen (
2006
) note, without a deep unwaver-
ing trust of citizens in their government there will not be a free flow of information.
The UN (
2012
) report states that governments have focused predominantly on
the provision of online services from a supplier perspective. However, the report
also acknowledges that recently there has been a shift towards a more consumer
demand driven policy and greater emphasis on citizen usage of online services.
Despite this recent shift, it has been stated that the uptake of online services is still
low. This slow uptake has been attributed to accessibility of online services issues
with only 24 countries openly promote free access to e-government services
