Challenges of e-Government Services Adoption in Saudi Arabia from an e-Ready Citizen Perspective

More and more governments around the world are introducing e-government as a means of reducing costs, improving services, saving time and increasing effectiveness and efficiency in the public sector Therefore e-government has been identified as one of the top priorities for Saudi government and all its agencies. However, the adoption of e-government is facing many challenges and barriers such as technological, cultural, organizational, and social issues which must be considered and treated carefully by any government contemplating its adoption. This paper reports on a pilot study amongst online (e-ready) citizens to identify the challenges and barriers that affect the adoption of e-government services especially from their perspective in Saudi society. Based on the analysis of data collected from an online survey the researcher was able to identify some of the important barriers and challenges from the e-ready citizen perspective. As a result, this study has generated a list of possible strategies to move towards successful adoption of e- government services in Saudi Arabia. ICT to enhance internal processes and to reinvent public services to meet citizens' needs in order to engage businesses and citizens with government administrations at a faster pace, more conveniently and at a lower cost. However, e- government represents a radical change within government and also affects the relationship between a government and its citizens. Recently, governments in the Middle East have started using e-government as a means to achieve a high level of performance while providing cost effective outcomes (3). However, many of these governments are still in the beginning of that process. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the biggest country in the Middle East, is in process for a transition to e-government. KSA recognized the essential role of e-government and created the "Yesser" program, designed to achieve continuous e-government growth and development within the country (4). Today, most of the Saudi government agencies have their own web sites; however, most of these web sites are inefficient in that they just provide basic and general information about the organizations and often the data are not updated. While some of these web sites offer better functionality, such as interactive services and the ability to submit a form, it is hard to find a government Web site where you can apply for a job, arrange an appointment, or renew a license. This paper reports on research that seeks to answer the question: "What are the challenges and barriers that affect the adoption of e-government services in Saudi Arabia from citizen perspective?" The findings of this study identified some challenges that are likely to influence the adoption of e-government services such as: infrastructural weakness, lack of knowledge about e-government, lack of security and privacy of information, and lack of qualified personnel. Finally, it presents a number of critical strategies for the attention of any e-government project implementation in KSA.