Citizens' readiness for e-government in developing countries

Electronic government (e-government) has become one of the most evolving and important applications of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in recent years. Due to its positive impact on Citizens, government and society alike, most developed and developing countries have attempted to apply e-government projects with mixed success. Many developing countries were facing difficulties in applying successful e-government projects due to different electronic readiness (e-readiness) problems, such as poor ICT infrastructure and a high percentage of digital illiteracy among Citizens that have lead to e-government projects abandoned by users. Despite the various efforts by developing countries to overcome these problems, the factors that particularly affect Citizens and their use of e-government have not been adequately identified and tested. This research proposed a model based on e-readiness assessments and relevant literature that investigates the impact of Citizens' readiness for e-government (CREG) on e-government success within developing countries. The C R E G model explores a new vision for e-government success by introducing a combination of e-readiness and trust factors that together directly affect e-government projects in developing countries. The focus of the research is on government to citizen (G2C) services. Egypt was selected as an example of a developing country in which to conduct the study and three e-government services were selected for focused investigation. The research confirmed the importance of the CREG model to achieve successful e-government projects in developing countries. The proposed CREG factors including e-readiness, trust and other factors were found to be crucial in Citizens' use or non-use of e-government services. E-readiness factors showed a significant impact on increasing Citizens' usage of e-government services as Citizens who used online e-government services were more e-ready than non-users. The results also highlighted that e-readiness factors need to be combined with trust in both the technology and e-government in order to encourage more Citizens to use e-government services. Adequate security and privacy measures that ensure information protection combined with providing a credible service that satisfies Citizens' needs were shown to be important factors to encourage trust in technology and e-government.

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