European Journal of Scientific Research ISSN 1450-216X Vol.48 No.2 (2010), pp.169-176 EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2010 http://www.eurojournals.com/ejsr.

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Employees Perceptions towards Electronic Government in Jordan

Haitham Hmoud Al Shibly Al Balqa Applied University E-mail: halshibly@gmail.com Ibrahim H.Tadros Al Balqa Applied University E-mail: itadros@bau.edu.jo Abstract This research designed to theoretically address and empirically examine research issues related to the question of what factors impact electronic government acceptance by Jordanian employees. Drawing from previous studies, we hypothesized seven constructs (i.e., System Quality, Information Quality, Perceived Ease of Use, and perceived ease of use) that may influence an Employees acceptance of electronic government. Two hundred questionnaires were distributed to employees at a municipality in Jordan. Multiple regressions were used to analyze the data. The results of this study show that System Quality, Information Quality, and Perceived Ease of Use, all have significant effect on electronic government acceptance. Practical implications are discussed.

Keywords: Electronic government, Information systems success, Technology acceptance model, user satisfaction

1. Introduction
Electronic government (EG), an Internet based system of information service and information process, deals with internal government bodies, other government bodies, the businesses and the public (Dijk et al, 2008). EG turning grade management structure into network management structure is fit for the virtual, global, knowledge-based digital economy and the human-based notion of social running. The development of EG is expected to bring about important benefits for public organizations, which include lower transaction costs (Hamner and Al-Qahtani, 2009), increased responsiveness to citizens needs (Badri and Alshare, 2008), and the facilitation of public involvement in support of deliberative democracy (Dijk et al, 2008). The momentous potential of EG for enhancing public service delivery has caused many governments across the globe to commit billions of dollars to its development. Jordan is no exception to this phenomenon. EG in Jordan is a national program initiated in September 2000 towards achieving the EG vision by 2005. The vision was that EG would be a contributor to Jordan's economic and social development by providing access to EG services and information for everyone in the Kingdom irrespective of location, economic status, IT ability, and education. In 2006 the Jordan admitted that the EG project had fallen short of achieving its vision by 2005 and it was admitted that EG was facing immense challenges (Al-Omari and Al-Omari, 2006). Success stories have been limited to government agencies setting up their informative websites, presumably

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networking a number of government agencies together and offering government employees to IT based training programs. Jordan deployed a new EG strategy in the year 2006 to achieve actual transformation and online service by 2009 (MoICT, 2006). Accordingly, a study on factors that influence the Jordanian employees acceptance of EG is timely. The primary purpose of this research is to analyze and extend knowledge regarding Influential factors that affect users to accept EG, in the light of technology acceptance model (TAM), and to develop a model that can be used to analyze user acceptance in the context of developing economy such as Jordan, furthermore, this research discusses the results of an empirical investigation into employee perceptions toward EG in Jordan. The rest of the paper is organized into four sections. In the first section, relevant literature is reviewed and the framework of the study presented. The second section describes the methodology adapted for the study. The results are presented and discussed in the third section. The summary of the key findings, implications and research areas for further inquiry and understanding are presented in the concluding section.

2. Theoretical Background and Research Model

Acceptance of a system is a measure of the proclivity to use that system. Without acceptance, there is no inclination to accommodate and include the system within the management process (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000). The successful implementation of information systems (IS) is dependent on the extent to which such a system is used and eventually adapted by potential users (Venkatesh and Davis, 2003). IS implementation is not likely to be considered successful if users are unmotivated to use that type of technology (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000). If users are not willing to accept the information system, it will not bring full benefits to the organization (Davis, 1989; Venkatesh and Davis, 2000). The more accepting of a new IS the users are, the more willing they are to make changes in their practices and use their time and effort to actually start using the new IS (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000). To predict, explain and increase user acceptance, organizations need to better understand why people accept or reject IS (Davis et al, 1986). In this regard, researchers have developed and used various models to understand acceptance of users of IS. Among the different models proposed the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis 1989), adapted from the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) (Venkatesh and Davis, 2003), appears to be the most widely accepted among the information system researchers (Venkatesh et al. 2003; Wang et al. 2003). The primary goal of TAM is to predict IS acceptance and diagnose design problems before user have experience with the new system. TAM suggests that when user encounter new IS technologies the two main factors influences how and when they will use the system. These two main constructs of TAM are perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU). Perceived usefulness is defined as the degree to which person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance (Davis 1989). Perceived ease of use is defined as the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free from efforts (Davis 1989). TAM proposes that two particular constructs, that are of primary significance for IS acceptance, perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU) affect users attitude towards using the information system. Attitude directly relates to users intention, which will in turn determine usage of the system. TAM has much strength; including its specific focus on IS usage, the validity and reliability of instruments, and its parsimony (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000). While basic constructs of TAM, PU and PEOU, have been considered primary determinants of individuals acceptance and use of technology. IS researchers have investigated and replicated these two constructs and agreed that they are valid in predicting users acceptance of various IS systems (Venkatesh et al 2003). However, few of TAM studies have investigated the impact of system characteristics as antecedents to ease of use or perceived usefulness (Wixom and Todd, 2005). In their integration of the technology acceptance literature, Venkatesh et al. (2003) stress the need to extend this literature by explicitly considering system and information characteristics and the way in which

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they might influence the core beliefs in TAM, and might indirectly shape system usage. Recent studies that have used TAM as a theoretical framework have suggested to exclude attitude construct from the TAM model since it does not mediate fully the effect of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use on behavioral intention as originally anticipated (Venkatesh, 2003). Recently, DeLone and McLean, (2004) in a research study related to the dimension of IS success suggested that system quality (i.e. information and system quality) affects perceived usefulness, user satisfaction and system usage. Further, Wixom and Todd (2005) developed an integrated model based on technology acceptance and user satisfaction literature. The model was tested using a sample of 465 users from seven different organizations regarding their use of data warehousing software. Findings showed that information and system characteristics explained 75% variance for system and information quality. They found that there was significant affect of information and system quality on PU and PEOU. Moreover, they suggested investigating the effects of the IT artifacts itself as an antecedent to ease of use and usefulness, and other related factors. According to Wixom and Todd (2005), TAM provides limited guidance about how to influence usage through design and implementation. They further elaborated that as PU and PEOU are abstract concepts and provide general information to the designers. Therefore designers are unable to receive actionable feedback about the important aspects of the IS artifacts itself. They identified information and system quality significant constructs which can affect IS usage. Furthermore, Davis (1989) himself noted that future technology acceptance research needs to address how variables affect usefulness, ease of use, and user acceptance. Huang, et al (2002) examined the adoption of e-government in Australian public citizens based on TAM. Huang, et als research effort focused on an actual system usage with two constructs, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Their research indicated that the prediction of TAM theory was not supported by the findings. It can be argued that basic constructs of TAM, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, may not fully determine users acceptance of EG, which therefore brings in the need to search for additional factors that may better predict and enhance the user acceptance of EG. Another point that has not been explored well in TAM research is the role of system characteristics as external variables. Davis et al. (1989) did not include other factors explicitly into the TAM model that are expected to impact intentions and usage through PU and PEOU. These external variables could be system characteristics, organizational structure, training, and the like (Davis et al., 1989). According to Davis (1989), external stimuli influence a persons attitude toward behavior indirectly by influencing his/her salient beliefs about the consequences of performing the behavior. Since system characteristics are external stimuli, they should influence beliefs (PU & PEOU) about using a system. Besides, most of these empirical studies using TAM were conducted in developed countries and in industrialized world. Very few studies related to electronic government technologies were carried out to test the applicability of the model outside these regions , Therefore, it would be erroneous to assume that IS acceptance theories and models predict equally well in other cultural settings, especially in developing countries. The robustness of the models may vary across different cultures and thus need to be empirically tested.

3. Research Model and Hypotheses

The proposed research model is presented in Figure (1). According to Wixom and Todd (2005), TAM provides limited guidance about how to influence usage through design and implementation. They further elaborated that as PU and PEOU are abstract concepts and provide general information to the designers. Therefore designers are unable to receive actionable feedback about the important aspects of the IT artifacts itself. They identified information and system quality significant constructs, which can affect IS usage.

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Based on the literature review a model of factors that influence users acceptance of EG has been proposed. The model consists of system characteristics (Information and System quality), Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and acceptance, that author posits will have an effect on EG acceptance in the context of Jordan. The incorporation of quality into the acceptance model must describe the dependency of user acceptance on system quality and information quality. A positive relationship was anticipated for all the hypotheses, (see Figure 1). The research methodology employed to test these hypotheses is described in the next section.
Figure 1: Research Model
EG System Quality

EG Information Quality

EG Acceptance

EG Perceived Ease of Use

EG Perceived Usefulness

EG System Quality System quality refers to the technical details of the information system interface and quality of system that produces information output (Delone and Mclean, 1992). Davis (1989) did not include system characteristics into TAM model, but he suggested including judicious system characteristics. According to DeLone and McLean (1992) technology characteristics singularly or jointly affect subsequent use and user satisfaction. Hence, it is assumed that system quality directly or indirectly through PU and PEOU, positively effects user acceptance of EG. Thus, this study postulates the following hypotheses: H1 EG System quality will have positive effect on user acceptance of the EG. EG Information Quality Information quality is related to the quality of information that the EG delivers to its users (DeLone and McLean, 2004). Information quality determines the success of a website design (Shih, 2003). As EG provide users means to access information systems directly by performing transactions. Therefore, EG can be viewed as information systems. Previous studies used information quality to measure IS success (Iivari, 2005), measuring e-commerce success (DeLone and McLean, 2004), and e-shopping acceptance (Shih, 2003). Shih (2003) postulated that perceived information quality positively affect PEOU, PU, attitude, and user acceptance of e-shopping. Therefore, based on theoretical and empirical support from IS literature, it is assumed that information quality positively affects PU, PEOU, and user acceptance of EG, this study leads to the following hypotheses: H2. EG Information quality will have positive effect on user acceptance of the EG. EG Perceived Usefulness Perceived usefulness (PU) defined as the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his/her job performance (Davis, 1989). According to TAM PU is a significant factor that affects user acceptance of information system (Davis, 1889; Davis et al., 1989). Several researchers provide evidence of significant effect of PU on IS acceptance and usage (Davis, 1989; Pikkarainen et al., 2003; Wang et al., 2003). Hence, EG that users think are useful are more likely to be accepted by the users. Therefore, this study proposes the following hypothesis:

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Haitham Hmoud Al Shibly and Ibrahim H.Tadros H3. Perceived usefulness will have positive effect on user acceptance of the EG.

EG Perceived Ease of Use Perceived ease of use (PEOU) is defined as the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free of efforts (Davis, 1989). TAM posits that PEOU is important factor that effect IS acceptance, either directly or indirectly through perceived usefulness (Davis et al., 1989). Venkatesh and Davis (2000) found that PEOU have positive direct effect on user acceptance of IS. Thus, if online banking systems are easy to use they are more likely to be accepted by the intended users. Thus, this study postulates the following hypotheses: H4. Perceived ease of use will have positive effect on perceived usefulness of the EG.

4. Methodology
In this section we discuss sample and data collection procedures and operational measures of variables used in the study as well as the statistical tests used to evaluate the hypothesis. Population and Sample The population of study consisted of employees at greater Amman municipality, Greater Amman municipality has around 18,000 full time staff members in general and serving the needs of a 2.2 million population, district accounts for 40% of Jordan's population, spread over an area of 688 km2. 27 administrative regions make up the municipality Amman's. The questionnaire was to be administered to all employees who use the municipality e-Government portal. Measures and Data Collection To ensure the content validity of a scale, the items selected must represent the concept about which generalizations are to be made. Therefore, validated instruments adapted from prior studies were used to measure the study variables. The items used to measure usefulness and ease of use were adapted from Davis (1989) and Sun and Zhang (2006). The items used to measure system quality and information quality were adapted and refined from Seddon and Yip (1992) and Wixom and Todd (2005). The study used a self-administered questionnaire to measure the study variables. The questionnaires were pre-tested and distributed to members of the postgraduate students and academics who are in the information systems area of specialization. The respondents were asked to critically evaluate the questionnaire with regards to its objective, contents, clarity and ease of completion, and they also assist in translation and validating the Arabic version of the survey. Prior to the actual fieldwork, the questionnaires were refined and rephrased accordingly. The modified questionnaires were then mailed to employees of the municipality. A covering letter explaining the purpose of this study was attached together, assuring them of the confidentiality of their responses, and instructing them to complete the questions, seal and return the completed questionnaires using the attached envelope. Out of the 300 questionnaires distributed to the employees, 200 usable questionnaires were returned, yielding a response rate of 67 percent, which is considered acceptable. There were 137 male and 63 female respondents. The age range of the sample was from ages 21 to 45 years with a mean of age 33 years. Out of 200 respondents, over 35 percent had achieved at least a high school qualification. Approximately 87% of the participants had more than 5 years experience in using computers A Cronbachs alpha of more than 0.6 implies that the construct measurements are reliable (Hair et al., 2008). Table 1 shows that the Cronbachs alpha values obtained in this study ranged between 0.869 and 0.937, suggesting that the measurement used in this study was reliable.

Employees perceptions towards Electronic Government in Jordan

Table 1: Reliability Results
No. of Items 3 4 3 3 Cronbachs Alpha 0.920 0.869 0.937 0.922

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Construct EG System Quality EG Information Quality EG Perceived Ease of Use EG Perceived Usefulness

Factor analysis was performed to evaluate the constructs validity. Table 2 shows the output of factor analysis using principle components with varimax rotation. As shown, all items load well on their respective construct.
Table 2:
Items SQ1 SQ2 SQ3 SQ4 IQ1 IQ2 IQ3 IQ4 PU 1 PU 2 PU 3 PEOU1 PEOU2 PEOU3

Rotated Component Matrix

F1 .848 .912 .883 .858 F2 F3 F4

.775 .689 .735 .790 .736 .798 .830 .759 .817 .738

Notes: Only loading > 0.5 are shown; Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis; Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization; Rotation converged in 4 iterations.

5. Presentation of Findings
Multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypothesized relationships. The independent variables were regressed on the measures of EIS acceptance. The multiple regression model used to test each of the hypotheses was as follows: Yi = + 1Xi 1 + 2Xi 2 + 3Xi 3 + 4Xi 4+ i Where, Yi = EG acceptance Xi 1 = EG System Quality Xi 2 = EG Information Quality Xi 3 = EG Perceived Ease of Use Xi 4 = EG Perceived Usefulness The F-test was used and all significance was tested for p < .05. In each analysis, the significance of the beta weights were also examined. In addition, the regression equations were investigated for aptness of model by analyzing the residuals. No problems were found with the normality of residuals. The results from hypotheses testing appears in table 3.
Table 3: Regression Results
B 0.604 0.257 0.049 0.088 Std. Error 0.051 0.053 0,038 0.044 F=74.085 Beta 0.563 0.220 0.090 0.055 t 11.772 4.799 1.318 2.043 p-value 0.000* 0.000* 0.042* 0.189

Variables EG System Quality EG Information Quality EG Perceived Usefulness EG Perceived Ease of Use R2(adj)= 0.559

Note: * denotes significant below .05 level

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EG System Quality, EG Information Quality, and EG Perceived Ease of Use, were found to have significant standardised regression coefficients (p-value= 0.000), in which PU has the smallest weighting. EG Perceived Usefulness, however, do not have a significant relationship with the EG acceptance. From the values of Beta weights and t-ratios for each independent variable, it becomes clear that system quality, followed by information quality factor had the highest contribution to the prediction of the dependent variable. However, perceived usefulness has the least (though still significant) contribution to the prediction. In conclusion, the results indicate support for the hypothesis H1, H2, and H4, while H3 were rejected.

6. Discussion, Conclusion, and Implication for Further Research

This study was designed to break new ground and explore the determinants that influence the user acceptance of EG. This research tested the thesis that that EG acceptance is a joint function of system and information characteristics, usefulness, and Ease of Use. Earlier studies have not framed the user acceptance determinants based on the four dimensions collectively. Hence, our study has established the significance of examining the user acceptance by framing determinants according to the relevant quality dimensions in a collective manner and thus, ensuring that the user acceptance can be better explained in an electronic context such as the EG. System quality is the most significant determinant affecting acceptance of EG acceptance. Researchers in the area of conventional IS are generally regard system quality to be a highly important characteristics of all interactive computer systems (Rai et al, 2002), independent of the specific application the system was designed to support. In turn, the finding of this research suggests that the greater the perceived system quality of an EG, the higher is the EG acceptance, agreeing with the literature noted above. However, there were no past studies about the impact of system quality of EG on user acceptance. Therefore, this research contributes to some extent to the current knowledge about the impact of system quality on user acceptance. The finding showed that information quality is significantly related to EG acceptance. There were no past studies which link information quality with EG acceptance. Nevertheless, Delone and Mclean (2004) put forward information quality as a major dimension for evaluating the success of IS. Our research adds to the literatures by identifying that level of EG information quality is significantly associated with users' acceptance in the EG context. The results showed that perceived ease of use is positively related to EG acceptance. This finding was consistent with past studies (Davis et al., 1989; Venkatesh and Davis, 2000). Our results suggest that in contexts where effective task execution substantially depends on the system such as the case with EG, beliefs about the system Ease of Use usefulness are more dominant in shaping user acceptance than beliefs about usefulness. A competing model that strengthens the theoretical and empirical foundations has been developed. Our study has been carried out in an eastern setting unlike earlier studies and this makes research in the area of technology user acceptance more comprehensive. Finally, this study suffers from a number of limitations. First, this study merely developed and validated an EG acceptance model using user perspective as the level of analysis. Future research may develop EG acceptance models using other stakeholders and levels of analysis. Second, the use of self-report scales to measure study variables suggests the possibility of a common method bias for some of the results. Future research should employ both objective and subjective measures, and examine the correspondence (or lack thereof) between them. Future research is needed to identify other factor that may impact EG acceptance, such as trust and satisfaction. Despite these limitations, the present study provides valuable insights into the study of EG acceptance.

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