International Journal of Information Communication Technologies and Human Development, 4(1), 39-51, January-March 2012 39

Trust Dimensions
and the Adoption of
E-Government in Jordan
Emad Abu-Shanab, Yarmouk University, Jordan
Ameen Al-Azzam, Yarmouk University, Jordan

ABSTRACT
E-government project utilization depends on users adoption of the system, where trust is a crucial factor in
forcing the intentions to use such systems. This research utilized 105 usable responses from citizens who used
and explored e-government services. It was hypothesized that trust in e-government and trust in the Internet,
along with perceived risk, will significantly influence trust in E-government, and further intention to use
the system. Using path analysis, results supported trust in government and the Internet and did not support
perceived risk. Also, trust in e-government significantly influenced intention to use the system. Finally, path
analysis indicated a significant mediation of trust in E-government, where direct and indirect effects were
estimated. Conclusions and future work are stated at the end.
Keywords:

E-Government Adoption, Jordan, Path Analysis, Perceived Risk, Trust in Government, Trust
in Internet

1. INTRODUCTION
Trusting an e-government Website is a crucial
step towards the adoption of such paradigm.
It is important to build this cumulative trust in
e-government to facilitate and encourage the
interaction between government and their customers (citizens and business). E-government
can be defined as the use of information and
communication technology (ICT) and particularly the Internet to deliver information and
services by the government to its customers
(citizens and businesses). E-government gained
DOI: 10.4018/jicthd.2012010103

popularity in the last few years and adoption

in the last years (Papadopoulou, Nikolaidou,
& Martakos, 2010). Such increase in adoption
came as a result of the gains to government,
citizens and businesses. But despite these gains,
e-government didnt reach its full potential yet.
Factors like trust are still overlooked.
E-government is an open domain that can
be accessed by anybody in the world, which
leads to a high level of uncertainty and risk in
the services it delivers to citizens. Horst, Kuttschreuter, and Gutteling (2007) argue that the
risk of e-government services comes from the
information sent and stored electronically. Such
information can be easily copied, modified, de-

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40 International Journal of Information Communication Technologies and Human Development, 4(1), 39-51, January-March 2012

stroyed, or accessed by others without citizens

approval. Alsaghier, Ford, Nguyen, and Hexel
(2009) argue that trust plays an important role
in the adoption of e-commerce and specially egovernment by improving confidence between
citizens and government.
Many factors can influence trust of citizens
in e-government such as: trust in technology,
trust in government, perceived ease of use,
perceived usefulness, risk perception, privacy
concerns, security, information provided by
governments, and demographics of citizens using e-government. Trust in e-government is an
important factor in the adoption of e-government
initiatives, lower trust in e-government leads to
lower interaction with e-government portals and
less satisfaction with e-government services.
The main objective of this research is to
explore the dimensions of trust as an important
factor to build confidence and satisfaction
between citizens and e-government, and to
build a framework of trust in e-government.
The paper will review previous work related to
trust in e-government, followed by a description
of research method and sample used. Finally,
the paper will end with recommendations and
future work related.

2. BACKGROUND OF
E-GOVERNMENT
E-government is a discipline that comes
from many areas of research like information
technology, political science, public and business administration. Such issue influenced
the definition of e-government, where many
definitions where proposed based on the view
of the research domains they belong to. The
literature indicates some similarities and differences between e-government and e-commerce
field. Carter and Belanger (2004) argue that
both e-government and e-commerce depend
on the Internet technology in delivering their
services. Differences between e-government
and e-commerce are the following: citizens
interact with government in a much richer set
of different contexts and life episodes than with

a single e-commerce vendor. Second, citizens

have no choice to choose between service providers while e-commerce customers have many
services providers. Third, citizens have stronger
trust in e-government and in the technology used
than in e-commerce (Riedl, 2011).
Evans and Yen (2006, p. 209) defined the
e-government as e-government means the
communication between the government and its
citizens via computers and a web-enabled presence. The advantages in timeliness, responsiveness, and cost containment are outstanding.
Bhatnagar (2004, p. 22) defined egovernment as a process of reform in the
way government works, shares information
and delivers services to external and internal
clients. Specifically, e-government harnesses
information technologies (such as wide area
networks, the Internet and mobile computing)
to transform relations with citizens, businesses
and other arms of government. These technologies can serve a variety of ends: better delivery
of government services to citizens; improved
interactions with business and industry; citizen
empowerment through access to information,
or more efficient government management.
The resulting benefits can be less corruption,
increased transparency, greater convenience,
revenue growth and/or cost reductions. Also,
Yildiz (2007, p. 650) defines e-government as
the relationships between governments, their
customers (businesses, other governments, and
citizens), and their suppliers (again, businesses,
other governments, and citizens) by the use of
electronic means.
In this paper we define e-government as the
use of information and communication technology (ICT) and particularly the Internet to deliver
information and services by the government to
its customers (citizens and businesses).
E-government efforts are categorized into
Government to Citizens (G2C), where citizens
can access services from home. Information that
citizens need to carry out their transactions is
available on the government web site. They can
pay bills for telephone and electricity and other
utilities. The second category is Government to
Business (G2B), where governments serve busi-

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International Journal of Information Communication Technologies and Human Development, 4(1), 39-51, January-March 2012 41

nesses through automated transactions because

of the large size of these transactions such as
e-procurement, e-auctions and tax collection.
Finally, Government to Government (G2G),
where services and transactions are related to
government agencies and public employees
(Hiller & Blanger, 2001).
On the other hand, research in the e-government area focused on the stages followed by
these initiatives. Models related to this issues
ranged from a four to seven stages models.
Bhatnagar (2004) adopted a four stage model,
where e-government initiative transforms from
web presence, to limited interaction, to transaction, and finally transformation. Another model
proposed a five stage model emphasizing the difference between web-presence and publishing
information The United nations e-government
readiness report proposed the following five
stages: where the services of e-government
transform from emerging information services,
to enhanced information services, to transactional services, and finally connected services
(UN Report, 2010).

3. TRUST CONSTRUCT
Trust is a social connection by individuals to
surmount the complexity and uncertainty in
interacting with another party (Dashti, Benbasat, & Jones, 2010). Trust has been explored
extensively and defined differently in numerous
research studies. Trust is a highly complex,
multi-dimensional and context-specific phenomenon (Papadopoulou et al., 2010). According to Ridings, Gefen, and Arinze (2002)
the definition of trust in online environment is
complex because people dont meet in faceto-face setting.
The concept of trust discussed in many
areas like philosophy, psychology, sociology,
economics, and organizational theory (Chopra
& Wallace, 2002; Colesca, 2009b). Colesca
(2009b) proclaims that the existence of many
definitions for trust in the literature comes as
a result of two main reasons: first, trust is an
abstract concept, used instead of many concepts

such as reliability, safety and certainty, and this

leads to an unclear definition which makes it
challenging for researchers to agree on a unified definition. Second, trust is a psychological
concept with many facets, including cognitive,
emotional and behavioral dimensions.
According to Aljazzaf, Perry, and Capretz
(2010, p 165) trust is defined as the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the action of
another party based on the expectation that the
other will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective to the ability to
monitor or control that other party. Another
definition by Belanger and Carter (2008, p.
166) describes trust as an expectancy that the
promise of an individual or group can be relied
upon. AL-Omari and AL-Omari (2006, p. 843)
define the trust as a central defining aspect
of many economic and social interactions. It
is the belief that the other party will behave
as expected in a socially responsible manner;
and in doing so, it will fulfill the trusting partys
expectations.
Research emphasize the cumulative process in building trust, where the levels of trust
in earlier stages affect the later stages and impact the development of trust in a longer-term
relationship (Colesca, 2009a, 2009b). Also,
such contradiction in trust segmentation makes
this research more important. Yaghoubi, Khani,
and Esmaeali (2011, p. 415) proclaimed that
we need to develop a multidimensional model
taking into account the kind of research and
its nature to provide a basis for practical and
fundamental research in understanding trust
in electronic domain. A study that utilized 302
Jordanian students and aimed at testing e-voting
systems in a student council election setup,
concluded that trust is a major predictor of such
systems, and also, security and privacy were
not significant in such settings (Abu-Shanab,
Knight, & Refai, 2010).
Literatures of sociology, psychology, management, and information systems research,
have utilized five major antecedents of trust,
which also are called trusting bases, which
provide the foundation for trust.

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42 International Journal of Information Communication Technologies and Human Development, 4(1), 39-51, January-March 2012

Knowledge-Based Trust
The confidence that desired behavior comes
from the experience and the direct interaction
with trustee (Dashti et al., 2010). According
to Wang (2010) knowledge-based trust comes
from the familiarity with other party and the
familiarity can build the trust between two parties through reducing the uncertainty.

rather than the direct interaction with trustee

(Wang, 2010). When people lack the information
and they havent any experience with the trustee,
they will use their cognition or first impression
(Li et al., 2008). The researchers also argued
that cognitive-based trust is a substitute for the
knowledge-based trust when we deal with an
unfamiliar trustee.

Institution-Based Trust

4. THE CONCEPTUAL MODEL

According to Dashti et al. (2010) institutionbased trust means that citizens believes that
laws, rules and regulations will guarantee that
the government will behave as expected. Lean,
Zailani, Ramayah, and Fernando (2009) indicated that if citizens believe that the Internet
lacks the proper rules, laws and regulations, they
will not have high level of institution-based trust.

Based on the literature related to trust in the egovernment area, and the previous discussions,
a conceptual model is proposed based on three
factors: Trust in technology, Trust in government and Perceived risk. Figure 1 represents
the proposed trust model.

Calculative-Based Trust

According to Lee, Kim, and Ahn (2011), users

might face uncertainty related to the use of
the Internet technology. Individuals will have
concerns about the reliability and security of
online transaction especially if they did not
use e-government before. To overcome these
concerns users may rely on their past experience
with e-commerce. So uncertainty can be reduced
if users have a positive experience with new
technology. Trust in the Internet was explored
by and found to be a significant predictor of
perceived risk, which significantly predicted
ITU. The study utilized 260 responses and
concluded that ITU will be influenced directly
by PR, trust in e-filer, and optimism bias.
Based on that, trust in technology has two
risk dimensions: privacy and security risks
(Teo, Srivastava, & Jiang, 2008). Security risks
are related to technology used; the risks occur
when citizens feel that technology is not safe
and they worry about important information
like ID, password and financial information.
Privacy and security issues were significant
predictors of e-government website adoption
(Abu-Shanab & Abu-Baker, 2011). The study
utilized 300 Jordanian students and concluded
that usability, accessibility and privacy/security were major predictors of the adoption of

Trust based on peoples calculations of the

benefits and costs the other party will face
if engaged in an opportunistic behavior. So
citizens tend to trust when the other party has
nothing to gain, or the cost is higher than the
benefit of an opportunistic behavior (Dashti et
al., 2010; Li, Hess, & Valacich, 2008).

Personality-Based Trust
This construct is based on the belief of the
other party, that is, the other party has specific
attributes (Wang, 2010) such as competency,
the belief that people assess whether the other
party has the skills, abilities, expertise to satisfy
their needs; integrity, the belief that the online
trader will behave in an honest way and will
adhere to principles and standards; benevolence,
people assess whether the vendor focuses on
making profit or on customers interest (Lean
et al., 2009).

Cognitive-Based Trust
Cognitive-based trust describes how people
build their trust based on the first impression

Trust in Internet

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International Journal of Information Communication Technologies and Human Development, 4(1), 39-51, January-March 2012 43

Figure 1. The proposed research model

e-government websites. Information quality is

important to build trust in e-government services, and to adopt such services. Such conclusions were reached based on a study conducted
in Lebanon utilizing 245 responses and reached
conclusions regarding the influence of government influencing capabilities and accuracy of
government information, which both build in
trust in government construct (Chalhoub, 2010).
The privacy risks occur when citizens are
concerned about their personal information
not to be safe and they lack control over their
information. Privacy is classified into three
categories: access to personal information,
control over personal information, and freedom
from judgment or inspection by others (Whitley,
2009). Governments collect a great deal of personal information when they deliver services
to citizens (Leonetti, 2010). If citizens feel that
their information is unsafe, or the government
is not protecting personal information they
will lose confidence in e-government services.
McLeod and Pippin (2009) defined security as
citizens belief that his information will be safe
from all types of intrusion (viruses and hacking).
So if citizens feel that privacy and security is
low in the technology used they will not trust
in e-government website.

Trust in Government
Trust in government is defined as the confidence
of citizens in their government (both politicians
and public officials) to do the right things and
act appropriately and honestly on behalf of the
public (Bannister & Connolly, 2011). Trust in

government leads to the success of e-government website (Teo et al., 2008). The authors
indicated that government-citizen relationship
plays a vital role in perceiving government
websites trustworthy. Colesca (2009a) argued
that trust in government is the ability of the
government to provide online services. Trust
in government is related to citizens expectation and knowledge of government (Cullen &
Reilly, 2007).
Trust in government appears from three
factors (Bannister & Connolly, 2011): first,
the characteristics of the individual (i.e., his
or her socialcultural background); second,
professional standards and public statements
of ethical standards (institutional trust); finally,
experience (process trust). Trust in e-filer, used
by Schaupp and Carter (2010), can be related
to trust in government as in Jordan, this filing process is done mainly for individuals by
government employees. Finally, adopting egovernment and using it might improve citizens
trust in the performance of the public agency,
but will not lead to greater trust in federal
government overall (Morgeson et al., 2010).

Perceived Risk
Perceived risk is defined as consumers psychological perception of risks in the process
of online shopping, the subjective forecast
about the likelihood and the seriousness of
loss (Wang, Wang, & Dong, 2010, p. 342).
Liu and Zhou (2010) indicated that there is
a strong relationship between trust and risk.
Many dimensions of perceived risk are men-

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44 International Journal of Information Communication Technologies and Human Development, 4(1), 39-51, January-March 2012

tioned in the literature like: Financial risk,

the loss of money through online shopping;
Time risk, the loss of time in consumer search
or ordering; Functional risk, in case the function of a product purchased over Internet does
not perform as expected; Physical risk, is the
danger of harm or injury to the customers or
others while using a product or service; Social
risk, is the potential change of status in ones
social group as the result of adopting a product
or service; and finally, privacy risk (Ruizhong,
Xiaoxue, & Zixian, 2010; Rotchanakitumnuai,
2007; Wang et al., 2010).
It is reported that perceived risk has a
negative influence on the intention to exchange
information and complete transaction in e-commerce (Belanger & Carter, 2008). The authors
indicated that the integration of disposition to
trust, trust in the Internet, trust in government
and perceived risk are important to the adoption
the e-government initiatives, they also indicate
that government agencies should budget trust
building to their financial plans in addition to
the technical staff and software.
Research that mixed trust, privacy and security tried to build different perspectives of the
three constructs. Yaghoubi, Kord, and Shakeri
(2010) proposed that privacy, security, and trust
will influence what they labeled perceived risk
and PR will influence ITU. Results indicated
that all four relationships were significant. The
model included other predictors. Based on the
previous review, the following hypotheses are
proposed. The hypotheses are based on the trust
in e-government adoption model (Figure 1).
H1: Trust in government will positively influence the trust in e-government.
H2: Trust in internet will positively influence
the trust in e-government.
H3: Perceived risk will negatively influence
the trust in e-government.
H4: Trust in e-government will positively influence the adoption of e-government.

5. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This empirical study utilized a questionnaire that
consisted of two parts. Part one gathered general
information about respondents like: gender,
age, education, occupation, income per month,
and other usage related data. Part two asked the
respondents to answer 17 likert scale questions
to measure to what extent does citizens trust egovernment and how such trust in e-government
impact the intention to use the services of egovernment. The items of the instrument were
adapted from previous research (Karavasilis,
Zafiropoulos, & Vrana, 2010; Colesca, 2009a,
2009b; Belanger & Carter, 2008), and adjusted
to fit with the Jordanian environment. This
included an arbitration process utilizing 15
master students in an e-government graduate
course. A pilot test was conducted in order to
assess the questionnaires comprehension and
eliminate potential problems, so the preliminary
questionnaire was administered to a group of
master students at Yarmouk University.
The population of this study was defined
as Jordanian citizens with regular access to
Internet. A paper-based survey was distributed
to 150 citizens in Jordan, 120 surveys were collected, with 105 usable surveys. The sampling
process was done randomly within Yarmouk
University and on voluntary bases. Respondents were asked if they knew e-government
website and services, and then requested to fill
the survey. Mater students were the majority
of the sample (70.5%), employed respondents
were (37%). Table 1 shows the demographics
of the sample.

6. DATA ANALYSES AND

DISCUSSION
The proposed model needs to be tested using
path analysis or structural equation modeling
techniques. The method adopted in this research
was path analysis and according to Baron and
Kenny proposed steps (1986). The steps com-

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International Journal of Information Communication Technologies and Human Development, 4(1), 39-51, January-March 2012 45

Table 1. Demographics of the sample

Gender

Frequency

Male

52

49.5%

Female

53

50.5%

Total

105

100%

Education

Frequency

High school or less

8.6%

Bachelor

74

70.5%

Master

17

16.2%

PhD

1%

Other

3.8%

Total

105

100%

Age

Frequency

18-25 years

62

59%

26-35 years

24

22,9%

36-45 years

14

13.3%

More than 45 years

4.8%

Total

105

100%

Occupation

Frequency

Private sector

12

11.4%

Public sector

27

25.7%

Student

60

57.1%

Unemployed

4.8%

Retired

1%

Total

105

100%

prise multiple/single regression set of tests,

where direct and indirect effects of variables
are estimated. Tables 2, 3, and 4 below are the
coefficient tables of the multiple/single regression test results, where trust in e-government
(TEG) and intention to use E-government
(ITU) were used respectively in the analyses
as dependent variables.
The tables indicate the non-significant
effect of perceived risk on either ITU or TEG.
Thus this predictor was dropped from the
model. On the other hand, the two independent
variables trust in government (TG) and trust in
the Internet (TI) explained 34.8% of the variance in trust in E-government (TEG). Also,

TEG explained 21.9% of the variance in ITU.

Table 2 shows the coefficient of the regression
were trust in e-government was the strongest
predictor of ITU (beta = 0.377). Also, as mentioned PR failed to predict ITU as beta was too
small (beta = 0.042, p>0.05).
To complete the Baron and Kenny steps, we
need to conduct a multiple regression between
the second level dependent variable (mediator)
with the predictors; results are shown in Table
2. Results indicate a similar relationship level
as in Table 2. These steps indicate a mediation
effect of TEG between ITU and the predictors
(TG & TI). Based on that, an analysis of the
direct and indirect effects is needed.

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46 International Journal of Information Communication Technologies and Human Development, 4(1), 39-51, January-March 2012

Table 2. Coefficient table where ITU is the dependent variable

Unstandardized Coefficients
B

Std. Error

(Constant)

1.144

0.605

Trust in Government (TG)

0.463

0.127

Trust in Internet (TI)

0.331

0.132

Perceived Risk (PR)

-0.052

0.107

Standardized
Coefficients

Sig.

1.891

0.061

3.638

0.000

0.258

2.500

0.014

-0.042

-0.489

0.626

0.377

Dependent Variable: ITU

Table 3. Coefficient table where TEG is the dependent variable

Unstandardized Coefficients
B

Std. Error

(Constant)

0.949

0.482

Trust in Government (TG)

0.419

0.102

Trust in Internet (TI)

0.377

0.106

Perceived Risk (PR)

-0.143

0.085

Standardized
Coefficients

Sig.

1.969

0.052

4.131

0.000

0.328

3.574

0.001

-0.130

-1.685

0.095

0.381

Dependent Variable: TEG

Table 4. Coefficient table where ITU is the dependent variable (single regression)
Unstandardized Coefficients
B

Std. Error

(Constant)

2.109

0.351

Trust in E-Government (TEG)

0.523

0.097

Standardized
Coefficients
0.468

Sig.

6.001

0.000

5.375

0.000

Dependent Variable: ITU

To consider the mediation of TEG between

the predictors and ITU, it should be noted that
effects should be significant between the predictors and the mediators and also between the
mediator and the dependent variable. To estimate the paths and the direct and indirect effects
the mediator TEG and the dependent variable
were regressed and shown to be significantly
related and as shown in Table 4. Based on that
and when using path analysis, the direct and
indirect effects resulting from this model are
listed in Table 5.

Results of Table 5 are important as they

indicate the direct effects of predictors (TG &
TI) on the predictor ITU through the mediator
TEG. Results show that ITU is influenced indirectly by the predictors through TEG with an
effect of (0.178) from TG, and (0.154) by TI.
The effects shown in Table 5 are all medium and large effects, where a 0.01 effect is
considered small; 0.09 effect is considered
medium; and 0.25 effect is considered large
(Cohen, 1988). Also, the paths shown in the
table are translated into a path diagram, where

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International Journal of Information Communication Technologies and Human Development, 4(1), 39-51, January-March 2012 47

Table 5. The direct and indirect effects of the predictors in the model
Path
TG Analysis

TG - TEG

0.381**

TEG - ITU

0.468**

Indirect effect
Direct effect

0.178*
TG - ITU
Path

TI Analysis

0.377**
Effect

TI - TEG

0.328**

TEG - ITU

0.468**

Indirect effect
Direct effect

Effect

0.154*
TI - ITU

0.258**

** Large effect * Medium effect

Figure 2. The resulted path model

the betas are used as path coefficients. Figure 2

summarizes the results of the regression effects.
Finally, to consider the total effect of TG
and TI on ITU, we need to add the betas resulting from Table 2 and the indirect effect in Table
5. It is important to stick to the conceptual
model rather than utilizing methods like stepwise regression or any compatible tools to search
for the largest explanation of variance in ITU.
Based on that, this research will consider the
research model results only without any fishing
process for other propositions.

7. CONCLUSION
This research focused on the risk and trust
constructs related to adopting e-government
initiatives in Jordan. Results indicated a significant support of trust influence on ITU, which

is aligned with studies like Abu-Shanab et al.

(2010) and Teo et al. (2008). Thus, three hypotheses were supported as shown in Table 6, and
the only rejected hypothesis, was the perceived
risk relationship to trust in E-government. The
PR construct was tested against both DVs: TEG
and ITU and yielded insignificant results, such
result is similar to the study of Abu-Shanab et
al. (2010), but contradicts with the results of Liu
and Zhou (2010), Belanger and Carter (2008)
and the study of Abu-Shanab and Abu-Baker
(2011), where risk and privacy were major
predictors of e-government adoption. On the
other hand, TG and TI significantly predicted
TEG, which means the high value Jordanian
citizens put on trust in E-government. Also,
TEG significantly mediated the relationship
between TG/TI and ITU. Such mediation was
proposed to explore how citizens conceptualize

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48 International Journal of Information Communication Technologies and Human Development, 4(1), 39-51, January-March 2012

Table 6. Hypotheses results

Relationship

Result

H1

Trust in government will positively influence the trust in e-government

Supported

H2

Trust in internet will positively influence the trust in e-government

Supported

H3

Perceived risk will negatively influence the trust in e-government

Not-Supported

H4

Trust in e-government will positively influence the adoption of e-government

Supported

the concept of overall trust in E-government.

Path analysis facilitated the process of estimating the effects of variables on the DVs. Results
indicated significant direct and indirect effects,
which indicates a partial mediation process.
Trust in E-government significantly influenced intention to use E-government with an
R2=21.9%, beta value = 0.468, p < 0.001. Also,
both trust in Internet and trust in government
predicted TEG with an R2=34.8%, p < 0.001.
This study implies that to gain more trust in
e-government initiatives, governments need to
work on two major directions: the technology
and the government image. It is important for
citizens to trust technology (the Internet in this
case) and build mechanisms for security and
privacy protection. Also, speeding up related
laws and regulations related to e-services and
adhering with such privacy recommendations
by the government will enhance citizens trust in
e-government. On the other hand, governments
need to work more on their image, and especially
in developing countries. Such conclusions are
shown clearly from the UN report related to
e-government survey. The report indicates that
trust is the cornerstone of government-citizen
relationship and was a critical factor in escaping the last financial crises (UN Report, 2010).
Also, the report allocated a special chapter for
transparency and trust in public services. It is
important for Jordanian government to utilize
this chance of e-democracy paradigm and
leverage the level of participation and reach
citizens empowerment.
For researchers, it is important to explore
more this field as one of the important factors
failed to show significant results when entered to
the model (i.e., perceived risk). Also, to explore

the distinction between risk and privacy and investigate the influence of each, more research is
needed to confirm results from previous research
related to privacy and risk (Ruizhong, Xiaoxue,
& Zixian, 2010; Rotchanakitumnuai, 2007;
Wang et al., 2010; Abu-Shanab et al., 2011).
Finally, the trust construct is a disputed one
as weve seen from the literature where many
studies defined trust in different manners, this
calls for more attention to this important factor.
Future research is recommended to explore
the reasons behind the insignificance of risk factors, and to validate the instrument with a larger
sample. Larger sample size is recommended to
improve the reliability of the instrument and
confirm the results.

REFERENCES
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International Journal of Information Communication Technologies and Human Development, 4(1), 39-51, January-March 2012 51

Emad Abu-Shanab received his PhD in business administration, major in MIS area in 2005 from
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, USA. He is an assistant professor at the MIS department in Yarmouk University, Jordan, where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses.
He authored a book in arabic in the area of e-government, and published many journal and
conference papers. His publications and research interests are in areas such as e-government,
technology acceptance, e-learning, GDSS, ERP and strategic issues of information systems.
Ameen Al-Azzam is a master student in management information systems department at Yarmouk
University. He received his bachelor degree in management information systems, in 2006. His
research interests are technology acceptance and e-government.

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