Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy

How perceptions of E-participation levels influence the intention to use E-

government websites
Lana Bataineh Emad Abu-Shanab
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Lana Bataineh Emad Abu-Shanab , (2016),"How perceptions of E-participation levels influence the
intention to use E-government websites", Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol.
10 Iss 2 pp. 315 - 334
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How perceptions of Perceptions of

e-participation
E-participation levels influence levels
the intention to use
E-government websites 315
Lana Bataineh Received 25 December 2015
Revised 22 January 2016
Ministry of Justice, Irbid, Jordan, and Accepted 26 January 2016
Emad Abu-Shanab
IT College, Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan
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Abstract
Purpose – This study aims to predict the intention to participate (ITP) in public activities by utilizing
five levels of e-participation reported in the literature. The study used the levels of e-informing,
e-consulting, e-involving, e-collaborating and e-empowering as predictors of the intention to participate
in e-government services.
Design/methodology/approach – An empirical test was adopted using a survey to measure the five
levels of e-participation and the dependent variable, ITP in e-government initiatives. The survey
included items from previous studies translated to Arabic. Subjects responded to a five-point Likert
scale to measure their perceptions regarding the sub-dimensions of each e-participation level. Statistical
analyses of the collected data were conducted to test the assumed hypotheses. Multiple regression of the
five predictor levels was conducted to predict the ITP in e-government services.
Findings – All the estimated means of e-participation levels were moderately perceived. The
regression results indicated a significant prediction of three levels: e-informing, e-consulting and
e-empowering. The other two levels (e-involving and e-collaborating) failed to predict the ITP. The
coefficient of determination R2 resulting from the regression test was significant at the 0.001 level,
which explained 61.9 per cent of the variance in the dependent variable.
Research limitations/implications – The instrument used is a newly developed one in Arabic
language, which might have influenced the results. The distinction between e-involving and
e-collaborating might not have been recognized by subjects, which might have increased the limitations
of the study. The results of this study call for more research to validate the instrument and try to see if
new statements of e-consulting and e-involving might be employed. The other side could be to reduce
the levels to three levels only or merge the insignificant ones into one (four levels only).
Practical implications – Governments need to assert the role of citizens in the decision-making
process. Such assertion is done through the e-participation process.
Social implications – Jordanians perceive the e-informing and e-consulting levels to be a foundation
that can be easily attained, but jumping to the e-empowering level means that the society is keen on the
partnership with the government.
Originality/value – This study is the first to use the participation levels (five levels) as predictors of
the ITP. Most studies have utilized theories such as technology acceptance model (TAM), theory of
reseaoned action (TRA) and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and other
technology adoption theories. Also, this research has established ground for an Arabic survey to Transforming Government:
People, Process and Policy
measure such levels, regardless of their prediction or description purpose. Vol. 10 No. 2, 2016
pp. 315-334
Keywords Jordan, e-Government, Adoption, Empirical study, e-Participation, e-Participation levels © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1750-6166
Paper type Research paper DOI 10.1108/TG-12-2015-0058
 TG 1. Introduction
10,2 The evolution of information and communication technology (ICT) technologies and the
advent of the internet have led to more popularity of technology-based self-services.
Designing such services has become increasingly important. Self-service technologies
have changed not only the way by which the a customer interacts with firms but also the
way the public sector provides services such as e-government services (Venkatesh et al.,
316 2012).
Online government refers to the delivery of government services and information to
citizens, business partners, employees and other agencies via the internet or other digital
means (Basu, 2004; Abu-Shanab, 2014). The informational and transactional services
are the main categories of e-government services. Informational services refer to the
delivery of information via government sites and other web pages, where they involve
an interaction between the government and citizens, such as the submission of electronic
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service forms, where the interaction requires improved integrations between

government agencies (Zhao, 2011).
e-Government projects use ICTs to simulate and support good governance, where
both e-government and good governance aim for the same objectives. Good governance
can be defined as the exercise and implementation of economic, political and
administrative authority to manage the country’s affairs at different levels in a good
way (Palvia and Sharma, 2007). To establish a successful e-government initiative, it is
important to focus efforts on creating a successful e-participation process, which is
considered the core of the e-government initiative. e-Participation is seen as the
fundamental principle of e-democracy, which means taking part in collaborative and
political activities for achieving common goals. e-Participation is using new
technologies to facilitate and support the interaction with the government (Al-Dalou and
Abu-Shanab, 2013). Research has emphasized the importance of effectively designing
and deploying ICT technologies to improve the opportunities of online civic engagement
success (Farina et al., 2013). Many liberal democratic values are involved in
e-participation, such as transparency, problem solving and privacy. Such phenomenon
serves the democratic process success and makes policies more effective (Islam, 2008).
The value of e-participation has been recognized by government administrators,
politicians, community leaders and officials. However, many e-government initiators do
not have enough understanding and experience of managing e-participation to achieve
the required and desirable results (Bryson et al., 2013). The vital role of citizens,
represented in citizens’ public participation, has a huge influence on public trust in their
government. The required form of citizen’s participation and its impact on building
public trust toward the government is still under testing (Kim and Lee, 2012). To achieve
higher levels of public trust, governments need to increase transparency by increasing
citizens’ access to information, ensure transparency of rules and policies and build a
mechanism to track the decisions and actions of government officials (Abu-Shanab et al.,
2013; Alenezi et al., 2015a, 2015b).
Digital government makes the access to services easier and faster through the
available ICT infrastructure, which has attracted many countries to adopt e-government
initiatives represented by politicians, citizens and decision makers (Abu-Shanab, 2012).
In 2005, the Jordanian Ministry of Information and Communication Technology
launched its e-government initiative, following a dictate by King Abdullah II. Jordan
was one of the first countries to launch an e-government project, but their project made
 slow progress because of a number of obstacles, such as the high cost of ICT equipment Perceptions of
and digital devices, and the lack of awareness of such an initiative by citizens and e-participation
public-sector employees (Alomari et al., 2012).
To implement King Abdullah’s vision, the government tried to expand public
levels
participation. In 2003, the Ministry of Political Development (MoPD) was created in
Jordan. Previously, policies, laws, political documents and strategies were written and
approved without consulting citizens or other stakeholders. Since 2006, the MoPD 317
discusses and consults citizens and other stakeholders about different political issues
through their electronic portal (Hwang and Mohammed, 2008).
This study explored the e-participation initiative in Jordan in an attempt to
understand e-participation practices from citizens’ perspective. Specifically, the study
tried to examine the impact of each e-participation level on the e-participation process in
Jordan. The following section reviews the literature related to e-participation. Section 3
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discusses the research methodology, followed by Section 4, which describes data

analysis and discussion. Finally, conclusions and future work are presented in Section 5.

2. Literature review
e-Government initiatives seek to achieve greater efficiency in government service
provision by using new ICTs to reshape and facilitate the interactions with citizens.
e-Government in Jordan was started in 2001 and launched in 2005; it aims to provide
electronic services and improve government’s performance and the democratic life of its
citizens.

2.1 e-Government concept

e-Government definitions range from the use of ICT tools and the internet to simply
provide services electronically to a more complicated definition that comprises the
following objectives:
• gain free dissemination of information to overcome the shortcomings of a
traditional physical process;
• improve the access and delivery of government services;
• improve government performance; and
• improve the democratic process in the country (Layne and Lee, 2001; Basu, 2004;
Alshehri et al., 2012; Abu-Shanab, 2013).

The idea of e-government was first raised by Al-Gore, the US Vice President during the
Clinton administration. His vision was to link citizens to various governmental agencies
to facilitate the provision of all types of governmental services in an automatic way,
improve governmental performance by using the information and communication
network and reduce cost and increase the speed of effective implementations
(AlMarabeh and AbuAli, 2010).
e-Government can be seen as a union of political and administrative sub-systems,
which serves two types of society governance interfaces. The first type is an interface
between the society and the political system that includes interactions through political
policy process phases, and the second is an interface between the society to the
administrative system that includes interactions through the use of governance public
 TG services conducted between government institutions (G to G), government and citizens
10,2 (G to C) and government and business (G to B) (Peristeras et al., 2009).
e-Government is related to improving not only government services but also all
government dimensions, including the legislative dimension which is responsible for
translating policies into laws, the executive dimension of law and policy implementing
and the judiciary dimension, where policy conflicts are solved Kolachalam, S. (2012).
318 e-Government initiatives are usually concentrated around the following four pillars,
where the success of such initiatives depends on issues embedded into them:
(1) Leadership and vision: A clear vision with long-term objectives and committed
leadership is necessary for the success of any e-government project (Waller and
Genius, 2015). A strong leadership and an effective project champion are
important for the success of e-government. Successful leadership should have a
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clear vision, an ability for innovation and strong motivation and empowerment.
Successful leadership focuses more on the legislative side of e-government,
manages both internal and external communication through different
communication channels and uses these opinions to improve performance.
Successful leadership is characterized by a knowledgeable and flexible
management that understands the citizens’ needs and encourages collaboration
between departments and central government (Kolachalam, 2012; Abu-Shanab
and Bataineh, 2014).
(2) Governance perspective: The relationship between information quality and
strategic benefits within the context of e-government is claimed by research
(Alenezi et al., 2015a, 2015b). Legislatures and policy makers should facilitate
online government information and publication and reform the e-government
participation process by simplifying and clarifying regulations and policies.
Research has indicated the importance of taking e-participation activities
seriously, where more emphasis needs to be put on citizens’ demand and formal
planning (Reddick and Norris, 2013). Also, they should consult stakeholders to
determine how regulations and laws may affect the desired results or outcomes.
Public e-government management should provide a comprehensive framework
concerned with the legislative and judicial issues of e-government. Laws and
regulations are cautiously updated to make citizens and businesses embrace
electronic services and transactions (Almarabeh and AbuAli, 2010; Kolachalam,
2012).
(3) Integration and collaboration: To achieve more convenient and fast services with
a reasonable quality and affordable cost, it is necessary to look for the best
practices. To effectively achieve the required results, e-government should foster
partnership, collaboration and coordination with those who have a stake in the
project for enriching the process. This is related to the executive dimension of
e-government. e-Government also involves re-thinking organization,
re-engineering process and changing behavior so that e-government can
establish a climate of cooperation among citizens, organizations and enterprises
to help them carry out their transactions and services with government more
quickly, more easily and at a lower cost. The collaboration principle depends
basically on the partnership and cooperation between all levels of central
 government and citizens, businesses and non-profit organizations in a transient Perceptions of
climate (Herescu et al., 2013). e-participation
(4) Technology and infrastructure: To take advantage of e-government services, levels
governments need to work hard to develop the necessary infrastructure and
utilize new technologies and communication tools. Road maps and frameworks
should be established at the beginning of the e-government adoption process to
illustrate the rational and coordinated investment effort needed for the success of 319
such initiatives. The legislative and judicial dimensions of e-government are
closely related to the development of a right infrastructure and the
implementation of good programs with clear outcomes for accountability
purposes (Mainka et al., 2013).

Governments seek to improve the efficiency of e-government projects by adapting

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programs that train citizens on basic computer skills so that citizens can learn about
e-government. Governments still need traditional media such as radio programs,
television shows and newspaper columns to increase citizens’ awareness about
e-government objectives. The content of e-government information should be written in
the local language to enable the majority of citizens to understand e-government
projects. Applications that use speech or pictures should be used as a substitute for
written texts to ensure that e-government channels are easy to use (Bhatnagar, 2004;
Almarabeh and AbuAli, 2010; Abu-Shanab, 2013).

2.2 e-Democracy
In the twenty-first century, the image of e-democracy has evolved based on the triad
of e-government, e-participation and e-voting. This new term reflects the huge diversity
of the new form of citizens’ engagement, where e-democracy is considered as a mirror of
the traditional political system. This means that e-democracy cannot be real if the
traditional political system is not democratic. e-Democracy focuses on the importance of
civil and human rights (Liden, 2012).
e-Democracy means empowering citizens to play their role in choosing politicians
who are accountable for their actions in the public realm. e-Democracy focuses on using
different techniques for achieving different goals, such as increasing the transparency of
the political process, empowering citizens by enhancing their participation and
engagement and improving the quality of opinions (Peart and Ramos Diaz, 2007).
We can define e-democracy as the use of ICTs to give citizens the needed power to
make politicians accountable for their actions and facilitate the communication between
citizens and political representatives (Abu-Shanab, 2014). e-Democracy usually creates
opportunities for all citizens to be part of the political process and aims at encouraging
citizens who have not participated in the political process before. The Obama
administration recognized the importance of online democracy and successfully
implemented an interactive online policy by using different communication channels
that enable all political parties to communicate in a transparent climate (Moreira et al.,
2009).
e-Democracy represents both the decision-making system and social system
integrated together. The first dimension refers to the general formal political process,
which includes the interaction between decision-making politicians and the public. The
second aspect refers to the general societal design, which includes democratic aspects
 TG such as freedom of speech. ICT tools are needed here to manage the relationship between
10,2 government and citizens (Taghavifard et al., 2014). One of the major objectives of
e-democracy is to make participation easier by using electronic and digital means.
Applications and techniques that are included in e-democracy are e-forums,
e-consultation, e-rule making and e-voting. Some consider e-democracy to be all kinds of
political digital engagement (Abu-Shanab et al., 2010; Moreira et al., 2009).
320 The World Wide Web provided a domain for e-democracy to reshape the democratic
process and activate the relationship between citizens and elected representatives. The
core of e-democracy is to vest the supreme power to citizens. It is exercised by them,
directly or indirectly, through the use of technological tools that facilitate all democratic
activities. e-Democracy is not about paying taxes and fines; it is an information system
for consulting and empowering citizens in the process of making national decisions
(Coleman and Norris, 2005). Citizens’ opinion and feedback is important, and
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governments need to utilize ICT to open channels to petitions as much as tax systems
(Alathur et al., 2012). Governments have resorted to social media (e.g. Facebook and
other networks) to interact with citizens and target specific categories in societies
(Khasawneh and Abu-Shanab, 2013; Spiliotopoulou et al., 2014) and focus more on
young categories of populations (Karantzeni and Gouscos, 2013).
Democracy is people ruling people, which means that the focus of the democratic
process is to utilize input from people and involve them in the decision-making process.
ICT tools and the internet enable the full participation of the public into the political
process. e-Participation, with the available electronic channels, would make information
distribution and collection easier, enable the collaboration on setting agendas of political
change and open the opportunity for citizens to make decisions. Such change will make
participation the core of democracy. The following section will explore the
e-participation literature.

2.3 e-Participation
The field of public participation was affected by the developments witnessed in ICT.
These huge changes have created a new phenomenon called e-participation (Fedotova
et al., 2012). Phang and Kankanhalli (2008) define e-participation as governments’ efforts
to exploit and extend ICT capabilities to enhance citizens’ participation in the
decision-making process. It is noticeable here that the government employs ICT in the
diffusion of policy planning information and in using citizens’ input in the planning
process. Furthermore, researchers have asserted that e-participation is the process by
which the public needs, interests, concerns and values are integrated into the
governmental decision-making process (Tambouris et al., 2008). e-Participation is a
concept that describes the efforts of deploying and expanding political participation by
enabling citizens to interact with each other and with their political representatives
through the use of ICT tools (Tambouris et al., 2007).
Al-Dalou and Abu-Shanab (2013) define e-participation as the emergence and
extension of electronic democratic participation and the consultation process supported
by information and communication technologies, mainly through the internet. The
goals of e-participation can be summarized as follows: using the ICT to support
citizenship; seeking to reach a wide audience to enable broad participation; providing
understandable and accessible information to enhance citizens’ contribution; enhancing
audience communication skills through using a range of tools to support participation;
 supporting deliberation to gain deep contribution from citizens in the consultation Perceptions of
process; and making the unstructured information provided by citizens more effective e-participation
through a good analysis mechanism.
Researchers have introduced two forms of participation. The first type is when the
levels
government is responsible for initiating e-participation actions; this form emphasizes
participation initiated by the government and is mainly enacted by the government through
online poll, online discussion, online surveys and regulation agenda. The second form of 321
e-participation is when citizens are responsible together with the government. Citizens’
participation varies according to the individuals who are responsible for selecting and
suggesting a policy and regulation agenda that will be discussed during the citizens’
participation process (Lee and Kim, 2014).
2.3.1 Participation processes and actors. The majority of governments do not have a
clear understanding of how to design a successful participation process (Sæbø et al.,
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2011). The first step is to address and solve problems and challenges facing the process.
Context analysis is performed, which covers the political, social, technological and
demographic features of the process to ensure that the participation process fits with the
country’s needs (Bryson et al., 2013). It is essential to involve stakeholders and all
partners in the analysis stage in which designers should focus on the appropriate
stakeholders and how to get them involved in the participation process (Lee and Kim,
2014). Doing this, governments gain support for the process and build legitimacy and
trust. The different goals and purposes of participation initiatives require appropriate
strategies to link communication with different categories of stakeholders (Sæbø et al.,
2011).
The second major step in the process is choosing effective leadership. Three
leadership roles are important: sponsors, champions and facilitators (Macintosh, 2004).
The author proposed a set of rules, procedures and structure to guide the participation
process. Rules define who should manage the process, and two types of rules are defined:
(1) formal rules that form a written ground for working rules; and
(2) informal rules formulated while participants interact with each other.

Researchers have developed different frameworks of technologies that serve each level
of the e-participation process. When selecting the right technology, researchers took into
account many factors such as time and budget. Designers should carefully select the
communication technology needed to support the e-participation process. It is also
important to identify the available resources and the limitations of such resources
(Phang and Kankanhalli, 2008). The major issue that faces designers and analysts in the
process is the assessment of the e-participation levels and tools, where similarities exist
between the levels that make priorities difficult to define among levels and tools used
(Tambouris et al., 2007). Finally, the evaluation of the e-participation process seems
intangible and requires solid measures to help guide designers to achieve the desired
outcomes (Rowe and Frewer, 2004).
It is vital to acknowledge the actors involved in the e-participation process, where
they play an important role in the process. Citizens play an important role by using
e-government services and activities. Demographic factors related to citizens were
supported to be significant moderators of the level of participation and openness (Al
Athmay, 2015). Citizens provide feedback on the quality, accuracy, availability and
reliability of such services (Macintosh, 2004). A government consultant supports
 TG citizens on vital issues of e-participation and decision-making. Collaboration among
10,2 citizens, government, politicians, government institutions and non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) should enrich the process and facilitate information about
citizens’ interest, preferences and needs (Medaglia, 2012).
ICT tools provide the mechanism to access information and knowledge and share
them within the public sphere. One should notice the fact that new technologies are
322 creating a new generation of users called digital citizens or e-citizens (Shiraz, 2010).
Politicians use the information technology to exercise their political role, such as
informing a consensus, e-campaign activities or in ICT polls (Tambouris et al., 2007).
e-Government institutions are key actors in facilitating public participation, such as
deploying an ICT platform and tools to manage citizens’ participation or finding the best
funding partners in private sectors (Bryson et al., 2013). NGOs can be considered a key
player in such initiative. They are referred to as civil society organizations and a
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grassroots movement that seek a clear visibility and influence policy through the
e-participation process (Tambouris et al., 2007).
2.3.2 e-Participation levels. Research has disputed the number of e-participation
levels, where previous studies have adopted three, four or five levels. Table I lists the
different levels proposed in the literature and the source of such classification.
Al-Dalou and Abu-Shanab (2013) adopted a five-level scheme of e-participation,
which covers all the reported dimensions and aspects of the e-participation process. The
following is the definition of each level:
(1) e-Informing: is a one-way communication channel which provides citizens with
policies and citizenship information.
(2) e-Consulting: is a limited two-way communication channel that allows
stakeholders and citizens to contribute their opinions on some issues; the
objective of this level is to collect public feedback.
(3) e-Involving: aims to work online with citizens to make sure that public concerns
and desires are taken into consideration.
(4) e-Collaborating: is a more enhanced two-way communication channel that
enables the full participation of citizens and government; this participation level

Informing Consulting
Citation enabling engaging Involving Collaborating Empowering

OECD (2001) Information Consultation Active part

Macintosh (2004) Enabling Engaging Empowering
Wimmer (2007) Informing Consulting Collaborating Empowering
Gatautis (2010) Informing Consulting Involving Collaborating Empowering
Tambouris et al. (2007) e-Inform e-Consult e-Involve e-Collaborate e-Empower
Fedotova et al. (2012) Informing Consulting Involving Collaborating Empowering
Ahmed (2006) Information Consultation Active part
Medimorec et al. (2010) Information Consultation Cooperation Co-deter-mination
UNDESA (2010, 2012) e-Information e-Consultation e-Decision-
Table I. making
Summary of e-
participation levels Source: Abu-Shanab (2015)
 includes active citizen participation in finding alternatives and defining Perceptions of
solutions. e-participation
(5) e-Empowering: implements what citizens decide after a delegation of final levels
decision right to the public.

3. Research methodology
The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between e-participation levels 323
and citizens’ intention to participate (ITP) in e-government initiatives. Such a
relationship has not been reported in previous research (up to the knowledge of the
authors, where previous research on the adoption of technology mostly focused on
usefulness, ease of use and subjective norms [Tarhini et al., 2015]). The proposed
research model consists of the five levels mentioned in the previous section (proposed by
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Al-Dalou and Abu-Shanab, 2013). The levels were defined in the previous section, where
the items measuring them were adopted from the same study. The research model is
shown in Figure 1.

3.1 Variables and hypotheses

e-Informing is defined as a one-way channel that provides customers with information
by either the government or citizens (Al-Dalou and Abu-Shanab, 2013). If the
government provides clear, meaningful and accurate information, then citizens will
have a stronger ITP in e-government initiatives. Research has shown that publishing
more information about government activities increases transparency, efficiency and
flexibility of the e-participation process. Such efforts will result in high rates of citizens’
participation in e-government initiatives (Macintosh and Whyte, 2006):
H1. The level of e-informing positively affects the intention to participate in
e-government activities.
e-Consulting allows citizens to contribute their opinions on specific and selected issues
of public concerns. e-Consulting is considered as a limited two-way channel that aims to
collect public feedback and alternatives (Tambouris et al., 2007). People will really care
about participation activities if they believe that their contributions will be taken
seriously (Coleman and Norris, 2005). Research in the area of e-participation indicates
that opinions, ideas, values and views exchanged and deliberated between different
e-participation parties help increase citizens’ ITP in e-government activities (Phang and
Kankanhalli, 2008):
H2. The level of e-consulting positively affects the intention to participate in
e-government activities.

Figure 1.
The research model
 TG e-Involving is defined as working online with citizens to make sure that citizens’
10,2 opinions, needs and concerns are understood and taken into consideration (Tambouris
et al., 2007). A feeling that their opinions are taken into consideration improves the
chances of the success of e-government activities and the buy-in for the process. This
area of e-participation research confirms that involving users in the participation
process impacts their intuition to participate in e-government initiatives (Coleman and
324 Norris, 2005):
H3. The level of e-involving positively affects the intention to participate in
e-government activities.
e-Collaborating is an enhanced level of communication and interaction between citizens
and their government and represents a two-way channel with full partnership that
allows citizens to generate and develop solutions. Research has indicated that the
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e-participation process is oriented to create opportunities for collaboration and

interaction among citizens, business and the government. Such process will increase the
rates at which citizens participate and will eventually impact their intuition to
participate in e-government initiatives (Moreno et al., 2003):
H4. The level of e-collaborating positively affects the intention to participate in
e-government activities.
Finally, e-empowering is defined as giving citizens the power to make decisions and
then determining the weight of their response (Macintosh and Whyate, 2006). Citizens
are empowered to engage in the process of decision-making and monitoring policy
(Tambouris et al., 2007). Previous research indicates that the government’s effort to
empower civil society organizations and political groups effectively impacts citizens’
ITP in e-government initiatives (Moreira et al., 2009).
H5. The level of e-empowering positively affects the intention to participate in
e-government activities.

3.2 Instrument used

The instrument used in this study is adopted from the work of Al-Dalou and
Abu-Shanab (2013). Their work included a set of items (factors) and tools for measuring
the five levels. This study took the items and translated them to Arabic and then added
the famous items of intention to use (ITU) e-government services with minor adaptation
(the ITU items were taken from the work of Abu-Shanab et al. (2013)). The translation
process utilized a backward translation process proposed by Brislin (1976), and this was
done by nine students with a master’s degree. The first step was to translate the
instrument to Arabic and was done by three students. The instrument was then
back-translated to English by another three students. The final step was to compare the
two English versions by the remaining three students (the original statements and
backward translated items). All modifications were applied to the instrument and
prepared for distribution.
The targeted sample was randomly selected from Jordanian university students from
May 4, 2015, to May 9, 2015. Students belong to the educated category of the society who
can understand the terms and concepts of e-government in developing countries. Of the
400 questionnaires distributed, 247 usable surveys were completed and returned. The
surveys were distributed on random sections in a public university in Jordan and were
 re-collected again in the next class, where students were not forced to fill the survey, and Perceptions of
no extra credit was given for such contribution. All questionnaires were deemed valid. e-participation
The instrument included six sections representing the five levels and the ITP items.
The scale used adopted a five-point Likert scale with 1 ⫽ strongly disagree, 2 ⫽
levels
disagree, 3 ⫽ neutral, 4 ⫽ agree and 5 ⫽ strongly agree. Based on such scale, a value of
mean between 1 and 2.33 would be considered low perception, between 2.33 and 3.66 as
moderate perception and between 3.66 and 5 as high perception. Table II summarizes 325
the demographic features of the sample in terms of gender, age and education. The
sample included 156 males (63.2 per cent), and the majority of respondents’ ages ranged
from 17 to 25 years (96.4 per cent). Respondents were also asked about the e-government
project, where 142 said they knew the project (57.5 per cent). Details of the sample are
listed in Table II. In summary, the demographics of the sample is not a close
representative of the Jordanian society, which calls for more research to sample large
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portion of the Jordanian people and collect a larger sample.

4. Data analysis and results

The second step was to evaluate Jordanians’ perceptions of e-participation levels, where
the means and standard deviations of each item were estimated. Also, the overall level
mean and standard deviation were estimated using the grand average of all items
representing it. Table III shows the results. The results indicated a moderate level of
perceptions for most items (except items: e-informing Q6).
It might be obvious and expected to see the items of informing include the lowest
standard deviations (Q2 and Q3). Jordanians are keen on well-organized and meaningful
information provided by the e-government website. Also, the same for the highest mean
(Q6), which focuses on updated info. With this result, our study adheres to the logic of
information first. Still, the lowest means existed in the set of collaboration and
involvement.
The research model consists of five independent variables (e-informing, e-consulting,
e-involving, e-collaborating and e-empowering), where they are assumed to affect the
ITP in e-governmental initiatives. To make sure that the five independent variables and

Demographic factor Count %

Gender
Male 156 63.2
Female 91 36.8
Total 247 100
Age
Between 17 and25 years 238 96.4
More than 25 years 9 3.6
Total 247 100
Education
Less than bachelor 4 1.6
Bachelor 10 4.0
Graduate 230 93.1
Missing 3 0.3 Table II.
Total 247 100 Sample demographic
 TG No. Items N Minimum Maximum Mean SD
10,2
Q1 Using e-government website enables me to access 247 1 5 3.57 1.221
government services more quickly
Q2 E-government website provides me with meaningful 246 1 5 3.59 0.907
information
Q3 E-government website provides me with well- 244 1 5 3.49 0.966
326 organized information
Q4 E-government website provides me with 246 1 5 3.46 1.044
comprehensive information
Q5 E-government website provides me with precise and 246 1 5 3.37 1.106
accurate information
Q6 E-government website provides me with updated 247 1 5 3.67 1.053
information
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e-Informing total mean 3.52

Q7 I have equal right to pick from topics that are 247 1 5 3.37 1.209
discussed during the consultation process and give
my opinions
Q8 I believe that the output of the consulting process 247 1 5 3.22 1.159
(government feedback) is transparent
Q9 I believe that I have the freedom to express my 247 1 5 3.40 1.248
opinions without any outside pressure
e-Consulting total mean 3.33
Q10 I believe that I can influence the type of discussions 247 1 5 3.11 1.187
carried out on cyber space environment
Q11 I believe that the characteristics of different political 246 1 5 3.14 1.102
parties (government institutions, politicians,
citizens) affect the output of the participation
process
Q12 I believe that deliberation over political issues 243 1 5 3.28 1.204
reflects what citizens want not what the government
wants
e-Involving total mean 3.18
Q13 I can participate in policy formulation during the 246 1 5 2.99 1.255
E-collaborating process
Q14 I can participate in creating the e-participation 245 1 5 3.08 1.139
agenda during the E-collaborating process
Q15 I can influence the existing e-participation policies 245 1 5 3.08 1.237
and regulations
e-Collaborating total mean 3.05
Q16 I believe there is a clear mechanism to include my 246 1 5 3.12 1.118
feedback in the political decision making process
Q17 I believe that it is important to have regulations to 246 1 5 3.41 1.117
support the online decision-making process
Q18 I would feel safe providing my personal information 239 1 5 3.30 1.209
Table III.
Means and standard e-Empowering total mean 3.28
deviations of Q19 I intend to participate in e-government services 247 1 5 3.54 1.154
Q20 I expect to participate in e-government services 246 1 5 3.51 1.017
individual items and
Q21 I plan to participate in e-government services 246 1 5 3.51 1.017
the overall level
mean ITU total mean 3.52
 the ITP are reliable, Cronbach’s alpha values were estimated. The recommended Perceptions of
Cronbach’s alpha values reported in the literature are above 0.8 (Hair et al., 1998), and e-participation
acceptable minimum values are above 0.6. The results shown in Table IV indicate
acceptable values, except for the e-empowering construct, where the value of Cronbach’s
levels
alpha is close to 0.6.
The reliability values estimated are within acceptable ranges, but this indicates more
consensus for the informing level (which is expected based on the simplicity of 327
dimension). The surprising result is for the collaborating dimension and the low value
for empowering. Such low reliability indicates a limitation of the instrument.
Table V illustrates the Pearson’s correlation matrix results which indicate that all
variables are important in determining citizens’ ITP in e-government initiatives. The
other contribution of the correlation matrix is to guard for the multi-collinearity issue,
where severe correlations are a negative sign (correlations above 0.8). The visual
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inspection of the correlations indicates the acceptable values of bivariate correlations.

All correlations were significant at the 0.01 level. The choice of levels (based on their
significant bivariate correlations with ITU) indicates the full support for our premise in
this study. Still, we can see a substantial range of values of correlations (0.288 – 0.649).
The main objective of this study was to try to predict the variance in citizen’s ITP in
e-government initiatives. Such question can be answered through a multiple regression
test using the five levels of e-participation proposed in this model. The regression test
utilized five independent variables to predict the ITP in e-government initiatives. The
model explained 61.9 per cent of the variance in the ITP in e-government services
(coefficient of determination, R2 ⫽ 0.619, adjusted R2 ⫽ 0.612, with an F5,240 ⫽ 78.989
and p ⬍ 0.001). Such a high value of coefficient of determination is considered high.
To answer the research hypotheses, we need to inspect the coefficient table
(Table VI). The regression results indicate a significant prediction of e-informing,

Variable name Cronbach alpha No. of items

Informing level 0.787 6

Consulting level 0.630 3
Involving level 0.624 3 Table IV.
Collaborating level 0.768 3 Cronbach’s alpha
Empowering level 0.581 3 values of the overall
Intention to participate level 0.884 3 constructs

Constructs e-Informing e-Consulting e-Involving e-Collaborating e-Empowering

e-Informing 1
e-Consulting 0.502** 1
e-Involving 0.393** 0.564** 1
e-Collaborating 0.254** 0.245** 0.364** 1
e-Empowering 0.389** 0.410** 0.385** 0.434** 1
ITP 0.649** 0.598** 0.457** 0.288** 0.607** Table V.
The Pearson
Note: ** Significant at 0.01 level correlations’ matrix
 TG e-consulting and e-empowering levels in determining Jordanian citizens’ ITP in
10,2 e-government initiatives (the adopted alpha value used is ⬍0.05). On the other hand,
the e-involving and e-collaborating levels were not significant in predicting ITP.

5. Conclusion and future work

This research aimed at improving our understanding of the impact of e-participation
328 levels on Jordanians’ intentions to participate in e-government initiatives. This
empirical study focused on understanding the five levels of e-participation, e-informing,
e-consulting, e-involving, e-collaborating and e-empowering. It is important to
understand each of the e-participation levels explored in this study to better understand
their effects on citizens’ ITP in e-government initiatives in Jordan.

5.1 Conclusions and discussion of results

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This study implemented an empirical test to better understand Jordanians’ perceptions

of e-participation levels and to test the research model proposed. The following is a
summary of our conclusions:
• The individual results of items indicated a strong belief in the availability of
updated information on e-government websites (mean of item 6 ⫽ 3.67). Such
single high perception indicates a moderate maturity of the e-participation
concept among Jordanians. The rest of items were moderate, with item 13 being
the lowest (participating in policy making, mean ⫽ 2.99).
• When summing the construct means, the results related to all five levels yielded a
moderate perception by Jordanians, with e-informing being the highest (mean ⫽
3.52) and e-collaborating being the lowest (mean ⫽ 3.05). This result calls for more
research to understand the natural progression of levels and their perceptions
among Jordanians. The expected case is to find e-empowering to be the lowest and
not e-collaborating. Inspecting the individual items supports our argument, as all
means of the three items were lower for e-collaborating.
• This study also proposed a model that utilized the five e-participation levels to
predict the level of expected participation. The model consisted of five main
predictors: e-informing (information exchange activities and information
distribution), e-consulting (exchanging opinions and views between government
and stakeholders), e-involving (working online with citizens), e-collaborating (full
partnership between citizens and governments that triggers active participation
in developing alternatives and solutions) and e-empowering (the process of
decision-making delegation).

Model Unstandardized beta Standardized beta t Sig.

(Constant) ⫺0.446 0.215 ⫺2.169 0.031

e-Informing 0.495 0.063 0.377 7.899 0.000
e-Consulting 0.254 0.055 0.242 4.602 0.000
e-Involving 0.046 0.055 0.043 0.838 0.403
e-Collaborating ⫺0.039 0.044 0.041 ⫺0.898 0.370
Table VI. e-Empowering 0.416 0.055 0.365 7.558 0.000
The regression
coefficient table Note: Dependent variable: intention to participate in e-government
 The results of the regression test indicated that three levels were significant and two Perceptions of
were insignificant predictors of ITP. The e-informing, e-consulting and e-empowering e-participation
levels were found to be significant and predicted the ITP in e-government initiatives in levels
Jordan with an R2 of 61.9 per cent. The final research model is shown in Figure 2, which
shows the requirements of each level and the decision-making evolvement from the
e-informing level to the e-empowering level.
Despite the important and high association between involvement/collaboration and 329
citizens’ ITP in e-government initiatives found in literature (Macintosh, 2004; Bryson
et al., 2013), the e-involving/e-collaborating levels did not impact Jordanian citizens’ ITP
in e-government initiatives. This result indicates a failure to support the involvement
and collaboration roles. The two concepts are mixed in the literature, and research has
varied in their proposition from three to five levels. The e-empowerment level also can
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attract some attention, as it yielded higher correlation, higher mean level and better
prediction than the e-collaboration and e-involving levels. This result calls for more
research in two directions: the first is to try to validate and improve the instrument used
to generate more reliable results, and the second direction is to reduce the levels to three
and merge or eliminate the involvement and collaboration levels [such proposition was
introduced by the OECD (2001), Macintosh (2004); UNDESA (2010, 2012, 2013), and
Ahmed (2006)].
Going back to our results, we can see that e-informing has an appositive influence on
citizens’ ITP in e-government initiatives (beta ⫽ 0.377). This finding supports the
finding of previous research in the e-participation domain (Al-Dalou and Abu-Shanab,
2013; Islam, 2008). The e-consulting level also positively influenced citizens’ ITP in
e-government initiatives (beta ⫽ 0.242). Citizens’ ITP in e-government initiatives is
influenced by the right for freedom and the output of the consulting process (Macintosh
and Whyte, 2006; Medaglia, 2012). This fact is asserted by previous research (Coleman
and Norris, 2005; Sæbø et al., 2008).
In most past studies, the empowering level is considered as one of the major
predictors of citizens’ ITP in e-government initiatives (Kim and Lee, 2012; Coleman and
Norris, 2005). The findings of this study support previous research, because
e-empowerment was also a significant predictor with the highest beta value (0.365),
which indicates the stress Jordanians put on their role in the decision-making process.

Figure 2.
The modified
e-participation model
 TG 5.2 Implications of research and policy makers
10,2 This study implies that more attention should be paid to the decision-making process,
and citizens should be involved in the political arena. Such an involvement is done
through the provision of information (e-informing) and getting the needed feedback
(e-consulting). Such smooth and simple process as mentioned previously can be
managed easily and is depicted in Figure 2 below. As for citizens, it is important to
330 utilize the information provided by governments on their websites. Such utilization is
the first step toward a better participation process. As for the diminished role of
involving and collaboration, it is important to participate in public activities to the
fullest and try to participate in agenda setting, policy designing and then
decision-making. Such a process is a complete cycle that might be supported by the
feedback of citizens and the accountability of governments toward the public.
Policy makers within the government body need to pay attention to the capabilities of
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ICT tools to better facilitate the e-participation process and provide the necessary
channels to get citizens’ feedback. The second issue related to such direction is to
personalize such ICT use for certain categories of public to better target their needs and
context. It is also necessary to follow a structured process to emphasize the seriousness
of governments toward the e-participation of citizens. It might be necessary to open
channels between governments and citizens and lean on a more transparent process
(Abu-Shanab, 2013).

5.3 Limitations and future work

This study used students as the major sample of research, which might be considered a
limitation by the research community. It is still valid to use students when exploring
topics that are not so common in developing countries. Students know what is
e-government and the meaning of its terms; many students in previous research
commented on the meaning of empowerment, the difference between involvement and
collaboration and the real meaning of collaboration (check the limitation reported at the
start of this paper). Based on this argument, we still believe that using students might
yield more accurate and representative results than using common Jordanian citizens.

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Further reading
334 Medimorec, D., Parycek, P. and Schossböck, J. (2010), “Vitalizing democracy through
e-participation and open government: an Austrian and Eastern European perspective”,
available at: www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/cps/rde/xbcr/SID-4B6B2682-20BE4653/bst/
Daniel%20Medimorec.pdf (accessed 5 May 2011).
OECD (2001), Citizens As Partners: Information, Consultation and Public Participation in
Policy-Making, OECD, London.
Taghavifard, M.T., Fadaei, R. and Ebrahimi, S. (2014), “E-democracy adoption factors by
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e-government citizens”, International Research Journal of Applied and Basic Sciences, Vol. 8
No. 8, pp. 1114-1125.

Corresponding author
Emad Abu-Shanab can be contacted at: abushanab.emad@gmail.com

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