Annexure

Questionnaire

I am conducting a survey on the e-government services (online services) offered by District

Administration of Uttarakhand, through e-district portal website. In the following questionnaire, we
would like to know your perceptions regarding the factors influencing you to adopt e-district portal and
impact on the job performance. I would appreciate your cooperation in responding to this questionnaire.
The information given by you would be treated as confidential.

Section A
1. Please indicate your gender
 Male  Female
2. Please indicate your age group
 18 to 25 years  26 to 35 years  36 to 45 years  46 to 60 years
3. Please indicate your education level
 10 + 2  Graduate  Post Graduate  Any other (Please specify ________)
4. Please indicate your District ( currently working/employed)
 Dehradun  Nainital  Tehri  Pithoragarh  Pauri
 Chamoli  Bageshwar  Rudraprayag  Champawat  Almora
 Haridwar  Uttarkashi  Udham Singh
Nagar

5. Please write your Department (currently working/employed) (Please specify)

 ________________________________________________________
6.

Section B

In the following section, we wish to study the factors which influence you adopt e-district portal.
Please rate your perceptions regarding the e-district portal in the following section. (Tick mark
the option)

E-government adoption
Organizational Factors
1. Training I am properly trained to Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly
work on e-district portal Disagree Agree

2. Technical I have necessary Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

support technical support to Disagree Agree
work on e-district portal

3. Top The top management Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

Manageme encourage and support Disagree Agree
nt support me to use e-district
portal

Technical Factors
 4. Technical I have necessary Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly
Infrastructu technical Infrastructure Disagree Agree
re (Desktop, printer,
mouse etc., to use e-
district portal

5. Internet I have satisfied with the Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly
Speed internet speed for Disagree Agree
operating e-district
portal

6. Website I am satisfied with the Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

/Portal technical quality of the Disagree Agree
quality e-district portal (e.g.
download capacity,
speed etc.)

Trust Factors
7. Trust in I trust in e-district portal Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly
data storage security and privacy Disagree Agree
and settings for data storage
manageme
nt

8. Trust in I trust government legal Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

government structure for operating e- Disagree Agree
system district portal

9. Trust in I trust in the technical Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

technical infrastructure for saving Disagree Agree
infrastructu data of e-district portal
re

Social Factors
10. Peers/ My Peers/ colleagues Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly
colleagues motivate me to use e- Disagree Agree
district portal

11. Social My friend and family Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly
network influence me to use e- Disagree Agree
district portal

12. Image I feel proud working on Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly
e-district portal Disagree Agree

Section C

As an employee, on basis of your experience, please give your opinion on the impact of using e-
district portal website in your job performance in the following section. (Tick mark the option)

Job Performance Dimensions

Task performance
1. Quality of Using e-district portal Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly
work increase my quality of Disagree Agree
work

2. Quantity of Using e-district portal Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

work helps in doing multiple Disagree Agree
or more numbers of task

3. Working Using e-district portal Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

efficiently helps in accomplishing Disagree Agree
task on time

Contextual performance
4. Co-operating Using e-district portal Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly
with others has improved Disagree Agree
coordination with other
department (Colleagues)

5. Challenging Using e-district portal Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

task helps in solving in Disagree Agree
difficult and challenging
task

6. Showing Using e-district portal Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

responsibility makes me responsible Disagree Agree
for my task

Adaptive behavior
7. Updated Using e-district portal Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly
knowledge helps in keeping my Disagree Agree
and skill knowledge and skill up-
to date

8. Creative idea I propose new ways to Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly
and solution improve e-district portal Disagree Agree
website and services to
the manager

9. Managing Using e-district portal Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

work stress helps me in remaining Disagree Agree
cool whenever
additional work
assigned

Counter-productive behavior
10. Purposely e-district portal has Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly
making many process which Disagree Agree
mistakes increase my work load
and results in errors

11. Spreading I discuss weak points of Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly
negativity e-district portal with my Disagree Agree
colleagues
12. Harming I don’t recommend Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly
organization others to use e-district Disagree Agree
image website
Int. J. Information Systems and Change Management, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2020 165

Enablers and barriers to e-government adoption:

an analysis of the employee perspective

Surekha Rana
Department of Management Studies,
Kanya Gurukula Campus,
Gurukula Kangri Vishwavidyalaya,
Haridwar, Uttarakhand, India
Email: surekharana@rediffmail.com

Priyanka Bhaskar*
Department of Management Studies,
Kanya Gurukula Campus,
Gurukula Kangri Vishwavidyalaya,
Haridwar, Uttarakhand, India
Email: Bhaskar.priyanka06@gmail.com
*Corresponding author

Preeti Bhaskar
ICFAI Business School,
ICFAI University,
Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India
and
University of Technology and Applied Sciences,
Ibra, Oman
Email: preeti.bhaskar52@gmail.com

Abstract: This research aims to analyse the employee perspective towards

e-government adoption. This research has investigated barriers faced by
employees in adopting e-government. The barriers limit the progress of
e-government and need to be assisted by enablers that will facilitate its
successful implementation. This paper has also investigated the enablers that
can motivate employees to adopt e-government and expedite the process of
e-government implementation. The authors have employed the interpretative
phenomenological analysis (IPA) technique. The research has used purposive
sampling methods to select the employees from the e-district offices of
Uttarakhand, India. Technological-level barriers, institutional-level barriers,
operational-level barriers, and employee-level barriers are four major barriers
that affect employees in the adoption of e-government. To overcome the
barriers for adopting e-government among employees; government level
support, ancillary services, and organisational support can act as enablers that
can motivate them to adopt e-government.

Keywords: barriers; e-government adoption; employee perspective; enablers;

technology adoption.

Copyright © 2020 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

166 S. Rana et al.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Rana, S., Bhaskar, P. and
Bhaskar, P. (2020) ‘Enablers and barriers to e-government adoption:
an analysis of the employee perspective’, Int. J. Information Systems and
Change Management, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp.165–189.

Biographical notes: Surekha Rana is working as a Professor at the Department

of Management Studies, Kanya Gurukula Campus, Gurukula Kangri
Vishwavidyalaya, Haridwar, Uttarakhand. India She has qualified UGC-NET
(JRF) and holds academic credentials of PhD, MPhil and MBA in Human
Resource Management and Marketing. She also embraces academic teaching
with rich experience of 25 years. Her area of interest is in the field of human
resource management. She has published more than 55 research papers and
articles in journals of national and international repute. She has also presented
more than 52 papers at various conferences and seminars at international level.
She is also been invited to deliver expert lectures and talk shows by eminent
universities.

Priyanka Bhaskar is a Research Scholar at the Department of Management

Studies, Kanya Gurukula Campus, Gurukula Kangri Vishwavidyalaya,
Haridwar, Uttarakhand India She received the doctoral fellowship from Indian
Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR). Her research interests include
technology adoption, e-government, job performance and government sector.
She has published research papers in the area of her research interest in reputed
journals and also presented papers at various conferences and seminars. During
her Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) program, she has received the
gold medal and meritorious scholarship.

Preeti Bhaskar is a Research Scholar at ICFAI University, Dehradun, India and

working as faculty at University of Technology and Applied Sciences, Ibra,
Oman. She possesses nine years of teaching experience in the area of human
resource management. Her research interest includes technology adoption,
e-government, job performance, job satisfaction, sustainable development,
continuing education, job performance, online teaching and learning. She has
published research papers in many reputed journals (ABDC and SCOPUS) and
presented research papers at various national and international conferences. She
has also authored two books on general management and published case studies
in Case Centre, the UK. She has also completed two minor research projects
sponsored by the Symbiosis International University, Pune. She is actively
engaged in conducting student development programs and faculty development
programs at various colleges and universities.

1 Introduction

E-government aims at using information communication and technology for providing

administrative services to citizens, businesses, government employees, and other
government departments. The benefits of e-government have been recognised by several
researchers such as improved transparency, reduction in corruption, cost-effective,
achieving customer satisfaction, time-saving, economic and sustainable development
(Ismail et al., 2020; Suzuki and Suzuki, 2020; Othman et al., 2020; Azim et al., 2020;
Osei-Kojo, 2017; Gilbert et al., 2004). There are many advantages to e-government, but
there are many barriers to implementing e-government (Saxena, 2018; Gilbert et al.,
2004). Many developing countries like India are still struggling to implement
 Enablers and barriers to e-government adoption 167

e-government due to various reasons. Researchers have investigated the reasons for the
failure of e-government from various perspectives. Quite a few researchers have focused
on the organisational issue where due to lack of budget for purchasing technology, lack
of resources, organisation structure, and organisation culture make it difficult to
implement e-government in developing countries (Chopra et al., 2021; Rehouma, 2020;
Batara et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2005). Many researchers corroborate that employees are
key reasons for the failure of e-government projects (Bhaskar et al., 2021b; Gupta et al.,
2017). Employees’ non-adoption behaviour toward e-government has resulted in
catastrophe effect in the unsuccessful implementation of e-government (Stefanovic et al.,
2016; Rowley, 2011). Due to organisational challenges, employees are not able to work
at ease on e-government. This results in unscrupulous arrogance towards technology and
creates anxiety among employees (Rana et al., 2013). The employees face many technical
issues while working on e-government such as derisory hardware and software, lack of
trust in the technology; security concerns with technology; lack of technical knowledge,
negative attitude towards technology (Al-Refaie and Ramadna, 2020; Sudirman et al.,
2019; Al-Mutairi et al., 2018). In developing countries, digital divide is a concern
because many employees lack technical skills to work on e-government (Bhaskar et al.,
2021a; Gupta et al., 2017). Gemiya (2020) pointed out that lack of computer skills, lack
of trained staff and lack of budget are the key factors that affect implementation
information communication and technology. Neirotti et al. (2018) proposed that
technological competences, managerial features and competitive environment influence
adoption information communication and technology. Many researchers argue that e-
government adoption is moderated and affected by employee demographic factors such
age, gender, education qualification countries (Chopra et al., 2021; Sanmukhiya, 2019;
Gupta et al., 2017; Sipior et al., 2011; Meyer, 2008; Dwivedi and Lal, 2007; Choudrie
and Papazafeiropoulou, 2006)
It is important to understand the employee perspective towards e-government and the
barriers faced by them in adopting e-government. Though previous researchers have
investigated the factors influencing employees to adopt e-government by using traditional
general technology adoption models such as unified theory of acceptance and use of
technology, Delone and McLean IS success model, technology acceptance model,
Technology-organization-environment framework, diffusion of innovation, and theory of
planned behaviour. These models are applicable in the situation where technology
adoption is voluntary and users have the option to use or not use the technology. In the
case of e-government, the employees do not have a choice to adopt, they must work on
e-government. This research aims to understand the barriers faced by employees in
adopting e-government by employing the interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA)
technique. The IPA technique allows the participants to explain their real experience of a
particular event and phenomena through the in-depth interview (Cuthbertson et al., 2020;
Smith, 2004). The research will be incomplete if only barriers have been reported without
any suggestion to remove those barriers. The barriers limit the progress of e-government
and need to be assisted by enablers that will facilitate its successful implementation.
Literature review has illustrated different enablers that have motivated employees to
adopt the new technology (Dukić et al., 2017; Kettani, 2014; Rana et al., 2013; Srivastava
and Teo, 2004). This paper has also investigated the enablers that can motivate
employees to adopt e-government and expedite the process of e-government
implementation.
168 S. Rana et al.

The remaining paper is organised as follows: Section 2 reviews the related literature
for exploring employee’s perspectives on e-government; Section 3 presents the research
methodology; Section 4 presents the findings and discussion; Section 5 presents the
conclusion; Section 6 presents the implications and Section 7 suggestions for future
research.

2 Review of literature

2.1 E-government adoption among employees

Alibraheem et al. (2020) and Dečman (2020) have employed UTAUT model to
investigate the factors that influence employee to adopt e-government. Due limited
dimension of UTAUT model, Ibrahim and Zakaria (2016) have extended the UTAUT
model by including additional sub-dimensions to make it more suitable for developing
countries to investigate the employee adoption behaviour. Similarly, Witarsyah et al.
(2017) have added Trust variable in the UTAUT model to analyse the behavioural
intentions of employees to adopt e-government. Many authors have investigated
e-government adoption among employees by using technology acceptance model (TAM)
(Sebetci, 2015; Sawalha and Abu-Shanab, 2015; Sang et al., 2010; Stamati and Martakos,
2013). Some authors have also applied extended TAM, theory of planned behaviours
(TPB), and diffusion of innovation (DOI) in their study for the exploring e-government
adoption among employees (Sang et al., 2009; Hung et al., 2006). These models have
fixed variable and do not give employees a chance to give their opinion about other
dimension that many influence them in adoption of e-government. Dečman (2020) also
supported the view that more variables or factors need to be added in the existing models
to make it more suitable for the specific environment. Employee faces various challenges
in adopting e-government but very few researches have investigated other factors to
understand employee perspective towards e-government. Al-Refaie et al. (2017) argued
that employees came across several obstacles related to technology, organisation, strategy
and policy while adopting e-government. Gupta et al. (2017) claimed organisational
factors, technical factors, personal factors and trust factors are most critical factors for
e-government adoption among employees in developing country. Moreover, Rehouma
and Hofmann (2018) discussed managerial factors, environmental factors, social factors
creates resistance towards e-government adoption among employees. Al-Mutairi et al.
(2018) have identified several obstacles towards promoting e-government among
employees which includes lack of effective infrastructure, low level of knowledge, less
experience in information technology, lack of technically skilled employees, lack of data
security of public data and information, lack of training, inefficiency in allocating
financial resources, lack of policy and regulation, lack of partnership and collaboration,
culture issues, lack of leaders and management support and absence of strategic planning
to transfer to e-government. Sanmukhiya (2019) has studied the impact of demographic
factors on e-government adoption among employees. Marital status and gender do not
predict the e-government divide but age and education affect employee decision to adopt
e-government. Chopra et al. (2021) investigated age as moderating factor for
e-government adoption among employees. Table 1 represents the selected studies that
have investigated e-government adoption among employees by using various models and
other influencing factors.
 Enablers and barriers to e-government adoption
Table 1 E-government adoption among employees
Authors
Dečman (2020), Sudirman et al. (2019),
Hammouri and Abu-Shanab (2017) ,
Batara et al. (2017), Zhan et al. (2011),
Alraja et al. (2016), Zhou (2011),
Al-Shafi (2009), Mobahi (2012) and
AlAwadhi and Morris (2008)
Lin et al. (2011), Shyu and Huang
(2011), Lee et al. (2011a, 2011b),
Wangpipatwong et al. (2008) and Dahi
and Ezziane (2015)
Khanh (2014)
Glyptis et al. (2020)
Rana et al. (2013)
Ebrahim and Irani (2005)
Al-Refaie and Ramadna (2020)
Alraja et al. (2016)
Dukić et al. (2017)
Althonayan and Althonayan (2017) and
Shajari and Ismail (2014)
Gemiya, (2020)
Al-Shboul et al. (2014)
Al-Shafi and Weerakkody (2007)
Tsai et al. (2017) and Elkadi (2013)
Shannak (2013)
Haider and Shuwen (2016)
Al-rawahna et al. (2019)
Acosta and Torres (2017)
169
Models/influencing factors
Unified theory of acceptance and use of technology
(UTAUT): performance expectancy, effort
expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions,
behavioural intention
Technology acceptance model (TAM): perceived
usefulness, perceived ease-of-use, external variables,
attitude towards using, behavioural intention to use
Diffusion of innovation model (DOI): compatibility,
relative advantage, image , complexity
Financial factors, technical factors, social and
cultural factors, legal and political strategies
Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, trust,
compatibility, facilitating condition
IT infrastructure, security and privacy, IT skills and
organisational, operational cost
End-user barriers, organisation barriers, policy
barriers, strategy barriers, technology barriers
Performance expectancy, effort expectancy
ICT skills, advanced IT skills, socio-demographic
characteristics.
System quality factors, service quality factors
Lack of training for the employees, lack of adequate
budget, lack of skilled manpower
Technological, political, cultural, economic, and
social differences
Access to the internet and e-government website,
e-government awareness, government support
Information quality, strategic benefits, and
institutional values
Political, social (internet access), technological (ICT
infrastructure, hardware and software interoperation),
Organisational (organisation strategy, employee
training)
Infrastructure, policies, employees behaviour, skills
Information quality, system quality, service quality
and IT infrastructures readiness
Lack of train personnel, laws, policies, and
procedures, security of data problems, high
investment costs
170 S. Rana et al.

Table 1 E-government adoption among employees (continued)

Authors Models/influencing factors

Mobahi (2012)
Batara et al. (2017)
Khanh (2014)
Ibrahim and Zakaria (2015)
Al-Aghbari et al. (2015)
Weerakkody et al. (2011)
Sulaiman et al. (2012)
Olatubosun and Rao (2012)
Gupta et al. (2017)
Al-Rahbi et al. (2012)
Rehouma and Hofmann (2018)
Rana et al. (2012)
Al-Shafi (2009)
Janita and Miranda (2018)
Performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social
influence, facilitating conditions, adoption attitude,
behavioural intention
Performance expectations, social influence and
facilitating conditions
Technical factors (IT infrastructure, IT standard,
national information infrastructure, collaboration);
Social factor (training, awareness, social influence
statement); governing factor (vision, top management
support, leadership, funding)
UTAUT model, website quality, awareness,
computer-self-efficiency, IT workforce capability and
training
Organisational challenges, technical challenges
Political, technological, organisational, social
Attitude, Perceived ease of use and compatibility
Performance expectancy, self-efficacy, social
influence, attitude behaviour and self-efficacy,
gender
Administrative problems, technological challenges,
infrastructural problems, lack of trust on computer
applications, security concerns and the digital divide;
training, technical infrastructure, access speed,
technical support and trust
Technical factors, IT infrastructure, IT standards, IT
security, technical expertise.
Technological factors, individual internal barriers
(technical knowhow, risk-oriented attitude),
organisational managerial factors (personal
characteristics , IT capability, training, skills and
competencies and supervisory leadership),
environmental factors (social and external
characteristics); trust (trust, trust on data, information
quality, argument quality, source credibility),
adaptability (transparency, trust)
Perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, intention
to use, attitude, satisfaction, actual use, subjective
norm, and perceived behavioural control
Technological (information technology (IT)
standards, security and privacy issue, system
integration, e-government portal and access);
political (government support, funding, leadership,
legislation and legal); social (citizen centric,
awareness, digital divide)
Reliability-security, quality of information, technical
efficiency and communication or user support
 Enablers and barriers to e-government adoption 171

3 Research methodology

3.1 Research design

The main objective of the study is to investigate the factors that act as barriers and
enablers to the employee for adopting e-government through qualitative research method.
To reach the objective of the interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) has been
used because of its unique features. Firstly, IPA helps in examining in detail about the
person’s experience of a particular phenomenon/situation /event through reflexivity and
engagement (Smith and Shinebourne, 2012; Pringle et al., 2011; Alase, 2017; Smith,
2011). Secondly, IPA follows a sense-making process, rather than generalising it based
on pre-existing theories and concepts, participants get the chance to express their opinion,
views, and experiences (Smith and Osborn, 2008; Dipboye and Foster, 2002). Thirdly,
IPA can be applied to a small sample ranging between 5 and 15 participants enough to
discover the shades and complexities of people’s lived experiences (Hefferon and
Gil-Rodriguez, 2011; Smith, 1996; Smith and Osborn, 2008). Fourthly, IPA has been
recognised as the best qualitative research by many researchers and it has been used by
many authors in recent studies (Joshi et al., 2020; Phutela and Dwivedi, 2020;
Awuviry-Newton et al., 2020). This study has meticulously followed the IPA process for
identifying the research question, sampling design, data collection methods, interviewing
methods, and data analysis have followed (Shinebourne and Smith, 2008).

3.2 Sampling
The research has used purposive sampling methods to select the employees from the
e-district offices of Uttarakhand, India (Smith and Shinebourne, 2012). Uttarakhand has
13 districts and all districts provide e-district services to citizens. Employees who are
working in providing e-district services to the citizens were eligible to take part in the
study. From each district, we contacted 5 employees via e-mail and telephone calls for
participating in the study. After regular follow-up, out of 65 employees, 23 employees
agreed to participate in the study. The meeting for interviews was scheduled according to
the employee’s convenience and because of travel restriction conditions imposed by
COVID-19, some interviews were even taken via online mode. The authors have
explained the objective of the study to the employees who agreed to participate in the
study and they were asked to submit ethical approval and informed consent. The
demographic profile of employees is illustrated in Figures 1 to 4. Figure 5 shows the
number of employees who have participated from each e-district office of Uttarakhand,
India.
172 S. Rana et al.

Figure 1 Demographic profile (age) (see online version for colours)

Figure 2 Demographic profile (gender) (see online version for colours)

Figure 3 Demographic profile (education qualification) (see online version for colours)
 Enablers and barriers to e-government adoption 173

Figure 4 Demographic profile (computer experience) (see online version for colours)

Figure 5 Number of employees from 13 e-district office of Uttarakhand, India (see online version
for colours)

3.3 Data collection

The authors have conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with employees working
in e-district offices of Uttarakhand, India. The list of open-ended questions was prepared
to identify the barriers and enablers that influence employees to adopt e-government. The
open-ended questions did not have any predetermined limit or boundary but to ensure
their reliability and validity, questions were verified by five experts from the field of
e-government. The experts’ suggestion was considered and modification was made in the
list of open-ended questions. In the second round for confirming construct validity,
another set of experts were shared the modified list of questions for approval. Once
receiving the approval, some of the critical questions were asked to employees for
initiating the discussion.
174 S. Rana et al.

• Do you like to work on e-government (e-district)?

• Does e-government (e-district) make your work easy and convenient?
• Do you face any difficulties while working on e-government (e-district)?
• What type of barriers or challenges faced while working on e-government
(e-district)?
• How these barriers or challenges affect your job performance?
• What can be done to remove barriers?
• What kind of support do you need to work efficiently on e-government (e-district)?
• What can motivate you to work on (e-district)?
• What is your suggestion to improve e-government (e-district)?
The authors have recorded interviews in audio clip format that were conducted in-person
at various locations. The online interviews were also recorded in video format. The
average duration of the interviews was 50 minutes. Each interview was carried out for 30
to 115 minutes. The next employee was not invited until the interview with the previous
employee had been evaluated and transferred to the verbatim transcripts. IPA research
study suggests that researchers can destroy or erase video, audio, and recorded data once
they are transferred to the verbatim transcripts for the protection and security of the
participants (Alase, 2017).

3.4 Data analysis

The data was prepared and analysed by using the steps recommended by Smith and
Osborn (2008), Moustakas (1994) and Cassidy et al. (2011). The interview data was
precisely analysed to identify the meaningful insights and terminologies related to
barriers and enablers of e-government adoption among employees. Immediately after
each interview, interview data was recorded in verbatim transcripts and then each
verbatim transcripts were closely read to code and categories terminologies that provided
eloquent themes and subthemes. The detailed notes were prepared for each employee’s
interview and were cross-examined for identifying the differences and similarities to
form a cluster of themes and sub-themes. Similar themes were identified and marked on
the verbatim transcripts of each employee interview data. A table was designed to record
themes and superordinate themes for all the interviews. The authors discussed and
deliberated on the employee’s narratives to ensure that interpretations for identifying
themes should remain the same. The process of debate and deliberation was continued
until the consensus was achieved. After mutual understanding and consensus, final
themes and sub-themes were recorded. To analyse the accuracy of the data analysis
process; cutting and sorting techniques suggested by Ryan and Bernard (2000) have also
been applied. The identified themes were further authenticated and confirmed by
employees who have not participated in this study. According to Smith (2011), verbatim
excerpts from three to four respondents per theme are sufficient for a sample size bigger
than eight.
 Enablers and barriers to e-government adoption 175

4 Results and discussion

‘Themes’ or meaning units’ evolved substantially by combining the responses of the

participants regarding their perceptions in adopting e-government. The analysis of the
responses revealed four themes (technological-level barriers, institutional-level barriers,
operational-level barriers and employee-level barriers) act as a barrier to the adoption of
e-government among the employees. Three themes have also been identified that enable
(government level support, ancillary services and organisational support) employee to
adopt e-government.

4.1 Barriers of e-government adoption among employees

4.1.1 Theme 1 – technological-level barriers
Technological-level barriers evolved as the first theme. Employees face technological
barriers in adopting e-government. During the interview, employees expressed
resentment on poor technical infrastructure where they highlighted issues related to
hardware and software for working on e-government (respondents 7, 9, 15). Poor
infrastructure adversely affects their willingness to adopt e-government (Al-Mutairi
et al., 2018; Batara et al., 2017; Rehman et al., 2012; Glyptis et al., 2020; Nkohkwo and
Islam, 2013; Al-Busaidy and Weerakkody, 2009). It was also revealed that the
information provided in the e-government websites sometimes is obsolete, incomplete,
and unstructured. This creates confusion among the employees and results in
dissemination of old or wrong information to the citizens (respondent 9). Similar findings
were reported where researchers claimed that e-government websites lack system and
information quality affect the service quality for citizens (Althonayan and Althonayan,
2017; Tsai et al., 2017; Glyptis et al., 2020; Al-Busaidy and Weerakkody, 2009).
Employees also felt frustrated with e-government website features such as its layout,
visual appeal, navigation, language etc. Because of the poor website features the
government websites are slow to load and takes more time to submit the document and
results in non-completion of task (respondent 15, 7). Sometimes employees struggle to
navigate information on the website and absence of direct web support results in
impatient or anxious behaviour among the employees which affect their job performance.
Previous researchers agreed that website quality is a critical factor that influences
employees to adopt e-government (Glyptis et al., 2020; Al-Busaidy and Weerakkody,
2009; Vance et al., 2008).
Though I am interested to use the computer to provide the services but poor
technical infrastructure like outdated computers and slow network abstains me
from doing so. Frequently it happens that we have to wait for several minutes
for submitting online application forms or any work-related document.
Sometimes website crashes and I don’t get support instantly to resolve these
issues. (Respondent 7)
E-government websites are poorly designed and boring to work on. It takes a
lot of time to understand the technical words and that becomes very confusing.
Though we can convert the page in other language but we have to submit
information in English. (Respondent 15)
Most of the links provided on the website are non-functional or broken. The
information provided on the website is sometimes inaccurate and incomplete.
176 S. Rana et al.

Such information creates confusion so I have to look for updated information in

circulars shared via post or e-mail. (Respondent 9)

4.1.2 Theme 2: institutional-level barriers

During the analysis, it was brought out that some barriers occur at the institutional level.
It was reported by the employees that top management doesn’t provide a clear roadmap
for implementing e-government at the departmental level [Respondent 9]. In the absence
of a clear strategy on e-government implementation, employees feel ambiguous and
remain stranded. The employees need efficient leadership, clear strategy and direction to
implement work on e-government (Lips, 2012; Ryan et al., 2012; Kor et al., 2008;
Meijer, 2015; Savoldelli et al., 2014). Even, employees are also afraid of stringent
e-government policy as they feel that their mistake may lead to negative consequences
for their job (respondent 12). This creates anxiety and negative attitude among employees
and they intentionally evade working on e-government (Gupta et al., 2017). It was also
revealed that the employees are using outdated hardware devices because they lack the
budget for purchasing new or upgraded technology at the institutional level
(respondents 4, 11). Technology is dynamic in nature and requires a continuous
up-gradation in terms of both hardware and software. Institutions who invest money on
new technology always get success in this competitive market (Al-Mutairi et al., 2018).
The government institution provides a limited budget to improve technical
infrastructure. The e-government system requires continuous up-gradation and
in order to update to replace any its components, we have to undergo a
cumbersome process of approval. The complete process requires one-two
months. (Respondent 4)
We have been asked to adopt e-government without any provision of sufficient
resources. Even, if one computer gets damaged the work gets stopped. We have
asked for additional desktops and laptops but still, it has not been considered.
(Respondent 11)
The stringent policy for working on the e-government also demotivates me.
Already I don’t know much about working on e-government, and if I will make
any mistake while working on e-government then I have to face severe
consequences. (Respondent 12)
In our organisation directions flows in the downward direction from the top
authorities. The directions lack clarity and it looks like one-way
communication, instruction keeps on coming without any clear guidelines. If
we face any problems and try to reach our manager for help.
I came to know that even our manager is not trained to use the e-government.
(Respondent 9)

4.1.3 Theme 3: operational-level barriers

The analysis revealed that a lack of operational-level barriers also dissuades employee to
adopt e-government. Operational-level barriers are mainly related to day to day activities.
Working on e-government is a regular activity and employees struggle with basic
facilities like office infrastructure, poor working conditions etc. Employees reported that
poor ergonomics make them feel tired and exhausted (respondent 4). Fatigued workers
tend to make more errors and become less productive (Dillon and Pelgrin, 2002).
Furthermost, most of the employees unanimously agreed on that they regularly face
 Enablers and barriers to e-government adoption 177

issues related to server and internet connectivity while working on e-government website
(respondent 16). Without effective infrastructure, e-government implementation will not
be successful. It is important to note that most of the employees working in the
government sector are middle-aged who have limited knowledge about the technology
and its usage. Even after getting trained they wished for continuous training and technical
support so that they can use e-government without any interruptions (Respondents 21, 9).
It has been proved in the previous researches that continuous training help employees in
upgrading their knowledge and skills, but the absence of training gives can results in
negative outcomes (Batara et al., 2017; Savoldelli et al., 2014; Markezini et al., 2013).
It is difficult to use the e-government as the technical support is not provided, if
we get stuck or the system hangs, we are stranded. While using the system so
many times it occurs that the system hangs or an unrecognised error occurs. As
we are not very technically sound we are dependent on technical staff. There is
only one technical support person for 20 people which makes his task herculean
and we have to wait till he is free. (Respondent 21)
The website is heavy and requires uninterrupted good network connectivity.
The internet connectivity is a major issue, even though we have Wi-Fi enabled
department but still, the connectivity is not stable and at times we have to wait
for long hours till the connectivity is restored. Even if there is connectivity,
most often speed is slow which frustrates and demotivates me. (Respondent 16)
Most of us have been manually working for 15 to 20 years in this organization.
I am not well versed with the computer but I am willing to learn. I have been
provided with some basic training but e-government websites keep on adding
additional features every day. The training programs are conducted once or
twice a year not frequently and I struggle to use updated features.
(Respondent 9)
My office infrastructure is very old and not suitable for working on the
computer. I can see wires all over, then sometimes employees’ steps and get
stuck in tangled wires. The rooms are not properly lit and show reflection of
light on the screen and the furniture is also uncomfortable to sit and work for a
long hour. I feel fatigued and tired due to continuously engrossed on the screen.
(Respondent 4)

4.1.4 Theme 4: employee-level barriers

During the interview, employees had revealed their personal-level barriers in adopting
e-government. Firstly, the forced decision of the government for employees to adopt
e-government has not been appreciated by employees (respondent 12). It has been proven
in the previous researches that forcing employees to accept decision results in
counterproductive behaviour (Elgohary and Abdelazyz, 2020; Lauer and Rajagopalan,
2003). Employees preferred manual government over e-government because they felt that
e-government has resulted in extraordinary workload, severe work pressure and a lot of
duplication of work (respondents 12, 14). A negative attitude has been formed towards
e-government among the employees that inhibit them to adopt e-government. Attitude
has been considered to be a significant factor for adopting e-government employees
(Batara et al., 2017; Born and Krönung, 2016). Employees have shown high resistance on
the working pattern of e-government and they do not intend to learn new technology
(respondents 14, 21). Employees’ lack of computer literacy makes them struggle to work
on e-government adoption (Al-Mutairi et al., 2018) and lack of self-efficacy does not
178 S. Rana et al.

motivate them to learn digital skills for working on e-government (Ibrahim and Zakaria,
2016; Chiang, 2014). Employees lack trust in e-government websites and show hesitant
to adopt e-government (respondent 3). Previous researchers indicate that employees trust
in technology is the significant factor for adopting e-government among employees
(Sulistyowati et al., 2020; Carter et al., 2011; Bélanger and Carter, 2008; Gupta et al.,
2017).
The government has forced us to work on the e-government without
considering our view-point. This makes me feels like that I don’t have any say
in the organization and often feels like taking voluntary retirement or quit job.
(Respondent 12)
In reality, I am working on both – some work needs to be done on paper
whereas some work needs to be done online. This has resulted in duplication of
work and has increased workload. Honestly, till now, I am not clear on many
aspects e-government. (Respondent 14)
For me, e-government is a nuisance. I was efficiently working on the manual
procedure but e-government has adversely affected my job performance. At the
age of 51, now I am compelled to learn and get training on computer
technology. (Respondent 2)
I feel that e-government website also has many security issues and I really
don’t rely on them fully. I have heard so many cases where confidential data
has been leaked out and employees have faced the consequences even though
they have not done the act. (Respondent 3)

4.2 Enablers of e-government adoption among employees

4.2.1 Theme 1: government-level support
Employees believed that in order to execute a new process of this magnitude needs
constant and consistent support from the government. Employees are not satisfied with
the framework of e-governance project, structure, architecture, components, guidelines
and national information technology policy. According to the employees, the government
should restructure the national e-governance plan considering the issues at micro level
(respondent 22). The clear national policy for e-government may sustenance the
employees to adopt e-government (Bekkers and Homburg, 2007; Beynon-Davies, 2007).
Employees also revealed that the government has not provided adequate financial support
for effective implementation of the e-government. Employees require financial support to
get additional training, funds for purchasing new technology or replacing old technology
(respondent 17). Providing adequate financial support to a government department or
employees at the right time can help in removing many operational barriers. Many
researchers have discussed that proving financial support to the employee’s help in
changing the negative mindset to a positive one (Kelly et al., 2020; Lau and Roopnarain,
2014). Employees also have alleged the legal system because they are afraid of job loss
and suspension in case if they commit any mistakes (respondent 9). Employees want the
legal policy to be designed in their favour so that they can contentedly work on
e-government. A strong legal framework which can save employees from legal issues can
motivate employees to adopt e-government (Bleeker, 2020; Soliman et al., 2006;
Lambrinoudakis et al., 2003).
 Enablers and barriers to e-government adoption 179

I have read the national policy of e-government, it is really complex and

consists of a lot of ambiguity. Government has considered the broad aspects
ignoring the ground level aspects. I feel the government should take
departmental level employees while designing e-government. (Respondent 22)
I want adequate legal support so that we can liberally work on e-government.
Presently, I am afraid of legal consequences, so I try to skip from working on
e-e-government. (Respondent 9)
We all know that the government provide a limited budget for any type of work
and amounts are also not sanction on time. Moreover, if we request for any
additional amount like attending the training program, hiring additional
technical staff for resolving the issues or repairing technology, we hardly get
any approvals. If the government can change some of these aspects, I will be
happy to work on e-government. (Respondent 17)

4.2.2 Theme 2: organisational-level support

For effective implementation of the e-government, employees need organisation support.
Employees have revealed that organisational culture is a need for concern because they
do not have a competitive work environment and lack motivation to work (respondents 5,
16). It is important to create healthy competition by offering incentives for their ideas and
contribution, this can enable employees to adopt e-government. Previous researchers
have found that healthy competitive environment is good for both employees and
organisation (Lowe et al., 2003; Kalra et al., 2020; Park and Searcy, 2012). Employees
have shown their willingness to adopt e-government, in addition to that they want top
management support to resolve their issues and support them in adopting e-government.
Employees also look forward to separate organisational strategy for successful
implementation of e-government (respondents 23, 20). In align of this proclamation,
many researchers have argued the importance of managerial support or top management
support for adopting e-government (Rehouma and Hofmann, 2018; Gupta et al., 2017;
Meijer, 2015).
Government organization culture is very different from the private organization
culture. There is no competitive environment, everyone around me is working
in their comfort zone and they don’t want to take any additional work or
responsibility. Initially, when I had joined this job, I was full of zeal and
enthusiasm but now, I have also become one of them. (Respondent 5)
I know that my ideas and suggestion doesn’t have any value, so I hardly make
any contribution to do new things. But if I get appreciated or paid for my ideas,
I will definitely try to work hard for proving my worth in the organization.
(Respondent 16)
If we see the organization hierarchy, there are many levels. The power distance
is very high and top management is hardly in my reach. Whenever I report
issues related to e-government to my manager, he hardly pays any attention. If I
can get direct support top management or manager, I will at least try to adopt
e-government. (Respondent 23)
Organization strategy for implementing e-government is really abstruse. They
only follow the orders receive from the central government without any
specific strategy for its execution. E-government needs to also have a separate
strategy at the organizational level. Maybe then, I can get the clear standard
operating procedures (SOP) that will help me in adopting on e-government.
(Respondent 20)
180 S. Rana et al.

4.2.3 Theme 3: ancillary services

Government employees need some ancillary services to deal with the barriers to
efficiently work on the e-government. As employees were facing issues daily while
operating e-government, they want special Hotline number for resolving the issue related
to e-government which will save their time and limit the dependency on technical staff
and manager. Additionally, employees also proposed to have an online complaints
system to avail quick solution to resolve their problems. This will be also an effective
strategy, as the request status can be tracked online and can be easy to make the follow up
of the submitted grievance. The government should think about recruiting more
technically skilled staff in the future by conducting a practical technical test. Some
employees have innovative ideas to enhance e-government, they want to suggest those
ideas directly to the government through online suggestion and feedback mechanism.
Last, of all, the government should partner with a private organisation to avail their
special services as they are expert in the technological field.
We have a lengthy procedure to register technical issues. Even after registering
the complaint, it is difficult to track the progress. A fast-track online complaint
system can be used to address technical issues on a high priority basis.
(Respondent 3)
I think we should have a phone number for employee issues, just as we have a
number for customer service. I may instantly call this number for help when I
experience a problem with working with e-government. (Respondent 14)
I can give much suggestion for resolving the problem at the organizational level
which may be helpful also at the national level. An effective online suggestion
and feedback mechanism can really improve the working of the e-government
system. (Respondent 21)
In the future, the government should think about employing more technically
skilled staff by conducting practical technical assessments. (Respondent 16)
Many private companies are experts in proving technical services at less cost,
the government should collaborate with private companies to use their special
services. (Respondent 7)

5 Conclusions

This study has reported total seven themes that act as barriers and enablers for employees
to adopt e-government. Technological-level barriers, institutional-level barriers,
operational-level barriers, and employee-level barriers are four major barriers that affect
employees in the adoption of e-government. Technological-level barriers are mainly
related to poor technical infrastructure and website quality. Employees struggle with
obsolete hardware and software which indirectly affect their productivity. Also, the
website quality, information quality, service quality and system quality affect the service
delivery done through e-government. Institutional level barriers also demotivate
employees to adopt e-government. At institutional-level employees does not have clear
leadership and direction for execution e-government and stringent e-government policy
inhibit them to adopt e-government. Moreover, the institution also lacks the budget for
purchasing updated technology, which restricts employee willingness to adopt
e-government. Even employees face barriers at operational-level as well. In order to
 Enablers and barriers to e-government adoption 181

efficiently perform, day to day activities employee need well-organised office

ergonomics and good bandwidth and internet connectivity. Employees need to be trained
regularly to match the current requirements for working on e-government. Lastly,
employee-level barriers are directly related to employees. Employees have a negative
attitude towards e-government because e-government has increased their workload and
work pressure. Due to poor digital literacy, employees find it difficult to work on
e-government and lack of self-efficacy does not encourage them to acquire digital skills.
Also, employees do not trust in e-government and prefer to work on manual government.
To overcome the barriers for adopting e-government among employees; government
level support, ancillary services, and organisational support can act as enablers that can
motivate them to adopt e-government. Foremost, government-level support like
providing budget, adequate legal support and effective national policy for e-government
can expedite the process for implementing e-government. Secondly, organisational-level
support can also be a bigger driving force for employees to adopt e-government.
Organisations are required to create a healthy competitive work environment, attractive
reward policy for their valuable contribution. The employees can also be motivated by
the manager by taking up their ideas and suggestion for designing an organisational level
strategy for executing e-government. Also, the government employees need ancillary
services such as hotline number’ fast-track online complaint system, online suggestion
and feedback mechanism for resolving their operational level issues. Additionally, the
government need to recruit technically skilled staff to make efficient delivery of services.
Many countries have implemented e-government in the public-private partnership model,
a similar model can also be replicated. The new factors have emerged through qualitative
research which gives a detailed understanding of the enablers and barriers in adopting
e-government among employees. These enablers will be beneficial for designing
framework for efficacious implementation of e-government in many other developing
countries.

6 Practical implication

The research finding will help developing countries and underdeveloped countries that
are planning to implement e-government. The identified enablers and barriers themes will
support the government, organisation decision-makers to focus on the significant facets
required for effective e-government adoption among employees and improving their job
performance. This research has suggested critical barriers (technological-level barriers,
institutional-level barriers, operational-level barriers, and employee-level barriers) that
may influence employees to adopt e-government. The government can focus on removing
these barriers for effective adoption and implementation of e-government. The study also
suggests enabler (government level support, ancillary services, and organisational
support) that may help the employee to adopt e-government. This study advises that
government should focus on developing a fast-track online complaint system, online
suggestion and feedback mechanism, recruitment of technically skilled staff, hotline
number and public-private partnership for creating successful adoption of e-government
among employee.
182 S. Rana et al.

7 Theoretical contributions

Previous researches were limited to the general technology adoption model like TAM,
UTAUT, TPB, etc., this study makes a novel contribution to the research literature
through qualitative research using the IPA technique. The identified factors will help in
developing the new conceptual framework for e-government adoption among employees.
Also, most of the previous researchers have investigated the barriers faced by the
employee but enablers have not been investigated for e-government adoption from the
employee’s perspective. This study has largely contributed to the literature on enablers of
e-government.

8 Limitation and future scope of research

This research has some limitation which may be addressed in future research studies.
This research has reported the enablers and barriers that influence employees to adopt
e-government through qualitative research methodology (IPA). There are some
drawbacks to this study that could be discussed in future research studies. IPA technique
has its own limitation like employees may not even have revealed their true intentions
during the interview and might have replied in a more officially and positive manner. IPA
is used on a small sample, in the future, a similar kind of study can be replicated and the
findings can be extended to large samples in other states or countries. Other researchers
might use various quantitative or qualitative techniques that can lead to the identification
of different factors. The research can be extended with a triangulation approach using
different techniques and methods to get more valid and reliable results. The study has
been conducted among employees of the e-district offices of Uttarakhand in India, the
results may vary for other e-government services in other states or countries; therefore,
the results cannot be generalised.

References
Acosta, J.S.B. and Torres, J.M.S. (2017) ‘A methodology to explore key factors and barriers
affecting the adoption of ICTs in e-government’, European Conference on Digital
Government, June, pp.351–355, Academic Conferences International Limited.
Al-Aghbari, A., Abu-ulbeh, W.A.U., Ibrahim, O. and Saeed, F. (2015) ‘The readiness and
limitations of e-government in Yemen’, Jurnal Teknologi, Vol. 73, No. 2, pp.107–115.
Alase, A. (2017) ‘The interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA): a guide to a good qualitative
research approach’, International Journal of Education and Literacy Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2,
pp.9–19.
Alase, A. (2017) ‘The interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA): a guide to a good qualitative
research approach’, International Journal of Education and Literacy Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2,
pp.9–19.
AlAwadhi, S. and Morris, A. (2008) ‘The use of the UTAUT model in the adoption of
e-government services in Kuwait’, Proceedings of the 41st Annual Hawaii International
Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2008), January, pp.219–219.
Al-Busaidy, M. and Weerakkody, V. (2009) ‘E-government diffusion in Oman: a public sector
employees’ perspective’, Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 3,
No. 4, pp.375–393.
 Enablers and barriers to e-government adoption 183

Alibraheem, M.H., Abdul-Jabbar, H. and Ibrahim, I. (2020) ‘Electronic tax filing adoption in
Jordan: the tax employees’ perspectives’, International Journal of Advanced Science and
Technology, Vol. 28, No. 17, pp.681–689.
Al-Mutairi, A., Naser, K. and Fayez, F. (2018) ‘Obstacles toward adopting electronic government
in an emerging economy: evidence from Kuwait’, Asian Economic and Financial Review,
Vol. 8, No. 6, pp.832–842.
Al-Rahbi, Y., Al-Harrasi, S. and Al-Wahaibi, S. (2012) Technical Factors Affecting the Adoption of
E-government, Master thesis, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
Alraja, M.N., Hammami, S., Chikhi, B. and Fekir, S. (2016) ‘The influence of effort and
performance expectancy on employees to adopt e-government: evidence from Oman’,
International Review of Management and Marketing, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp.930–934.
Al-rawahna, A.S.M., Chen, S.C. and Hung, C.W. (2019) The Barriers of E-Government Success:
An Empirical Study from Jordan, SSRN 3498847.
Al-Refaie, A. and Ramadna, A.M. (2020) ‘Barriers to e-government adoption in jordanian
organizations from users’ and employees’ perspectives’, Open Government: Concepts,
Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, pp.2190–2210, IGI Global, Pennsylvania, USA.
Al-Refaie, A., Ramadna, A. and Bata, N. (2017) ‘Barriers to e-government adoption in Jordanian
organizations from users’ and employees’ perspectives’, International Journal of Electronic
Government Research, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp.33–51.
Al-Shafi, S. and Weerakkody, V. (2007) ‘Exploring e-government in the state of Qatar: benefits,
challenges and complexities’, in Proceedings of European and Mediterranean Conference on
Information Systems, Polytechnic University of Valencia, June, pp.1–19.
Al-Shafi, S.H. (2009) Factors Affecting E-Government Implementation and Adoption in the State of
Qatar, Doctoral dissertation, Brunel University, School of Information Systems, Computing
and Mathematics.
Al-Shboul, M., Rababah, O., Ghnemat, R. and Al-Saqqa, S. (2014) ‘Challenges and factors
affecting the implementation of e-government in Jordan’, Journal of Software Engineering
and Applications, Vol. 7, No. 13, p.1111.
Althonayan, M. and Althonayan, A. (2017) ‘E-government system evaluation: the case of users’
performance using ERP systems in higher education’, Transforming Government: People,
Process and Policy, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp.306–342.
Althonayan, M. and Althonayan, A. (2017) ‘E-government system evaluation: the case of users’
performance using ERP systems in higher education’, Transforming Government: People,
Process and Policy, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp.306–342.
Awuviry-Newton, K., Tavener, M., Wales, K., and Byles, J. (2020) ‘Interpretative
phenomenological analysis of the lived experiences of older adults regarding their
functional activities in Ghana’, Journal of Primary Care & Community Health, Vol. 11,
p.2150132720931110.
Azim, R.M.H.A., Salman, O. and El Henawy, I. (2020) ‘The role of e-government as a stimulus for
economic growth’, The International Journal of Business Management and Technology,
Vol. 4, No. 5, pp.69–79.
Batara, E., Nurmandi, A., Warsito, T. and Pribadi, U. (2017) ‘Are government employees adopting
local e-government transformation?’, Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy,
Vol. 11, No. 4, pp.612–638.
Bekkers, V. and Homburg, V. (2007) ‘The myths of e-government: looking beyond the
assumptions of a new and better government’, The Information Society, Vol. 23, No. 5,
pp.373–382.
Bélanger, F. and Carter, L. (2008) ‘Trust and risk in e-government adoption’, The Journal of
Strategic Information Systems, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp.165–176.
Beynon-Davies, P. (2007) ‘Models for e-government’, Transforming Government: People, Process
and Policy, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.7–28.
184 S. Rana et al.

Bhaskar, P., Vinay, M. and Joshi, A. (2021a) ‘E-government adoption among employees: a
systematic review-derived conceptual framework’, Transforming Human Resource Functions
with Automation, pp.20–43.
Bhaskar, P., Vinay, M. and Joshi, A. (2021b) E-government adoption among employees in India: a
qualitative approach’, International Journal of Information Systems and Change Management,
Inderscience (forthcoming articles).
Bleeker, A. (2020) ‘Creating an enabling environment for e-government and the protection of
privacy rights in the Caribbean: a review of data protection legislation for alignment with the
General Data Protection Regulation’, ECLAC – Studies and Perspectives series-The
Caribbean No. 94 [online] https://www.cepal.org/en/publications/46277-creating-enabling-
environment-government-and-protection-privacy-rights-caribbean.
Born, F. and Krönung, J. (2016) ‘Attitude vs. attitude – the problem of competing attitudes in
e-government adoption’, in Nissen, V. (Ed.): Multikonferenz Wirtschaftsinformatik (MKWI)
2016: Technische Universität Ilmenau, 9–. März, Vol. 1, pp.493–504.
Carter, L., Shaupp, L.C., Hobbs, J. and Campbell, R. (2011) ‘The role of security and trust in the
adoption of online tax filing’, Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 5,
No. 4, pp.303–318.
Cassidy, E., Reynolds, F., Naylor, S. and De Souza, L. (2011) ‘Using interpretative
phenomenological analysis to inform physiotherapy practice: an introduction with reference to
the lived experience of cerebellar ataxia’, Physiotherapy Theory and Practice, Vol. 27, No. 4,
pp.263–277.
Chiang, L. (2014) ‘Exploring the effects of trust, perceived risk, and e-services systems on public
services in e-government’, Frameworks of IT Prosumption for Business Development,
pp.102–118, IGI Global, Pennsylvania, USA.
Chopra, G; Bhaskar, P.; Vinay, M. and Joshi, A. (2021) ‘E-government adoption and employees’
job performance: the moderating role of age as a demographic factor’, Electronic Government,
an International Journal, Inderscience, in press.
Choudrie, J. and Papazafeiropoulou, A. (2006) ‘Lessons learnt from the broadband diffusion in
South Korea and the UK: implications for future government intervention in technology
diffusion’, Electronic Government: An International Journal, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp.373–385.
Cuthbertson, L.M., Robb, Y.A. and Blair, S. (2020) ‘Theory and application of research principles
and philosophical underpinning for a study utilising interpretative phenomenological analysis’,
Radiography, Vol. 26, No. 2, pp.e94–e102.
Dahi, M. and Ezziane, Z. (2015) ‘Measuring e-government adoption in Abu Dhabi with technology
acceptance model (TAM)’, International Journal of Electronic Governance, Vol. 7, No. 3,
pp.206–231.
Dečman, M. (2020) ‘Understanding technology acceptance of government information systems
from employees’ perspective’, Open Government: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and
Applications, pp.1488–1507, IGI Global, Pennsylvania, USA.
Dillon, J. and Pelgrin, W. (2002) E-Government/Commerce in New York State, Office of
Technology, New York, NY.
Dipboye, R.L. and Foster, J.B., (2002) ‘Multi-level theorizing about perceptions of organizational
politics’, Research in Multi-Level Issues, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.255–270.
Dukić, D., Dukić, G. and Bertović, N. (2017) ‘Public administration employees’ readiness and
acceptance of e-government: findings from a Croatian survey’, Information Development, Vol.
33, No. 5, pp.525–539.
Dwivedi, Y.K. and Lal, B. (2007) ‘Socio-economic determinants of broadband adoption’,
Industrial Management and Data Systems, Vol. 107, No. 5, pp.654–671.
Ebrahim, Z. and Irani, Z. (2005) ‘E-government adoption: architecture and barriers’, Business
Process Management Journal, Vol. 11, No. 5, pp.589–611.
 Enablers and barriers to e-government adoption 185

Elgohary, E. and Abdelazyz, R. (2020) ‘The impact of employees’ resistance to change on

implementing e-government systems: an empirical study in Egypt’, The Electronic Journal of
Information Systems in Developing Countries, p.e12139.
Elkadi, H. (2013) ‘Success and failure factors for e-government projects: a case from Egypt’,
Egyptian Informatics Journal, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp.165–173.
Gemiya, A.G. (2020) ‘Factors affecting the use of ICT services in Ethiopia: the case of Illubabor
Zone-Oromia Regional State’, International Journal of Information and Communication
Technology Education (IJICTE), Vol. 16, No. 1, pp.50–60.
Gilbert, D., Balestrini, P. and Littleboy, D. (2004) ‘Barriers and benefits in the adoption of
e-government’, International Journal of Public Sector Management, Vol. 17, No. 4,
pp.286–301.
Glyptis, L., Christofi, M., Vrontis, D., Del Giudice, M., Dimitriou, S. and Michael, P. (2020)
‘E-government implementation challenges in small countries: the project manager’s
perspective’, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Vol. 152, p.119880.
Gupta, K.P., Bhaskar, P. and Singh, S. (2017) ‘Prioritization of factors influencing employee
adoption of e-government using the analytic hierarchy process’, Journal of Systems and
Information Technology, Vol. 19, Nos. 1/2, pp.116–137.
Haider, Z. and Shuwen, C. (2016) ‘Electronic government adoption in Pakistan: supply and
demand perspectives’, Trends, Prospects, and Challenges in Asian E-Governance,
pp.208–227, IGI Global, Pennsylvania, USA.
Hammouri, Q. and Abu-Shanab, E. (2017) ‘Exploring the factors influencing employees’
satisfaction toward e-tax systems’, International Journal of Public Sector Performance
Management, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp.169–190.
Hefferon, K. and Gil-Rodriguez, E. (2011) ‘Interpretative phenomenological analysis’, The
Psychologist, Vol. 24, No. 10, pp.756–759.
Hung, S.Y., Chang, C.M. and Yu, T.J. (2006) ‘Determinants of user acceptance of the
e-government services: the case of online tax filing and payment system’, Government
Information Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp.97–122.
Ibrahim, O.A. and Zakaria, N.H. (2015) ‘Towards the development of an adoption model for e-
government services in developing countries’, PACIS 2015 Proceedings, p.137.
Ibrahim, O.A. and Zakaria, N.H. (2016) ‘E-government services in developing countries: a success
adoption model from employees perspective’, Journal of Theoretical & Applied Information
Technology, Vol. 94, No. 2, pp.383–396.
Ismail, I., Fathonih, A., Prabowo, H., Hartati, S. and Redjeki, F. (2020) ‘Transparency and
corruption: does e-government effective to combat corruption?’, International Journal of
Psychosocial Rehabilitation, Vol. 24, No. 4, pp.5396–5404.
Janita, M.S. and Miranda, F.J. (2018) ‘Quality in e-government services: a proposal of dimensions
from the perspective of public sector employees’, Telematics and Informatics, Vol. 35, No. 2,
pp.457–469.
Joshi, A., Vinay, M. and Bhaskar, P. (2020) ‘Impact of coronavirus pandemic on the Indian
education sector: perspectives of teachers on online teaching and assessments’, Interactive
Technology and Smart Education, ahead-of-print.
Kalra, A., Agnihotri, R., Talwar, S., Rostami, A. and Dwivedi, P.K. (2020) ‘Effect of internal
competitive work environment on working smart and emotional exhaustion: the moderating
role of time management’, Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 36, No. 2,
pp.269–280.
Kelly, K., Valtchanov, D. and Webb, A. (2020) ‘Behavioral implications of using an online slot
machine game to motivate employees: a cautionary tale’, Accounting, Organizations and
Society, p.101196.
Kettani, D. (2014) ‘Technology enablers for e-government systems’, E-Government for Good
Governance in Developing Countries: Empirical Evidence from the eFez Project, pp.223–250,
Anthem Press, London.
186 S. Rana et al.

Khanh, N.T.V. (2014) The Critical Factors Affecting E-Government Adoption: A Conceptual
Framework in Vietnam, arXiv preprint arXiv:1401.4876.
Kor, A.L., Orange, G., Elsheikh, Y., Cullen, A. and Hobbs, D. (2008) ‘e-government in Jordan:
challenges and opportunities’, Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 2,
No. 2, pp.83–103.
Lambrinoudakis, C., Gritzalis, S., Dridi, F. and Pernul, G. (2003) ‘Security requirements for
e-government services: a methodological approach for developing a common PKI-based
security policy’, Computer Communications, Vol. 26, No. 16, pp.1873–1883.
Lau, C.M. and Roopnarain, K. (2014) ‘The effects of nonfinancial and financial measures on
employee motivation to participate in target setting’, The British Accounting Review, Vol. 46,
No. 3, pp.228–247.
Lauer, T. and Rajagopalan, B. (2003) Conceptualization of User Acceptance and Resistance in
System Implementation Research: A Re-Examination of Constructs, Department of Decision
and Information Sciences, Oakland University Rochester, USA.
Lee, J., Kim, H.J. and Ahn, M.J. (2011a) ‘The willingness of e-government service adoption by
business users: the role of offline service quality and trust in technology’, Government
Information Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp.222–230.
Lee, Y.H., Hsieh, Y.C. and Hsu, C.N. (2011b) ‘Adding innovation diffusion theory to the
technology acceptance model: supporting employees’ intentions to use e-learning systems’,
Journal of Educational Technology & Society, Vol. 14, No. 4, pp.124–137.
Lin, F., Fofanah, S.S. and Liang, D. (2011) ‘Assessing citizen adoption of e-government initiatives
in Gambia: a validation of the technology acceptance model in information systems success’,
Government Information Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp.271–279.
Lips, M. (2012) ‘E-government is dead: long live public administration 2.0’, Information Polity,
Vol. 17, Nos. 3–4, pp.239–250.
Lowe, G.S., Schellenberg, G. and Shannon, H.S. (2003) ‘Correlates of employees’ perceptions of a
healthy work environment’, American Journal of Health Promotion, Vol. 17, No. 6,
pp.390–399.
Markezini, M.S., Ali, M. and Alkayid, K. (2013) ‘E-government process in the public sector and
the barriers against its implementation: a case study in Greece’, Proceedings of the European,
Mediterranean & Middle Eastern Conference on Information Systems (EMCIS), Accepted
Refereed Papers, 17–18 October, Windsor, UK.
Meijer, A. (2015) ‘E-governance innovation: barriers and strategies’, Government Information
Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp.198–206.
Meyer, J. (2008) Older Workers and the Adoption of New Technologies, ZEW Discussion Paper
No. 07-050, pp.1–18, ZEW, Mannheim.
Mobahi, H. (2012) The Adoption of E-government Services by Employees in Iran : Case Study:
Rasht Municipality, Dissertation [online] http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-
45111.
Moustakas, C. (1994) Phenomenological Research Methods, Sage Publications, Sage, London.
Neirotti, P., Raguseo, E. and Paolucci, E. (2018) ‘How SMEs develop ICT-based capabilities in
response to their environment’, Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol. 31,
No. 1, pp.10–37.
Nkohkwo, Q.N.A. and Islam, M.S. (2013) ‘Challenges to the successful implementation of
e-government initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa: a literature review’, Electronic Journal of
E-Government, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp.252–266.
Olatubosun, O. and Rao, K.S.M. (2012) ‘Empirical study of the readiness of public servants on the
adoption of e-government’, International Journal of Information Systems and Change
Management, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp.17–37.
Osei-Kojo, A. (2017) ‘E-government and public service quality in Ghana’, Journal of Public
Affairs, Vol. 17, No. 3, p.e1620.
 Enablers and barriers to e-government adoption 187

Othman, M.H., Razali, R. and Faidzul, M. (2020) ‘Key factors for e-government towards
sustainable development goals’, International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology,
Vol. 29, No. 6s, pp.2864–2876.
Park, R. and Searcy, D. (2012) ‘Job autonomy as a predictor of mental well-being: the moderating
role of quality-competitive environment’, Journal of Business and Psychology, Vol. 27, No. 3,
pp.305–316.
Phutela, N. and Dwivedi, S. (2020) ‘A qualitative study of students’ perspective on e-learning
adoption in India’, Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, Vol. 12, No. 4,
pp.545–559.
Pringle, J., Drummond, J., McLafferty, E. and Hendry, C. (2011) ‘Interpretative phenomenological
analysis: a discussion and critique’, Nurse Researcher, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp.20–24.
Rana, N.P., Dwivedi, Y.K. and Williams, M.D. (2013) ‘E-government adoption research: An
analysis of the employee’s perspective’, International Journal of Business Information
Systems, Vol. 14, No. 4, pp.414–428.
Rana, N.P., Williams, M.D. and Dwivedi, Y.K. (2012) ‘E-government adoption research: a
metaanalysis of findings’, ECIS 2012 Proceedings, Vol. 3 [online] https://aisel.aisnet.org/
ecis2012/3/.
Rehman, M., Esichaikul, V. and Kamal, M. (2012) ‘Factors influencing e-government adoption in
Pakistan’, Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp.258–282.
Rehouma, M. B. (2020) ‘Exploring the role of participation in government employees’ adoption of
IT: a qualitative study of employees’ participation in the introduction of the e-file in
Germany’, International Journal of Public Administration in the Digital Age (IJPADA),
Vol. 7, No. 1, pp.33–46.
Rehouma, M.B. and Hofmann, S. (2018) ‘Government employees’ adoption of information
technology: a literature review’, Proceedings of the 19th Annual International Conference on
Digital Government Research: Governance in the Data Age, May, pp.1–10.
Rowley, J. (2011) ‘e-Government stakeholders – who are they and what do they want?’,
International Journal of Information Management, Vol. 31, No. 1, pp.pp–53-62.
Ryan, G.W. and Bernard, H.R. (2000) ‘Data management and analysis methods’, Handbook of
Qualitative Research, Vol. 2, pp.769–802.
Ryan, S.D., Zhang, X., Prybutok, V.R. and Sharp, J.H. (2012) ‘Leadership and knowledge
management in an e-government environment’, Administrative Sciences, Vol. 2, No. 1,
pp.63–81.
Sang, S., Lee, J. and Lee, J. (2010) ‘E‐government adoption in Cambodia: a partial least squares
approach’, Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp.138–157.
Sang, S., Lee, J.D. and Lee, J. (2009) ‘Adoption of e-government services: the case of electronic
approval system’, International Journal of E-Adoption (IJEA), Vol. 1, No. 2, pp.1–22.
Sanmukhiya, C. (2019) ‘A study of effect of demographic factors on e-government divide in the
Republic of Mauritius’, Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews, Vol. 7, No. 6, pp.436–446.
Savoldelli, A., Codagnone, C. and Misuraca, G., (2014) ‘Understanding the e-government paradox:
tlearning from literature and practice on barriers to adoption’, Government Information
Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 1, pp.S63–S71.
Sawalha, D.A. and Abu-Shanab, E. (2015) ‘Financial information systems in governments: is it
accepted by public employees?’, International Arab Journal of e-Technology, Vol. 4, No. 2,
pp.57–66.
Saxena, S. (2018) ‘Role of ‘perceived risks’ in adopting mobile government (m-government)
services in India’, Foresight, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp.190–205.
Sebetci, Ö. (2015) ‘A TAM-based model for e-government: a case for Turkey’, International
Journal of Electronic Governance, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp.113–135.
Shajari, M. and Ismail, Z. (2014) ‘Constructing an adoption model for e-government services’,
Jurnal Teknologi, Vol. 68, No. 2, pp.29–37.
188 S. Rana et al.

Shannak, R.O. (2013) ‘The difficulties and possibilities of e-government: the case of Jordan’,
Journal of Management Research, Vol. 5, No. 2, p.189.
Shinebourne, P. and Smith, J.A. (2008) ‘Alcohol and self: an interpretative phenomenological
analysis of the experience of addiction and it impact on the sense of self and identity’,
Addiction Research & Theory, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp.152–167.
Shyu, S.H.P. and Huang, J.H. (2011) ‘Elucidating usage of e-government learning: a perspective of
the extended technology acceptance model’, Government Information Quarterly, Vol. 28,
No. 4, pp.491–502.
Sipior, J.C., Ward, B.T. and Connolly, R. (2011) ‘The digital divide and t-government in the United
States: using the technology acceptance model to understand usage’, European Journal of
Information Systems, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp.308–328.
Smith, J. and Osborn, M. (2008) ‘Interpretative phenomenological analysis’, Qualitative
Psychology: A Practical Guide to Research Methods, pp.53–80, Sage, London.
Smith, J.A. (1996) ‘Beyond the divide between cognition and discourse: using interpretative
phenomenological analysis in health psychology’, Psychology & Health, Vol. 11, No. 2,
pp.261–271.
Smith, J.A. (2004) ‘Reflecting on the development of interpretative phenomenological analysis and
its contribution to qualitative research in psychology’, Qualitative Research in Psychology,
Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.39–54.
Smith, J.A. (2011) ‘Evaluating the contribution of interpretative phenomenological analysis’,
Health Psychology Review, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp.9–27.
Smith, J.A. and Shinebourne, P. (2012) Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, American
Psychological Association, Sage, London.
Soliman, K.S., Affisco, J.F., Belanger, F. and Hiller, J.S. (2006) ‘A framework for e-government:
privacy implications’, Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp.48–60.
Srivastava, S.C. and Teo, T.S. (2004) ‘A framework for electronic government: evolution, enablers
and resource drainers’, Proceedings of the Eighth Pacific Asia Conference on Information
Systems, July.
Stamati, T. and Martakos, D. (2013) ‘Electronic transformation of local government: an exploratory
study’, E-Government Services Design, Adoption, and Evaluation, pp.20–38, IGI Global,
Pennsylvania, USA.
Stefanovic, D., Marjanovic, U., Delić, M., Culibrk, D. and Lalic, B. (2016) ‘Assessing the success
of e-government systems: an employee perspective’, Information & Management, Vol. 53,
No. 6, pp.717–726.
Sudirman, I., Aisha, A.N., Monang, J. and Prasetyo, I.R. (2019) ‘Civil servant’s e-govemment
adoption levels: are age and context matters?’, 2019 6th International Conference on
Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Informatics (EECSI), September, pp.235–240,
IEEE.
Sulaiman, A., Jaafar, N.I. and Aziz, N.A.A. (2012) ‘Factors influencing intention to use MYEPF
I-Akaun’, World Applied Sciences Journal, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp.451–461.
Sulistyowati, W.A., Alrajawy, I., Yulianto, A., Isaac, O. and Ameen, A. (2020) ‘Factors
contributing to e-government adoption in Indonesia – an extended of technology acceptance
model with trust: a conceptual framework’, Intelligent Computing and Innovation on Data
Science, pp.651–658, Springer, Singapore.
Suzuki, T. and Suzuki, L. (2020) On the Benefit of 3-Tier SOA Architecture Promoting Information
Sharing among TMS Systems and Brazilian E-Government Web Services: A CT-e case study’,
arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.13047.
Tsai, G.Y., Kuo, T. and Lin, L.C. (2017) ‘The moderating effect of management maturity on the
implementation of an information platform system’, Journal of Organizational Change
Management, Vol. 30, No. 7, pp.1093–1108.
 Enablers and barriers to e-government adoption 189

Vance, A., Elie-Dit-Cosaque, C. and Straub, D.W. (2008) ‘Examining trust in information
technology artifacts: the effects of system quality and culture’, Journal of Management
Information Systems, Vol. 24, No. 4, pp.73–100.
Wangpipatwong, S., Chutimaskul, W. and Papasratorn, B. (2008) ‘Understanding citizen’s
continuance intention to use e-government website: a composite view of technology
acceptance model and computer self-efficacy’, Electronic Journal of e-Government, Vol. 6,
No. 1, pp.51–64.
Weerakkody, V., El-Haddadeh, R. and Al-Shafi, S. (2011) ‘Exploring the complexities of e-
government implementation and diffusion in a developing country’, Journal of Enterprise
Information Management, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp.172–196.
Witarsyah, D., Sjafrizal, T., MD Fudzee, M.F. and Salamat, M.A. (2017) ‘The critical factors
affecting E-Government adoption in Indonesia: a conceptual framework’, International
Journal on Advanced Science, Engineering and Information Technology, Vol. 7, No. 1,
pp.160–167.
Zhan, Y., Wang, P. and Xia, S. (2011) ‘Exploring the drivers for ICT adoption in government
organization in China’, 2011 Fourth International Conference on Business Intelligence and
Financial Engineering, October, pp.220–223.
Zhang, J., Dawes, S.S. and Sarkis, J. (2005) ‘Exploring stakeholders’ expectations of the benefits
and barriers of e-government knowledge sharing’, Journal of Enterprise Information
Management, Vol. 18, No. 5, pp.548–567.
Zhou, T. (2011) ‘Understanding mobile internet continuance usage from the perspectives of
UTAUT and flow’, Information Development, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp.207–218.
Electronic Government, an Int. J., Vol. X, No. Y, xxxx 1

Inhibiting and enabling factors influencing

employee’s adoption of e-government: prioritisation
using analytic hierarchy process

Kriti Priya Gupta

Symbiosis Centre for Management Studies,
Symbiosis International (Deemed University),
Noida, India
Email: kritipriyag@gmail.com

Preeti Bhaskar*
ICFAI Business School,
The ICFAI University,
Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India
Email: preeti.bhaskar52@gmail.com
*Corresponding author

Priyanka Bhaskar
Department of Management Studies,
Kanya Gurukula Campus,
Gurukula Kangri Vishwavidyalaya,
Haridwar, Uttarakhand, India
Email: Bhaskar.priyanka06@gmail.com

Abstract: In India, the NeGP was approved in the year 2006 by Union Cabinet
and a total of 44 mission mode projects were initiated at various phases. At
present, out of 44, only 15 are delivering full services and others are delivering
services partially or either in the implementation, design and development
phase. Thus, it is clear that from 2006 till present, e-government projects are
implementing at a very slow pace. Many researchers claimed that the primary
reason for this slow growth is that e-government was not adopted by the
employees. In this paper, various factors have been investigated and prioritised
which inhibit and enable employee’s e-government adoption. The findings
reveal that among the four main inhibiting factors; institutional barriers secure
the highest ranking followed by personal barriers, technical barriers and
operational barriers. Similarly, among the three main enabling factors,
organisational support secure highest rank, followed by auxiliary services and
government support.

Keywords: inhibiting factors; enabling factors; employees; e-government

adoption; analytic hierarchy process; AHP; India.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Gupta, K.P., Bhaskar, P.

and Bhaskar, P. (xxxx) ‘Inhibiting and enabling factors influencing employee’s
adoption of e-government: prioritisation using analytic hierarchy process’,
Electronic Government, an Int. J., Vol. X, No. Y, pp.xxx–xxx.

Copyright © 20XX Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

2 K.P. Gupta et al.

Biographical notes: Kriti Priya Gupta is a Professor in the area of Quantitative

Techniques and Analytics at Symbiosis Centre for Management Studies,
Symbiosis International (Deemed University), Noida. She has more than
19 years of teaching experience. Her research interests include Statistical
modelling, decision-making and behavioural aspects of technology adoption.
She has published several research articles in various reputed academic
journals. She has conducted several training programmes and workshops on
topics such as ‘Data Analysis using SPSS’, ‘Research Techniques in
Information and Communication Technology’, ‘Statistical Analysis using
AMOS’, and ‘Data Analytics using MS Excel’.

Preeti Bhaskar is a Research scholar at the ICFAI Business School, The ICFAI
University, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India, and working as faculty at University
of Technology and Applied Sciences, Ibra, Oman. She possesses ten years of
teaching experience in the area of human resource management. Her research
interests include technology adoption, e-government, job performance, job
satisfaction, sustainable development, continuing education, e-learning and
higher education. She has published research papers in many reputed journals
(ABDC and SCOPUS) and presented research papers at various national and
international conferences. She has also authored books on general management
and published case studies in Case Centre, the UK. She has also completed
minor research projects sponsored by the Symbiosis International University,
Pune. She is actively engaged in conducting student development programs and
faculty development programs at various colleges and universities.

Priyanka Bhaskar is a Research scholar at the Department of Management

Studies, Kanya Gurukula Campus, Gurukula Kangri Vishwavidyalaya,
Haridwar, Uttarakhand India and working as an Assistant Professor at Doon
Business School, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India. She received her Doctoral
Fellowship from Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR). Her
research interests include technology adoption, e-government, job performance
and government sector. She has published research papers in the area of her
research interest in reputed journals and also presented papers at various
conferences and seminars. She has also authored books on ‘Caselets in
management: analyse, synthesise and evaluate the core notion of Management
and published case studies in Case Centre, the UK. During her Master’s in
Business Administration (MBA) program, she has received the gold medal and
meritorious scholarship.

1 Introduction

Sustainable development is concerned to be a primary objective of United Nations

(2015); it consists of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with 169 objectives.
United Nations reveals that e-government is a formidable contrivance for achieving its
17 SDGs by 2030. India is striving hard to constitute an ecosystem that will foster SDGs
through e-government. Many advantages like better transparency, combat corruption,
costs reduction, time-saving, economic growth and sustainable development are poised
by e-government (Azim et al., 2020; Suzuki and Suzuki, 2020). To successfully
implement e-government, a significant role is performed by the employees. Employees
are frontline workers, who are responsible to deliver e-government services in an
 Inhibiting and enabling factors influencing employee’s adoption 3

efficacious manner, thus, it becomes imperative to adopt e-government by the employees

working in government offices. However, the process of adoption is not easy for them as
they faced many barriers. The researchers unanimously agreed that the factors pertaining
to organisation, technology, society and trust are critical inhibiting factors (Alibraheem
et al., 2020; Al-Refaie and Ramadna, 2020; Rehouma, 2020; Sudirman et al., 2019).
Numerous researchers have instigated the investigation on e-government adoption in
developing nations (Palaco et al., 2019; Adjei-Bamfo et al., 2019; Joshi and Islam, 2018).
In the context of India, only a few researchers have focused on identifying inhibiting
factors that prevent employees from adopting e-government (Rana et al., 2020; Chopra
et al., 2021; Gupta et al., 2017; Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021). According to Chopra et al.
(2021), the majority of government employees in India are in the senior-age group and
possess a low level of computer literacy, limiting their adoption of e-government. Rana
et al. (2020) centred on India’s weak technical infrastructure, which creates numerous
concerns while working on e-government and inhibits employees from adopting it.
Similarly, Bhaskar et al. (2020, 2021) focused on India’s poor administrative structure as
a resistant to e-government adoption. To adopt e-government the employee is hindered
by inhibiting factors. Gupta et al. (2017) have also identified employee’s personal
characteristics, technical factors, organisational factors and trust factors as an influencing
factor that affect employee’s e-government adoption in India. This problem can be solved
by focusing on enablers that will encourage e-government adoption among employees
effectively. Preceding studies have identified a few enablers that motivate employees
towards adoption of e-government (Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021; Rana et al., 2020). A
strong legal framework safeguarding the interest of the employees can promote e-
government among employees (Srivastava and Teo, 2004). To stimulate e-government
among employees, Bhaskar et al. (2020, 2021) suggested several auxiliary services. In
addition to that Rana et al. (2020) focused on enabling employees at the government and
organisation level for adopting e-government. Khan and Vijayashree (2015) pointed
that creativity, personal efficacy, and effectiveness leads to the efficient delivery of
e-government services by the employees in government offices of India.
Previous literature shows that the researcher has mainly investigated the barriers
faced by employee’s government adoption while ignoring the enablers that can mitigate
the negative impact of barriers and accelerate e-government adoption. The objective of
this research is prioritising the inhibiting and enabling factors influencing employee’s
adoption of e-government in India. To prioritise inhibitors and enablers of e-government
adoption among employees in India, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is employed.

2 Theoretical framework

2.1 Inhibiting factors to adopt e-government by employees

Employee’s adoption of e-government is influenced by various inhibiting factors
(Alibraheem et al., 2020; Sudirman et al., 2019; Abdullah et al., 2018; Rehouma and
Hofmann, 2018; Kamal et al., 2013; Gupta et al., 2017). Several scholars argue that
employees face several technological barriers that resist them to use e-government
(Alminshid and Omar, 2021; Waititu and Du Plessis, 2021; Nisar et al., 2021;
Weerakkody et al., 2011; Al‐Busaidy and Weerakkody, 2011). Many scholars have come
4 K.P. Gupta et al.

to a similar conclusion that due to lack of digital literacy, lack of qualified personnel, and
lack of budget inhibit employees to adopt e-government by employees (Andoh-Baidoo
et al., 2012; Arfeen and Kamal, 2014; Gemiya, 2020). Several studies suggest that
demographic factors of employee which include their age, gender, level of education, and
nationality also influence e-government adoption (Chopra et al., 2021; Al‐Busaidy and
Weerakkody, 2011; Gupta et al., 2017). Moon (2002) emphasis that legal issues,
technical and personnel capacities deteriorate the growth of e-government. The
e-government adoption is also inhibited by institutional barriers (Savoldelli et al., 2014;
Moon, 2002; Effah and Nuhu, 2017). Many government institutions still practice a
traditional paper-based approach in their working style which resist employees to adopt
e-government. Effah and Nuhu (2017) enumerated institutional barriers which include the
culture of paper documentation and outdated laws as critical issues that adversely affect
the progress of e-government.

2.2 Enablers for e-government adoption by employees

There are certain factors that supports employee to use the emerging technologies, few
researchers have identified those enablers which promote the use of new technology
among employees. Dukić et al. (2017), Kettani (2014), Rana et al. (2013, 2012) and
Batara et al. (2017) supported the view that organisations are responsible for providing
technical, legal and financial support to execute e-government. There is a dearth of
literature on the factor’s enablers of e-government adoption among employees. Rana
et al. (2020) identified support of the government, ancillary services, and organisational
support as critical enablers which encourage e-government. Adoption by employees,
Bhaskar et al. (2020, 2021) suggested providing auxiliary services to the employees for
fostering e-government among employees. Hashemkhani Zolfani et al. (2014) believed
that creating a public-private partnership model will support employee adoption of
e-government. Bleeker (2020) and Soliman et al. (2006) proposed establishing a
legislative structure to protect employees from legal problems would make it easier for
them to adopt e-government. Numerous studies have emphasised the importance of
support of management to enable employees to adopt e-government (Alminshid and
Omar, 2021; Waititu and Du Plessis, 2021; Riany, 2021; Sijabat, 2019; Gupta et al.,
2017; Al‐Busaidy and Weerakkody, 2011). A strong national policy and organisation
strategy is required for e-government implementation at the employee level (Bekkers and
Homburg, 2007; Meijer, 2015; Beynon‐Davies, 2007; Rehouma and Hofmann, 2018).

3 Conceptual framework

Relying on literature that is existing, the current study has established four significant
inhibiting factors and three main enabling factors which influence employee adoption of
e-government. Tables 1 and 2 and Figures 1 and 2 demonstrate the main and sub-factors
which are discussed in subsequent sections.
 Inhibiting and enabling factors influencing employee’s adoption 5

Table 1 Conceptual framework: inhibiting factors to adopt e-government among employees

Main factor Sub-factor Description Reference

Institutional Lack of budget Lack of budget for Rana et al. (2020), Chopra et al.
barriers purchasing upgraded (2021), Gupta et al. (2017) and
technology for Bhaskar et al. (2020, 2021)
e-government
Lack of Non-availability of training Chopra et al. (2021), Bhaskar
training to work on e-government et al. (2020, 2021), Rana et al.
(2020), Gupta et al. (2017),
Markezini et al. (2013) and
Savoldelli et al. (2014)
Lack of Inadequate information from Rana et al. (2020), Bhaskar et al.
leadership and the organisation for (2020, 2021), and Meijer (2015)
direction executing e-government
Technical Physical Non-availability of Sharma et al. (2021), Chopra
barriers technical infrastructure like a et al. (2021), Bhaskar et al.
infrastructure computer, printer, server, etc. (2020, 2021), Rehman et al.
(2012), Samuel et al. (2020),
Kamal et al. (2009) and Rana
et al. (2020)
Website Poor websites design, access Glyptis et al. (2020), Ismail et al.
quality speed of the website, (2020), Aadeetya (2018), Ahuja
navigation, visual appeal, and and Prasenjit (2018), Anwer
layout of the website (2017), Gupta et al. (2017) and
Ibrahim and Zakaria (2016)
Software Configuration between Rana et al. (2020); Bhaskar et al.
configuration hardware and software (2020, 2021) and Agarwal
et al. (2017)
Operational Lack of top Lack of interaction and Rana et al. (2020), Bhaskar et al.
barriers management communication between top (2020, 2021), Al‐Busaidy and
support management support and Weerakkody (2011), Rehouma
employees and Hofmann, (2018), Gupta
et al. (2017) and Savoldelli et al.
(2014)
Lack of No support for resolving Gupta et al. (2017), Chopra et al.
technical technical issue faced by (2021), Barua (2012), Rana et al.
support staff employees (2020), Batara et al. (2017), and
Bhaskar et al. (2020, 2021)
Poor internet Poor bandwidth and Abdul (2020), Chopra et al.
connectivity continues disruption of (2021), Rana et al. (2020),
internet Bhaskar et al. (2020, 2021),
Al‐Busaidy and Weerakkody
(2009, 2011), Al-Rashidi (2010),
Choudrie et al. (2005),
Weerakkody and Choudrie
(2005), Glyptis et al. (2020)
Personal Lack of trust Fear of security issues (virus, Chopra et al. (2021), Rana et al.
barriers Phishing attack) while (2013), Gupta et al. (2017),
working on e-government Bélanger and Carter (2008), Rana
et al. (2020), Papadopoulou et al.
(2010), Bhaskar et al. (2021)
6 K.P. Gupta et al.

Table 1 Conceptual framework: inhibiting factors to adopt e-government among employees

(continued)

Main factor Sub-factor Description Reference

Lack of Lack of belief to work on the Chopra et al. (2021), Abdullah
self-efficacy e-government et al. (2018), Al-Mutairi et al.
(2018), Chiang (2014)
Lack of No recognition or incentives Bhaskar et al. (2020, 2021),
motivation on the effort made on Chopra et al. (2021), Rana et al.
working on e-government (2020)

Table 2 Conceptual framework – enabling factors to adopt e-government among employees

Main factor Sub-factor Description Reference

Government National policy Policies and procedure to Bhaskar et al. (2020, 2021), Rana
support execute e-government et al. (2020), Beynon‐Davies
(2007), Tseng et al. (2008),
Bekkers and Homburg (2007)
Legal support Legal framework to Rana et al. (2020), Bhaskar et al.
protect employee while (2020, 2021), Batara et al.
working on (2017), Bleeker (2020),
e-government Al‐Busaidy and Weerakkody,
(2011), Soliman et al. (2006),
Lambrinoudakis et al. (2003)
Financial support Financial support for Rana et al. (2020), Batara et al.
purchasing technological (2017), Kelly et al. (2020),
resources Bhaskar et al. (2020, 2021) and
Lau and Roopnarain (2014)
Organisation Organisation Plan to implement Batara et al. (2017), Rana et al.
support strategy e-government among (2020); Bhaskar et al. (2020,
employees 2021)
Facilitating Availability of facilities Iyer and Srivastava (2018),
conditions to work on e-government Alraja (2016) and Batara et al.
(2017)
Rewards and Monetary or Rana et al. (2020) and Bhaskar
incentives non-monetary benefits et al. (2020, 2021)
for the employees
hardwork to adopt
e-government
Auxiliary Public-private Involvement of private Rana et al. (2020), Bhaskar et al.
services partnership model sector into the (2020, 2021), Hashemkhani
government sector Zolfani et al. (2014)
Employee Supporting services to Rana et al. (2020) and Bhaskar
assistance services resolve employees issues et al. (2021)
 Inhibiting and enabling factors influencing employee’s adoption 7

3.1 Inhibitors factors to adopt e-government among employees

3.1.1 Institutional barriers
Employees face institutional barriers to e-government adoption. Institutional barriers
refer to the obstacles faced by employees due to their institutions. Prior studies have
shown that employees do not get adequate support like training, budget, direction, etc.
from their institutional (Alminshid and Omar, 2021; Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021; Waititu
and Du Plessis, 2021; Rana et al., 2020; Chopra et al., 2021).

Lack of budget
To successfully implement e-government strong technological infrastructure is required
along with skilled manpower. Both require huge investment because procuring the latest
technology will cost huge money and acquiring talented employee or training existing
employees who can work on e-government will also require expenditure. E-government
progress in India is slow, with many researchers citing ‘budget constraints’ as a factor
(Rana et al., 2020; Chopra et al., 2021). Employees need financial assistance to obtain
further training, as well as funds to purchase specialised technologies or upgrade obsolete
equipment. According to Bhaskar et al. (2020, 2021) and Gupta et al. (2017), it was
revealed by the employees that the government failed to provide sufficient financial
resources and support e-government implementation.

Lack of training
E-government progress is very slow in India and several researchers attribute this to a
‘lack of training’. The majority of government employees in India are in their late
adulthood and therefore lack technical competence (Chopra et al., 2021). Employees need
regular training but several researchers have pointed out that the government does not
provide adequate number of training sessions to employees so that they are able to easily
adopt e-government (Savoldelli et al., 2014; Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021; Gupta et al.,
2017; Markezini et al., 2013).

Lack of leadership and direction

In India, many e-government projects are failing because of poor direction and leadership
(Rana et al., 2020; Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021). The transition procedure from manual to
electronic government creates an important impression on the employees’ e-government
adoption (Abdelsalam et al., 2012). The employee needs a clear structure and procedure
to work on e-government but employees struggle to work on e-government due to poor
strategy, ambiguity in policy, vague vision, the flaw in procedure absence of direction
and bad leadership (Meijer, 2015).

3.1.2 Technical barriers

Employees are confronted with several technical barriers while adopting e-government.
Technical barriers refer to the challenges faced by employees due to technical issue
related to hardware, software, architecture framework, and website. Preceding research
8 K.P. Gupta et al.

shows that employees face several technical challenges while working on e-government
(Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021; Rana et al., 2020; Chopra et al., 2021).

Physical technical infrastructure

For working on e-government, employees need technological resources such as a
computer, printer, server, etc. (Rehman et al., 2012; Kamal et al., 2009). India is lagging
behind compared with other developing countries in terms of technological infrastructure.
Most of the government department offices are not well equipped with physical technical
infrastructure (Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021; Sharma et al., 2021; Rana et al., 2020).
Insufficient technical infrastructure imposes hardships on the employees when they use e-
government (Samuel et al., 2020; Chopra et al., 2021).

Website quality
Websites serve as the front end of e-government. Many reports are given low ranking to
an Indian Government website and reported several problems associated with it (Ismail
et al., 2020; Aadeetya, 2018; Ahuja and Prasenjit, 2018; Anwer, 2017). The employee
needs to work on e-government websites to deliver the services to its stakeholders.
Employees are also discouraged to utilise e-government websites due its poor design,
complexity, access speed of the website, navigation, visual appeal, and layout of the
website (Glyptis et al., 2020; Al‐Busaidy and Weerakkody, 2009; Gupta et al., 2017;
Vance et al., 2008; Ibrahim and Zakaria, 2016; Rana et al., 2012).

Software configuration
E-government websites are configured and designed on high-grade software but they are
not compatible with physical technical infrastructure (Agarwal et al., 2017). The majority
of computers and other equipment in Indian government departments are outdated and
incapable of handling complex software configurations, posing numerous challenges to
employees working in e-government (Chopra et al., 2021; Rana et al., 2020).

3.1.3 Operational barriers

Operational barriers are related to the barriers faced by employees on day to day or
regular basis when working on e-government. Employees regularly face poor internet
connectivity issue and they do not receive support from top management and technical
support staff at right time. Previous scholars found that operational barriers also influence
employees’ adoption of e-government (Rana et al., 2020; Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021;
Batara et al., 2017; Al‐Busaidy and Weerakkody, 2011; Rehouma and Hofmann, 2018;
Meijer, 2015).

Lack of top management support

E-government is comparatively new for employees of India. Due to newness, Indian
employees need regular support from top management to work on e-government.
Employees indicated that the top management is not capable of handling their issues and
ignore their concerns (Savoldelli et al., 2014). Employees need to follow a long channel
 Inhibiting and enabling factors influencing employee’s adoption 9

of communication to resolve their issue and they do not get a timely response from top
management (Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021; Rana et al., 2020; Rehouma and Hofmann,
2018). Due to the lack of top management support, employees are reluctant to adopt
e-government (Rana et al., 2012; Meijer, 2015; Gupta et al., 2017).

Lack of technical support staff

Since e-government is relatively new to Indian employees, they keep on encountering
technical problems while working on e-government. They need ongoing support from
technical support staff to resolve the issues. There is a lack of technical support staff in
the government department (Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021; Barua, 2012). Due to a lack of
technical staff, employees struggle on their own to resolve the issues and thus create a
negative attitude towards e-government and inhibit their adoption (Rana et al., 2020;
Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021).

Poor internet connectivity

E-government requires continuous super quality internet connectivity to deliver the
service efficiently. India is ranked lowest in terms of internet quality (Abdul, 2020;
Sarkar, 2020; Special Correspondent, 2020; ET Online, 2020). Employees often
experience problems with internet connectivity, server breakdown limited internet
bandwidth, frequent internet malfunction etc aggravates frustration and negative attitude
towards e-government (Al‐Busaidy and Weerakkody, 2009; Glyptis et al., 2020; Bhaskar
et al., 2020, 2021; Gupta et al., 2017).

3.1.4 Personal barriers

Personal barriers are related to complications occurring due to employee’s personal
characteristic. Prior studies have shown that employees personally lack trust, self-efficacy
and motivation for e-government adoption (Ibrahim and Zakaria, 2016; Chiang, 2014;
Abdullah et al., 2018).

Lack of trust
Employees have no trust in e-government and feel that manual government was more
advantageous (Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021). Employees are still skeptical because they
lack trust in e-government. Employee lack trust in: ‘technical infrastructure’, ‘online
transactions’, online data storage, ‘data management, ‘government institution’, ‘online
information, ‘government system’ (Bélanger and Carter, 2008; Papadopoulou et al.,
2010; Rana et al., 2013).

Lack of self-efficacy
The employee requires computer and internet expertise to work on e-government.
Employees lacked self-belief in their capability to work on e-government. Due to limited
computer literacy, employees are not confident to work on e-government platform
(Abdullah et al., 2018; Al-Mutairi et al. 2018) and most of the employees lacks interest to
learn about e-government (Ibrahim and Zakaria, 2016; Al‐Busaidy and Weerakkody,
10 K.P. Gupta et al.

2011; Chiang, 2014). Employees in the older age category have low self-efficacy show
and they show high reluctance in adopting e-government (Chopra et al., 2021).

Lack of motivation
Employees are not motivated to adopt e-government for several reasons. Employees
initially believed that e-government would minimise their workload, but it has
significantly increased it (Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021). Employees are apprehensive about
working in e-government because their errors can be easily traced which can affect their
job security (Rana et al., 2020).

3.2 Enablers to e-government adoption among employees

3.2.1 Government support
Employees believe that e-government is a national level project and to implement a
project of this level, it require constant government support (Tseng et al., 2008; Soliman
et al., 2006; Beynon‐Davies, 2007; Bekkers and Homburg, 2007; Lambrinoudakis et al.,
2003). Previous research reported that government support can be a critical enabler for
employees e-government adoption (Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021; Tseng et al., 2008).

National policy
E-government is designed at the national level having several policies and procedure to
execute its implementation at the central, state and district level. To successfully
implement e-government a well-defined e-government roadmap is a necessity (Tseng
et al., 2008; Bekkers and Homburg, 2007). Employees expect to have definite national
policy to determine micro-level mechanism for implementing e-government (Rana et al.,
2020). E-government can be adopted by the employees if there are modifications in the
national information technology policy, components, IT structure and specification,
architecture, elements, and guidelines (Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021; Beynon‐Davies, 2007).

Legal support
E-government legal framework aims to protect its stakeholders by establishing clear
procedural rules and regulations. Employees fear the legal system because it holds them
responsible for even small mistakes (Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021; Rana et al., 2020). To
protect themselves from adverse consequences employees, demand legal framework in
their favour. Providing legal support to the employee can act as a critical enabler in
adopting e-government (Bleeker, 2020; Soliman et al., 2006; Rana et al., 2020;
Al‐Busaidy and Weerakkody, 2011; Lambrinoudakis et al., 2003).

Financial support
E-government requires regular financial support for its successful implementation and
execution at various levels. Employees need financial support in order to obtain advanced
training, as well as funds to purchase new equipment or replace outdated technology.
Many studies have shown that to encourage employees to adopt e-government, financial
 Inhibiting and enabling factors influencing employee’s adoption 11

support at the right time play a dominating role (Rana et al., 2020; Kelly et al., 2020; Lau
and Roopnarain, 2014).

3.2.2 Organisation support

Employees need organisational support for efficacious adoption of e-government. To get
rid of several hindrances, employees need continuous support from their organisations.
To adopt e-government employees expect a distinct organisational strategy facilitating
condition, and rewards (Kelly et al., 2020; Lau and Roopnarain, 2014; Bhaskar et al.,
2020, 2021). According to previous studies, employee adoption of e-government is
enabled by organisational support (Chopra et al., 2021; Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021).

Organisation strategy
A robust organisational strategy is required to transform from manual government
services to e-government. Thus, it important to have a clear organisational strategy to
make its successful implementation at each department, unit and employee level (Rana
et al., 2020; Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021). The organisation need to create a micro-level
organisation strategy for easy adoption of e-government among employees (Alrawabdeh,
2014).

Facilitating conditions
Employees are frontline workers who are actually responsible to work on e-government.
They need various facilitating condition like organisational resources, technical
infrastructure to execute the work (Iyer and Srivastava, 2018; Alraja, 2016). It is
important for the organisation to provide adequate facilitating condition to the employee
for working on e-government (Batara et al., 2017).

Rewards and incentives

Employees need to put extra efforts to learn e-government which require a tremendous
transformation in their working style. Though employees show their willingness to adopt
e-government but they want their efforts to be rewarded with some monetary or
non-monetary benefits (Rana et al., 2020; Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021).

3.2.3 Auxiliary services

Auxiliary services are related to additional services that can be offered to employees to
enable them to adopt e-government. Bhaskar et al. (2020, 2021) suggested for
public-private partnership (PPP) model for the effective use of e-government. Rana et al.
(2020) have focussed on employee assistance services to support the employees at every
level for smooth execution of their work.
12 K.P. Gupta et al.

Public-private partnership model

Employee e-government adoption can be accelerated through support of public-private
partnerships model (Hashemkhani Zolfani et al., 2014). The government may hire
technically qualified workers on a contract basis from private companies (Rana et al.,
2020). This will reduce the workload of exiting employees and they will be able to
concentrate on a critical task. The government could form a partnership with a private
organisation to take advantage of its specialised services in the technical field (Bhaskar
et al., 2020, 2021).

Employee assistance services

Employees who work in e-government encounter issues on a frequent basis. Employees
can be supported by auxiliary services like special hotline number, online complaints
system, and fast token services for resolving their issue instantly (Rana et al., 2020). This
will save time and reduce reliance on technical staffs and top management while also
improving service delivery (Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021).

4 Research methodology

AHP is adopted in this study for prioritising the inhibiting and enabling factors affecting
employee’s e-government adoption in India. AHP technique combines scientific method
and real behaviour of individual in decision making (Benítez et al., 2017). AHP technique
is a simple and comprehensive mathematical technique that helps in the understanding
relative importance of identified main factors and sub-factors (Ikram et al., 2020). AHP
approach incorporates pair-wise comparisons of criterion to determine the ranks of main
factors and sub-factors (Saaty, 1980, 2000). Many researchers have used the AHP
method in research study to prioritise factors and sub-factors such as AI-based teaching
adoption; risk management, MOOCs adoption, mobile financial services, enterprise
resource planning software, brand love, project management, AI for governance, supplier
segmentation, whistleblowing intentions, sustainable waste management development
(Zhou and Yang, 2020; Gupta et al., 2021; Pande and Gupta, 2020; Gupta and
Chaudhary, 2017; Czekster et al., 2019; Gupta, 2019; Gupta and Bhaskar, 2020). Saaty
(1980, 2000) recommended the stepwise procedure for applying the AHP technique
which is discussed in the subsequent sections:

4.1 Step 1: Establishing the AHP hierarchy

In this step, decision problem is organised into various levels in hierarchical structure.
The current research has two problems. Firstly, prioritisation of inhibiting factors and
secondly prioritisation of enabling factors influencing employee’s e-government
adoption.
The AHP hierarchical structure of decision problems 1 and 2 is represented in
Figures 1 and 2, respectively. The goal has been placed at the first level; second level
contains the main factors and third level contains the sub-factors of main factors.
 Inhibiting and enabling factors influencing employee’s adoption 13

4.2 Step 2: Collecting data from experts on the relative importance of each
criterion on a pairwise comparison matrix
The data was collected from experts on the questionnaire. The expert’s responses were
obtained on Saatys’ nine-point scale of relative importance (Saaty, 1970). The data in this
study was collected from employees working at Uttarakhand’s e-district offices. The state
Uttarakhand currently has 13 districts, each of which provides e-district services. Three
employees were randomly selected from each district who provide e-district services. The
objective of the study was communicated to the selected employees. Out of 39
employees, only 23 employees took part in the study (Table 3). Ethical consent was taken
from the participants.

Figure 1 The AHP hierarchy for inhibiting factors

Level 1: Level 2: Level 3:

Goal Main factors Sub-factors

Physical technical
infrastructure

Website quality
Technical barriers

Software configuration

Lack of budget

Institutional barriers Lack of training

Prioritisation of
inhibiting factors Lack of leadership and
direction

Poor internet connectivity

Operational barriers Lack of technical support

staff

Lack of top management

support

Lack of trust

Personal barriers Lack of self-efficacy

Lack of motivation
14 K.P. Gupta et al.

Figure 2 The AHP hierarchy for enablers factors

Level 1: Level 2: Level 3:

Goal Main factors Sub-factors

National policy

Government support Legal support

Financial support

Organisation strategy
Prioritising enablers
for e-government
adoption among Organisational support Facilitating conditions
employees

Rewards and incentives

Public-private partnership
Auxiliary services model

Employee assistance
services

Table 3 Employees background information

E-district (Uttarakhand, India) No. of participants Department

Almoda 2 Revenue Department
Social Welfare Department
Bageshwar 1 Revenue Department
Chamoli 1 Revenue Department
Champawat 2 Employment office Department
Social Welfare Department
Dehradun 2 Social Welfare Department
Revenue Department
Haridwar 2 Urban Development Department
Social Welfare Department
Nainital 2 Revenue Department
Employment office Department
Pauri 2 Revenue Department
Social Welfare Department
 Inhibiting and enabling factors influencing employee’s adoption 15

Table 3 Employees background information (continued)

E-district (Uttarakhand, India) No. of participants Department

Pithoragarh 2 Employment office Department
Social Welfare Department
Rudraprayag 2 Employment office Department
Revenue Department
Tehri 2 Social Welfare Department
Revenue Department
Udham Singh Nagar 1 Revenue Department
Uttarkashi 2 Disaster Management Department
Revenue Department
Total 23

4.3 Step 3: Calculation of criteria weights (priorities)

In this step, weight determination technique of AHP is applied to calculate global weights
and local weights.

4.4 Step 4: Performing consistency verification among pairwise judgement

provided the respondent
The comparison matrices’ consistency levels are compared to the consistency ratio
(CR).The consistency ratio should be less than 0.10 for weights to be acceptable (Saaty,
1980).

4.5 Step 5: Develop overall priority ranking

Finally, based on the weights, priority ranks are allocated to the main factor and
sub-factor for inhibiting factors (Table 4) and enabling factors (Table 5).
Table 4 Inhibiting factors – global and local weights of main factors and sub-factors

Local Global Overall

Main factor Weights Sub-factor
weights weights rank
Institutional 0.396164985 Lack of budget 0.49546 0.196282 1
barriers Lack of training 0.30465 0.120691 3
Lack of leadership and 0.19990 0.079192 7
direction
Personal 0.25319374 Lack of trust 0.702664 0.17791 2
barriers Lack of self-efficacy 0.417249 0.105645 4
Lack of motivation 0.129017 0.032666 11
Technical 0.186090681 Physical technical 0.4411 0.082077 6
barriers infrastructure
Website quality 0.2045 0.038052 9
Software configuration 0.093682 0.017433 12
16 K.P. Gupta et al.

Table 4 Inhibiting factors – global and local weights of main factors and sub-factors
(continued)

Local Global Overall

Main factor Weights Sub-factor
weights weights rank
Operational 0.164550594 Lack of technical 0.50699 0.083426 5
barriers support staff
Poor internet 0.22505 0.037032 10
connectivity
Lack of top 0.26796 0.044093 8
management support

5 Findings and results

The geometric mean approach was used to aggregate the answers received from all the
experts on pair-wise comparison of matrices on main factors and sub-factors (Forman and
Peniwati, 1998; Saaty, 1980).

5.1 Inhibitors factors to adopt e-government among employees

Table 4 shows the detailed weight analyses of inhibiting factors and their sub-factors.
Amongst the four main factors, institutional barriers (weight = 0.396164985) secure the
highest-ranking, succeeded by personal barriers (weight = 0.25319374), technical barriers
(weight = 0.1860906810) and operational Barriers (weight = 0.164550594).
These results indicate that employees face major barriers from their institutions in
adopting e-government. Amongst those three dimensions of ‘lack of institutional
barriers’; lack of budget has the highest weight (local weight = 0.49546) following with
lack of training (local weight = 0.30465) and subsequently lack of leadership and
direction (local weight = 0.19990). This shows that institution does not provide adequate
budget to purchase new technology or replacing technology which is old. Employees are
forced to work on outdated technology, which develops a pessimistic approach among
them towards e-government. Moreover, due to inadequate training by their institutions,
employees are not able to adopt e-government. Also, they do not receive clear leadership
and direction on the execution of e-government.
The ‘personal barriers’ was found to be the second most important barriers. Among
the three sub-factors of ‘personal barriers’, lack of trust (local weight = 0.702664) has the
highest importance than ‘lack of self-efficacy’ (local weight = 0.417249) and lack of
motivation (local weight = 0.129017). Employees personally lack trust in e-government
and perceive that manual government is more secured and less prone to be damaged by
any third party. E-government requires more technical knowledge but employees lack
self-efficacy to learn about it. Moreover, employee perceives e-government requires more
efforts and hard work than manual government, but there are no rewards for it, hence
they lack the motivation to adopt e-government.
Technical barrier is the third important factor and within the three sub-factors of
‘technical barriers’, ‘physical technical infrastructure’ (local weight = 0.4411) is the most
significant factor succeeded by website quality (local weight = 0.2045) and then Software
configuration (local weight = 0.093682). The employee faces several technical barriers
 Inhibiting and enabling factors influencing employee’s adoption 17

due to poor physical technical infrastructure. Even software configuration is also not
supported by obsolete physical technical infrastructure. To work on e-government the
employee needs appropriate hardware and software, which is deficient in government
offices. In addition to their problems get aggravated when they work poorly designed
website of e-government.
Operational barriers is found to be the least important factor. Within the sub-factor of
‘operational barriers’, lack of technical support staff (local weight = 0.50699) is foremost
important and subsequently followed by inadequate top management support (local
weight = 0.26796) and then poor internet connectivity (local weight = 0.22505). These
barriers are linked to day-to-day issues, and employees may or may not encounter them.
Like internet connectivity may be good on some day or bad on others days that impact
the employees working on e-government for that day. Similarly, employees may
encounter some general or technical issues on certain days and may require top
management support or technical staff support to resolve those issues. These reasons can
be attributed to the low ranking of operational barriers.

5.2 Enablers to employees e-government adoption

Table 5 shows the detailed weight analyses of enabling factors and their sub-factors.
Amongst the three main factors, organisational support (weight = 0.429167865) secure
highest rank, succeeded by auxiliary services (weight = 0.306819806), and government
support (weight = 0.264012329).
These results indicate that employees need support from their organisation in
adopting e-government. Amongst those three dimensions of ‘organisational support’;
facilitating conditions has the highest weight (local weight = 0.3986) following with
organisation strategy (local weight = 0.22177) and rewards and incentives (local
weight = 0.1998). The findings indicate that employees primarily need facilitating
condition like organisational resources, technical infrastructure from their organisation to
work efficiently on e-government. Also, they expect a separate organisational strategy for
effective execution of e-government. Since e-government requires more effort from
employees; rewarding and incentivising can enable employee’s e-government adoption.
The second most significant enabling factor was identified as ‘auxiliary services’.
Among the two sub-factors of ‘auxiliary services’, the Public-private partnership model
(local weight = 0.8161) has the highest importance than ‘employee assistance services’
(local weight = 0.1839). Employees highly focus on forming a public-private partnership
model to take advantage of the specialised service of private companies, so that they can
focus on a more critical task. Moreover, they also need employee assistance services for
resolving their issue spontaneously. Hence, providing auxiliary services can enable
employee’s e-government adoption.
The least significant factor is found to be government support. Within the sub-factor
of ‘government support’, national policy (local weight = 0.45353) is most important and
subsequently followed by legal support (local weight = 0.38522) and financial support
(local weight = 0.16124). Employees emphasise more on national policy for creating a
mechanism for implementing e-government at the macro and micro-level. Similarly,
employees also emphasised legal support to protect themselves from severe negative
consequences while working on e-government. They also need financial support from the
government to procure advanced technological infrastructure and training.
18 K.P. Gupta et al.

Table 5 Enabling factors

Local Global Overall

Main factor Weights Sub-factor
weights weights rank
Government 0.264012329 National policy 0.45353 0.119738 4
support Legal support 0.38522 0.165326 3
Financial support 0.16124 0.042571 8
Organisational 0.429167865 Organisation strategy 0.22177 0.095177 5
support Facilitating conditions 0.3986 0.171078 2
Rewards and incentives 0.1998 0.085749 6
Auxiliary 0.306819806 Public-private 0.8161 0.250383 1
services partnership model
Employee assistance 0.1839 0.05643 7
services

6 Discussion

Previous research has shown that institutions constitute main role in employee
e-government adoption (Rana et al., 2020; Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021). In this study,
institutions are reported as the most significant barrier faced by employees for
e-government adoption. In the absence of clear leadership and direction from their
institutions, employees remain confused while working on e-government. This barrier
can be mitigated by providing robust national policy and organisational strategy which
can offer a clear roadmap for execution of e-government at all levels. Previous studies
also emphasised the role of national policy and strategy in e-government adoption (Rana
et al., 2020; Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021; Tseng et al., 2008; Bekkers and Homburg, 2007).
Employees require funds to acquire specialised technology, update outdated equipment,
and receive additional specialised training. Necessary financial support is not allocated by
the government for the execution of e-government thus having an adverse impact on its
adoption among employees. The findings are consistent with Chopra et al. (2021), Rana
et al. (2020), Bhaskar et al. (2020, 2021) and Gupta et al. (2017) where they highlighted
that due to lack of institutional support, employees struggle to adopt e-government in
India. This barrier can be alleviated by providing adequate financial support to the
employees. This will enable them to obtain training and technological infrastructure for
smooth working on e-government. Many researchers have pointed that employees can be
encouraged to adopt e-government by providing them financial support at the right time
(Rana et al., 2020; Kelly et al., 2020; Lau and Roopnarain, 2014). Even employees
personally do not exhibit positive attitude regarding e-government. Employees fear
e-government and see it as a security risk to government information and data. Previous
research substantiated that developing trust among the employees is critical for
e-government adoption (Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021; Gupta et al., 2017; Papadopoulou
et al, 2010; Rana et al., 2013). Due to their negative attitude, they are not even motivated
to learn and adopt e-government. These results are close to preceding studies where due
to a lack of trust, self-efficacy and motivation inhibited adoption of e-government by
employees (Chopra et al., 2021; Ibrahim and Zakaria, 2016; Abdullah et al., 2018;
Al-Mutairi, et al., 2018). This barrier can be diminished by providing employees with
 Inhibiting and enabling factors influencing employee’s adoption 19

legal support where they can develop a positive attitude towards e-government. They will
increase their trust and belief in e-government. Preceding researchers also mentioned the
importance of legal support in employee’s e-government adoption (Bhaskar et al., 2020,
2021; Rana, et al., 2020). Also, technical barriers exacerbate employee frustration
towards e-government. The employees struggle to work with poor technical infrastructure
which is also not compatible with the software used in running e-government application
thus restrained them to adopt e-government. These results are consistent with previous
research of Bhaskar et al. (2020, 2021), Glyptis et al. (2020), Chopra et al. (2021), Rana
et al. (2020), Sharma et al. (2021), Samuel et al. (2020) and Ibrahim and Zakaria (2016),
where employees show resistance to adopt e-government due to insufficient technical
infrastructure, software and website. This barrier can be moderated by providing
facilitating conditions with necessary resources to the employees. Batara (2017) and
Alraja (2016) suggested that providing facilitating conditions to employee ease their
work and enable them to adopt e-government. The facilitating conditions can be made
available through the model of public-private partnership. Private companies can also
provide services that will facilitate the execution of e-government. E-government
implementation may be supported by private companies which offer specialised services.
Large number of nations have successfully implemented e-government using the Public-
private partnership model (Zolfani et al., 2014). Employees face some types of problems
on regular basis and they look up to top management and technical staff support to
resolve their issues. Due to the lack of support, employees get frustrated and tend to
avoid work on e-government. Similar findings are delineated by Gupta et al. (2017),
Batara et al. (2017) and Bhaskar et al. (2020, 2021). This barrier can be moderated by
providing employee assistance services to resolve their operational barriers. This will
reduce employee reliance on top management and technical staff thereby improving their
skills to resolve the issue on their own (Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021). Also, the employee
can be rewarded for their efforts in resolving the critical issue at their level. This will
boost their confidence and morale to work on e-government. Several researchers consider
rewards and incentives as a significant enabler to adopt e-government by the employees
(Rana et al., 2020; Bhaskar et al., 2020, 2021).

7 Conclusions

The present study has prioritised the inhibiting and enabling factors that influence
employees to adopt e-government in India. The findings reveal that adoption of
e-government by employees is majorly inhibited by institutional barriers followed by
personal barriers, technical barriers and operational barriers. Due to India’s poor
administrative structure, the employee does not get clear leadership and direction on the
execution of e-government from their institutions. Also, there are inadequate budget
provisions for procuring new technology, replacing obsolete technology and organising
training programs. In India, E-government has been forced on employees without a clear
roadmap which has resulted in a low level of trust, self-efficacy, and motivation. Indian
government department offices are not well equipped with physical technical
infrastructure but employees are mandated to work with poor quality of technical
infrastructure, software and website. Employees regularly face poor internet connectivity
issues and they do not receive immediate support from top management and technical
support staff at right time in India. The findings also reveal that adoption of
20 K.P. Gupta et al.

e-government among employees can be majorly enabled organisational support followed

by auxiliary services and government support. Employees need support from their
organisation in adopting e-government. They need facilitating conditions, separate
organisational strategy, rewards and incentives for their made on working on
e-government. The auxiliary services also enable to adopt e-government as it indirectly
reduces their work because of the involvement of the public-private partnership model.
The ‘employee assistance services’ can also ease employees to work efficiently on
e-government. Government support was found to be the least significant factor in
enabling employees to adopt e-government. Employees are eyeing for an effective
national policy for implementing e-government which needs to be supported by legal and
financial support.

8 Practical implications

The study makes a valuable impact on researchers, policymakers and practitioners by

offering rich insights on inhibiting and enabling factors which influence employees in
adopting e-government. The inhibiting and enabling factors contribute to the literature
review of adoption of e-government by employees, also provide scope for future
researchers to employ those factors in their research work. The prioritisation of factors
will facilitate the policymaker to focus on the important inhibiting and enabling factors.
Practitioners can devise the mechanism to mitigate barriers by focusing on enablers to
successfully implement e-government. This study will help policymaker and practitioners
in the execution of other mission mode projects, which are delivering services partially or
either in the implementation, design and development phase.

9 Limitation and scope for further research

This study attempted to fill gaps in the literature but it is not without limitations, and
there is a need for further research. It is imperative to note that the e-government is still in
a nascent stage in India. Therefore, the literature related to barriers and enabling factors
may not be sufficient to construct the hierarchal framework; despite the fact that the
researchers have tried to collect all the relevant influencing factors in the present study.
Future researchers can include more factors for future study holistic model of factors to
address this research problem. Furthermore, some of the factors chosen for the
framework may have interrelationships that are not explored in this study. Future
researchers can use the analytic network process (ANP) for better results in the revised
model.

References
Aadeetya, S. (2018) Indian Government Websites Down: Hacked or Technical Glitch?, TheQuint
[online] https://www.thequint.com/tech-and-auto/tech-news/indian-govt-websites-hacked-or-
technical-glitch (accessed 1 May 2021).
Abdelsalam, H.M., Reddick, C.G. and El Kadi, H.A. (2012) ‘Success and failure of local
e-government projects: lessons learned from Egypt’, in Digital democracy: Concepts,
Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, pp.183–201, IGI Global.
 Inhibiting and enabling factors influencing employee’s adoption 21

Abdul (2020) ‘India ranks among lowest in terms of Internet quality’, Factly [online]
https://factly.forumias.com/india-ranks-among-lowest-in-terms-of-internet-quality/ (accessed
1 May 2021).
Abdullah, A., Naser, K. and Fayez, F. (2018) ‘Obstacles toward adopting electronic government in
an emerging economy: evidence from Kuwait’, Asian Economic and Financial Review, Vol. 8,
No. 6, pp.832–842.
Adjei-Bamfo, P., Maloreh-Nyamekye, T. and Ahenkan, A. (2019) ‘The role of e-government in
sustainable public procurement in developing countries: a systematic literature review’,
Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Vol. 142, pp.189–203.
Agarwal, R., Thakur, V. and Chauhan, R. (2017) ‘Enterprise architecture for e-government’, Paper
presented at the 10th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic
Governance – ICEGOV ‘17, New Delhi AA, India, 7–9 March, pp.47–55.
Ahuja, R. and Prasenjit, P. (2018) ‘Govt websites’ go offline, cybersecurity chief says it’s a glitch
and not a hack’, Hindustan Times [online] https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-
news/ministry-of-defence-website-hacked-leads-to-error-message/story-
85ASfKmolUiDXEwrwNsAfP.html (accessed 1 May 2021).
Al‐Busaidy, M. and Weerakkody, V. (2009) ‘E‐government diffusion in Oman: a public sector
employees’ perspective’, Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 3,
No. 4, pp.375–393.
Al‐Busaidy, M. and Weerakkody, V. (2011) ‘E-government services in Oman: an employee’s
perspective’, Electronic Government, an International Journal, Vol. 8, Nos. 2–3, pp.185–207.
Alibraheem, M.H., Abdul-Jabbar, H. and Ibrahim, I. (2020) ‘Electronic tax filing adoption in
Jordan: the tax employees’ perspectives’, International Journal of Advanced Science and
Technology, Vol. 28, No. 17, pp.681–689.
Alminshid, K. and Omar, M. (2021) ‘Factors affecting employees’ adoption of e-government in the
Iraqi public education sector’, Electronic Government, an International Journal, Vol. 17,
No. 2, pp.237–252.
Al-Mutairi, A., Naser, K. and Fayez, F. (2018) ‘Obstacles toward adopting electronic government
in an emerging economy: evidence from Kuwait’, Asian Economic and Financial Review,
Vol. 8, No. 6, pp.832–842.
Alraja, M.N. (2016) ‘The effect of social influence and facilitating conditions on e-government
acceptance from the individual employees’ perspective’, Polish Journal of Management
Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp.18–27.
Al-Rashidi, H. (2010) ‘Examining internal challenges to e-government implementation from
system users perspective’, in European and Mediterranean Conference on Information
Systems, April, pp.12–13.
Alrawabdeh, W. (2014) ‘The impact of environmental factors on e-government implementation:
the case of Jordan’, International Journal of Management Sciences and Business Research,
Vol. 3, No. 3.
Al-Refaie, A. and Ramadna, A.M. (2020) ‘Barriers to e-government adoption in Jordanian
organizations from users’ and employees’ perspectives’, in Open Government: Concepts,
Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, pp.2190–2210, IGI Global.
Andoh-Baidoo, F.K., Babb, J.S. and Agyepong, L. (2012) ‘e-Government readiness in Ghana: a
SWOT and PEST analyses’, Electronic Government, An International Journal, Vol. 9, No. 4,
pp.403–419.
Anwer, J. (2017) ‘It’s July 31, 2050, and Income Tax website is down because Indian govt can’t fix
it’, India Today [online] https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/talking-points/story/its-july-31-
2050-and-income-tax-website-is-down-because-indian-govt-cant-fix-it-1027425-2017-08-01
(accessed 1 May 2021).
Arfeen, M. and Kamal, M. (2014) ‘Future of e-government in Pakistan: a case study approach’,
Twentieth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Savannah, pp.1–13.
22 K.P. Gupta et al.

Azim, R.M.H.A., Salman, O. and El Henawy, I. (2020) ‘The role of e-government as a stimulus for
economic growth’, The International Journal of Business Management and Technology,
Vol. 4, No. 5, pp.69–79.
Barua, M. (2012) ‘E-governance adoption in government organization of India’, International
Journal of Managing Public Sector Information and Communication Technologies, Vol. 3,
No. 1, p.1.
Batara, E., Nurmandi, A., Warsito, T. and Pribadi, U. (2017) ‘Are government employees adopting
local e-government transformation?’, Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy,
Vol. 11, No. 4, pp.612–638.
Bekkers, V. and Homburg, V. (2007) ‘The myths of e-government: looking beyond the
assumptions of a new and better government’, The Information Society, Vol. 23, No. 5,
pp.373–382.
Bélanger, F. and Carter, L. (2008) ‘Trust and risk in e-government adoption’, The Journal of
Strategic Information Systems, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp.165–176.
Benítez, J., Carpitella, S., Certa, A., Izquierdo, J. and La Fata, C.M. (2017) ‘Some consistency
issues in multi-criteria decision making’, Proceedings of the 22th Summer School ‘Francesco
Turco’, Palermo, Italy, pp.13–15.
Beynon‐Davies, P. (2007) ‘Models for e‐government’, Transforming Government: People, Process
and Policy, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.7–28.
Bhaskar, P., Vinay, M. and Joshi, A. (2020) ‘E-government adoption among employees in India:
a qualitative approach’, International Journal of Information Systems and Change
Management, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp.95–118.
Bhaskar, P., Vinay, M. and Joshi, A. (2021) ‘E-government adoption among employees: a
systematic review-derived conceptual framework’, Transforming Human Resource Functions
with Automation, pp.20–43.
Bleeker, A. (2020) Creating an Enabling Environment for e-Government and the Protection of
Privacy Rights in the Caribbean: A Review of Data Protection Legislation for Alignment with
the General Data Protection Regulation, pp.5–19, Economic Commission for Latin America
and the Caribbean (ECLAC), United Nations publication.
Chiang, L. (2014) ‘Exploring the effects of trust, perceived risk, and e-services systems on public
services in e-government’, in Frameworks of IT Prosumption for Business Development,
pp.102–118, IGI Global.
Chopra, G., Bhaskar, P., Vinay, M. and Joshi, A. (2021) ‘E-government adoption and employees’
job performance: the moderating role of age as a demographic factor’, Electronic Government,
an International Journal, Inderscience, in press.
Choudrie, J., Weerakkody, V. and Jones, S. (2005) ‘Realising e‐government in the UK: rural and
urban challenges’, Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol. 18, No. 5,
pp.568–585.
Czekster, R.M., Webber, T., Jandrey, A.H. and Marcon, C.A.M. (2019) ‘Selection of enterprise
resource planning software using analytic hierarchy process’, Enterprise Information Systems,
Vol. 13, No. 6, pp.895–915.
Dukić, D., Dukić, G. and Bertović, N. (2017) ‘Public administration employees’ readiness and
acceptance of e-government: findings from a Croatian survey’, Information Development,
Vol. 33, No. 5, pp.525–539.
Effah, J. and Nuhu, H. (2017) ‘Institutional barriers to digitalization of government budgeting in
developing countries: a case study of Ghana’, The Electronic Journal of Information Systems
in Developing Countries, Vol. 82, No. 1, pp.1–17.
ET Online (2020) ‘India ranks 131 out of 138 countries in mobile internet speed, even lower than
Iraq’, The Economic Times [online] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/telecom/
telecom-news/india-ranks-131-out-of-138-countries-in-mobile-internet-speed-ranking-even-
lower-than-iraq/articleshow/78873643.cms?from=mdr (accessed 7 June 2021).
 Inhibiting and enabling factors influencing employee’s adoption 23

Forman, E. and Peniwati, K. (1998) ‘Aggregating individual judgments and priorities with the
analytic hierarchy process’, European Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 108, No. 1,
pp.165–169.
Gemiya, A.G. (2020) ‘Factors affecting the use of ICT services in Ethiopia: the case of Illubabor
Zone-Oromia Regional State’, International Journal of Information and Communication
Technology Education (IJICTE), Vol. 16, No. 1, pp.50–60.
Glyptis, L., Christofi, M., Vrontis, D., Del Giudice, M., Dimitriou, S. and Michael, P. (2020)
‘E-Government implementation challenges in small countries: the project manager’s
perspective’, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Vol. 152, p.119880.
Gupta, K. (2019) ‘An application of AHP for students’ perspectives on adopting MOOCs’,
Management Science Letters, Vol. 9, No. 13, pp.2337–2336.
Gupta, K.P. and Bhaskar, P. (2020) ‘Inhibiting and motivating factors influencing teachers’
adoption of AI-based teaching and learning solutions: prioritization using analytic hierarchy
process’, Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, Vol. 19, pp.693–723.
Gupta, K.P. and Chaudhary, N.S. (2017) ‘Prioritizing the factors influencing whistle blowing
intentions of teachers in higher education institutes in India’, Procedia Computer Science,
Vol. 122, pp.25–32.
Gupta, K.P., Bhaskar, P. and Joshi, A. (2021) ‘Prioritizing barriers of online teaching during
COVID-19 from teachers’ perspective: using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP)’,
International Journal of Knowledge and Learning, In Press.
Gupta, K.P., Bhaskar, P. and Singh, S. (2017) ‘Prioritization of factors influencing employee
adoption of e-government using the analytic hierarchy process’, Journal of Systems and
Information Technology, Vol. 19, Nos. 1/2, pp.116–137.
Hashemkhani Zolfani, S., Sedaghat, M. and Rad, M.D. (2014) ‘E-government diffusion in Iran: a
public sector employees’ perspective’, International Journal of Business Information Systems,
Vol. 15, No. 2, pp.205–221.
Ibrahim, O.A. and Zakaria, N.H. (2016) ‘E-government services in developing countries: a success
adoption model from employees perspective’, Journal of Theoretical & Applied Information
Technology, Vol. 94, No. 2, pp.383–396.
Ikram, M., Sroufe, R. and Zhang, Q. (2020) ‘Prioritizing and overcoming barriers to integrated
management system (IMS) implementation using AHP and G-TOPSIS’, Journal of Cleaner
Production, Vol. 254, p.120121.
Ismail, I., Fathonih, A., Prabowo, H., Hartati, S. and Redjeki, F. (2020) ‘Transparency and
corruption: does e-government effective to combat corruption?’, International Journal of
Psychosocial Rehabilitation, Vol. 24, No. 4, pp.5396–5404.
Iyer, J. and Srivastava, R.K. (2018) ‘Exploring the factors associated with employees’ intention to
use e-government services in India’, Journal of Applied Business & Economics, Vol. 20,
No. 5, pp.73–83.
Joshi, P.R. and Islam, S. (2018) ‘E-government maturity model for sustainable e-government
services from the perspective of developing countries’, Sustainability, Vol. 10, No. 6, p.1882.
Kamal, M.M., Hackney, R. and Sarwar, K. (2013) ‘Investigating factors inhibiting e-government
adoption in developing countries: the context of Pakistan’, Journal of Global Information
Management (JGIM), Vol. 21, No. 4, pp.77–102.
Kamal, M.M., Weerakkody, V. and Jones, S. (2009) ‘The case of EAI in facilitating e-government
services in a Welsh authority’, International Journal of Information Management, Vol. 29,
No. 2, pp.161–165.
Kelly, K., Valtchanov, D. and Webb, A. (2020) ‘Behavioral implications of using an online slot
machine game to motivate employees: a cautionary tale’, Accounting, Organizations and
Society, Vol. 89, p.101196.
Kettani, D. (2014) ‘Technology enablers for e-government systems’, in E-Government for Good
Governance in Developing Countries: Empirical Evidence from the eFez Project,
pp.223–250, Anthem Press.
24 K.P. Gupta et al.

Khan, M. and Vijayashree, L. (2015) ‘Impact of e-governance on employees performance’,

International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp.1–8.
Lambrinoudakis, C., Gritzalis, S., Dridi, F. and Pernul, G. (2003) ‘Security requirements for
e-government services: a methodological approach for developing a common PKI-based
security policy’, Computer Communications, Vol. 26, No. 16, pp.1873–1883.
Lau, C.M. and Roopnarain, K. (2014) ‘The effects of nonfinancial and financial measures on
employee motivation to participate in target setting’, The British Accounting Review, Vol. 46,
No. 3, pp.228–247.
Markezini, M.S., Ali, M. and Alkayid, K. (2013) ‘E-government process in the public sector and
the barriers against its implementation: a case study in Greece’, Proceedings of the European,
Mediterranean & Middle Eastern Conference on Information Systems (EMCIS), Accepted
Refereed Papers, 17–18 October, Windsor, United Kingdom.
Meijer, A. (2015) ‘E-governance innovation: barriers and strategies’, Government Information
Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp.198–206.
Moon, M.J. (2002) ‘The evolution of e‐government among municipalities: rhetoric or reality?’,
Public Administration Review, Vol. 62, No. 4, pp.424–433.
Nisar, A., Waqas, M. and Zhang, X. (2021) ‘Public sector employee perspective towards adoption
of e-government in Pakistan: a proposed research agenda’, Data and Information
Management, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp.119–124.
Palaco, I., Park, M.J., Kim, S.K. and Rho, J.J. (2019) ‘Public-private partnerships for e-government
in developing countries: an early stage assessment framework’, Evaluation and Program
Planning, Vol. 72, pp.205–218.
Pande, S. and Gupta, K.P. (2020) ‘Prioritisation of factors influencing brand love of Indian young
consumers using analytic hierarchy process’, International Journal of Indian Culture and
Business Management, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp.279–302.
Papadopoulou, P., Nikolaidou, M. and Martakos, D. (2010) ‘What is trust in e-government? A
proposed typology’, in 2010 43rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, IEEE,
January, pp.1–10.
Rana, N.P., Dwivedi, Y.K. and Williams, M.D. (2012) ‘E-government adoption research: analysing
challenges and critical success factors’, European, Mediterranean & Middle Eastern
Conference on Information Systems 2012 (EMCIS2012), Munich, Germany.
Rana, N.P., Dwivedi, Y.K. and Williams, M.D. (2013) ‘E-government adoption research: an
analysis of the employee’s perspective’, International Journal of Business Information
Systems, Vol. 14, No. 4, pp.414–428.
Rana, S., Bhaskar, P. and Bhaskar, P. (2020) ‘Enablers and barriers to e-government adoption: an
analysis of the employee perspective’, International Journal of Information Systems and
Change Management, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp.165–189.
Rehman, M., Esichaikul, V. and Kamal, M. (2012) ‘Factors influencing e‐government adoption in
Pakistan’, Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp.258–282.
Rehouma, M.B. (2020) ‘Exploring the role of participation in government employees’ adoption of
IT: a qualitative study of employees’ participation in the introduction of the e-file in
Germany’, International Journal of Public Administration in the Digital Age (IJPADA),
Vol. 7, No. 1, pp.33–46.
Rehouma, M.B. and Hofmann, S. (2018) ‘Government employees’ adoption of information
technology: a literature review’, in Proceedings of the 19th Annual International Conference
on Digital Government Research: Governance in the Data Age, pp.1–10.
Riany, K.G. (2021) Influence of E-Government Strategies on Public Service Delivery of State
Agencies in Kenya: The Moderating Effect of Strategy Execution, Doctoral dissertation,
JKUAT-COHRED.
Saaty, T.L. (1970) Optimization in Integers and Related External Problems, McGraw-Hill.
Saaty, T.L. (1980) The Analytic Hierarchy Process, McGraw Hill, New York.
 Inhibiting and enabling factors influencing employee’s adoption 25

Saaty, T.L. (2000) Fundamentals of Decision Making and Priority Theory with the Analytic
Hierarchy Process, RWS Publishing, 4922 Ellsworth Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.
Samuel, M., Doctor, G., Christian, P. and Baradi, M. (2020) ‘Drivers and barriers to e-government
adoption in Indian cities’, Journal of Urban Management, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp.408–417.
Sarkar, D. (2020) ‘India ranks 131 in global mobile internet speeds: here’s why unlimited mobile
data is of little help’, Times of India [online] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/gadgets-
news/india-ranks-131-in-global-mobile-internet-speeds-heres-why-unlimited-mobile-data-is-
of-little-help/articleshow/78839714.cms (accessed 1 May 2021).
Savoldelli, A., Codagnone, C. and Misuraca, G. (2014) ‘Understanding the e-government paradox:
learning from literature and practice on barriers to adoption’, Government Information
Quarterly, Vol. 31, pp.S63–S71.
Sharma, S.K., Metri, B., Dwivedi, Y.K. and Rana, N.P. (2021) ‘Challenges common service centers
(CSCs) face in delivering e-government services in rural India’, Government Information
Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 2, p.101573.
Sijabat, R. (2019) ‘Digitalization of local government in the decentralized era: an insight of the
stage of e-government across provinces in Indonesia’, in Proceedings of the 2nd International
Conference on Inclusive Business in the Changing World (ICIB 2019), pp.287–296.
Soliman, K.S., Affisco, J.F., Belanger, F. and Hiller, J.S. (2006) ‘A framework for e‐government:
privacy implications’, Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp.48–60.
Special Correspondent (2020) ‘India ranks among lowest in terms of Internet quality’, The Hindu
[online] https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-ranks-among-lowest-in-terms-of-
internet-quality/article32385913.ece#:~:text=India%20ranks%20among%20the%20lowest
(accessed 6 July 2021).
Srivastava, S.C. and Teo, T.S. (2004) ‘A framework for electronic government: evolution, enablers
and resource drainers’, in Proceedings of the Eighth Pacific Asia Conference on Information
Systems, July.
Sudirman, I., Aisha, A.N., Monang, J. and Prasetyo, I.R. (2019) ‘Civil servant’s e-govemment
adoption levels: are age and context matters?’, in 2019 6th International Conference on
Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Informatics (EECSI), IEEE, pp.235–240.
Suzuki, T. and Suzuki, L. (2020) On the Benefit of 3-tier SOA Architecture Promoting Information
Sharing among TMS Systems and Brazilian e-Government Web Services: A CT-e Case Study,
arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.13047.
Tseng, P.T., Yen, D.C., Hung, Y.C. and Wang, N.C. (2008) ‘To explore managerial issues and their
implications on e-government deployment in the public sector: lessons from Taiwan’s Bureau
of Foreign Trade’, Government Information Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 4, pp.734–756.
United Nations (2015) Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,
General Assembly, United Nations, New York, NY [online] https://undocs.org/A/RES/70/1
(accessed 25 March 2020).
Vance, A., Elie-Dit-Cosaque, C. and Straub, D.W. (2008) ‘Examining trust in information
technology artifacts: the effects of system quality and culture’, Journal of Management
Information Systems, Vol. 24, No. 4, pp.73–100.
Waititu, P. and Du Plessis, C. (2021) ‘Employees’ acceptance and adoption of online
communication tools as part of an e-government strategy in the public sector in Kenya’, in
Digital Literacy and Socio-Cultural Acceptance of ICT in Developing Countries, pp.119–138,
Springer, Cham.
Weerakkody, V. and Choudrie, J. (2005) ‘Exploring e-government in the UK: challenges, issues
and complexities’, Journal of Information Science & Technology, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp.26–45.
Weerakkody, V., El‐Haddadeh, R. and Al‐Shafi, S. (2011) ‘Exploring the complexities of
e‐government implementation and diffusion in a developing country’, Journal of Enterprise
Information Management, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp.172–196.
Zhou, S. and Yang, P. (2020) ‘Risk management in distributed wind energy implementing analytic
hierarchy process’, Renewable Energy, Vol. 150, pp.616–623.