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EXPLORING THE QUALITY OF E-GOVERNMENT SERVICE FROM
CITIZENS’ PERSPECTIVES
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of
Business
Wafa’a Dodeen,
Bachelor of MIS at Hashemite University/Jordan
School of Business IT and Logistics
College of Business
RMIT University
June 2019
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DECLARATION
I, Wafa’a Dodeen, certify that except where the respective acknowledgement has been made,
the work is that of the author alone; the work has not been submitted previously, in whole or
in part, to qualify for any other academic award; the content of the thesis is the result of work
which has been carried out since the official commencement date of the approved research
program; and any editorial work, paid or unpaid, carried out by a third party is acknowledged.
Ethics procedures and guidelines have been followed. I acknowledge the support I have
received for my research through the provision of an Australian Government Research
Training Program Scholarship.
Signed: ….…Wafa’a Dodeen ……………………………………….
Date: June, 2019
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to people who helped me to complete
this thesis. Firstly, I would like to express my deep and sincere gratitude to my senior
supervisor, Dr. Stan Karanasios, who has been very helpful with his kind support, patience
and constructive comments. I am grateful for his inspiration and the invaluable experience
throughout this journey. I am also grateful to my second supervisor Professor Alemayehu
Molla. He encouraged me during the different stages of the research. Thank you supervisors,
for I have learned enormously from you.
Secondly, I would like to thank the School of Business IT and Logistics for the opportunity to
study at RMIT University. And I thank those who participated in the research by providing
me their valuable work time, so that I could conduct interviews and collect data which I
regard as pivotal for this study. Without their participation, this study would have been
impossible.
I am grateful to my beautiful parents for raising me through thick and thin to have a better
and brighter future. Special thanks go to my husband for his support and patience to achieve
this degree and for my beautiful daughters, Mira 3-year-old and Zain 1-year-old and Salma
expect to arrive next week, for your being with me throughout this journey.
Finally, I thank Andy Palagyi for his help and support and Anne Cullinan for her writing
support. You have been a great part of my experience.
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Table of Contents
CHAPTER1 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………...……….3
1.1 Overview ………………………………………………………………………………………….3
1.2.1 Disciplinary and institutional framing of e-government .......................................................... 4
1.2.2 Narrow and broad framing of e-government ......................................................................... 4
1.2.3 Supply (government) and demand (citizen) framings of e-government ................................ 5
1.3 Types of e-government services ................................................................................................... 5
1.4 Rationale for the study .................................................................................................................. 5
1.5 Reasons for choosing a developing country (Jordan) ................................................................... 6
1.6 Study objective and research questions ........................................................................................ 7
1.7 Contribution of the study .............................................................................................................. 8
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................... 10
2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 10
2.2 Contemporary research on e-government ................................................................................... 10
2.2.1 Early e-government research ............................................................................................... 10
2.2.2 Moving to a focus on the demand side: the ‘citizen centric’ view ....................................... 11
2.2.3 Current research on e-government ....................................................................................... 11
2.2.4 The benefits of e-government use ............................................................................................ 12
2.2.5 Challenges to the use of e-government .................................................................................... 14
2.3 Theoretical background .............................................................................................................. 16
2.3.1 Theme one: Citizens’ perception of quality e-government service ...................................... 16
2.3.1.1 Understanding e-service quality ........................................................................................ 16
2.3.2 Theme 2: Understanding how citizens’ expectations on e-government service quality are
formed. .......................................................................................................................................... 21
2.3.3 Theme 3: E-government service and trust ........................................................................... 26
2.3.4 Summary of the theoretical background .............................................................................. 28
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHOD ....................................................................... 30
3.1 Research design ......................................................................................................................... 30
3.2 Data collection ............................................................................................................................ 31
3.2.1 Participant recruitment method ............................................................................................ 31
3.2.2 Interviews ............................................................................................................................. 31
3.2.3 Participants’ profiles ............................................................................................................ 33
3.2.4 Website information ............................................................................................................. 35
3.2.5 Ethical processes .................................................................................................................. 38
3.3 Data analysis ............................................................................................................................... 38
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3.3.1 Analysis of interviewee data ................................................................................................ 38
3.3.2 Analysis of e-government websites ..................................................................................... 39
3.4 Summary ......................................................................................................................................... 39
CHAPTER 4 DATA ANALYSIS......................................................................................................... 40
4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 40
4.2 The use of e-government services ............................................................................................... 40
4.2.1 Categorisation of use ............................................................................................................ 44
Interactional e-government services .............................................................................................. 46
4.2.2 Frequency of use .................................................................................................................. 46
4.2.3 Satisfaction of use ................................................................................................................ 47
4.2.4 Use of other online services ................................................................................................. 51
4.2.5 Intention to use e-government in the future ......................................................................... 51
4.3 Quality of e-government services in Jordan................................................................................ 53
4.3.2 Service quality ..................................................................................................................... 58
4.3.3 System quality ...................................................................................................................... 61
4.3.4 Summary .............................................................................................................................. 64
4.4 The way citizen expectations are formed .................................................................................... 65
4.4.1 E-government experiences ................................................................................................... 65
4.3.2 Experiences with other e-services ........................................................................................ 66
4.4.3 Using offline government services....................................................................................... 72
4.4.4 Suggestions to improve the quality e-government services ................................................. 73
4.5 The relation between quality of service with citizen’ trust ......................................................... 77
4.5.1 Trust and e-government service from citizen perspective ................................................... 77
4.5.2 Impact of quality e-government service on trust (direct impact or not impact) ................... 78
4.5.3 Suggestions to improve citizen’ trust ................................................................................... 79
4.6 Summary of the findings ............................................................................................................. 81
CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION............................................................................. 83
5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 83
5.2 Revisiting the research questions ................................................................................................ 83
5.3 Recommendation for e-government providers............................................................................ 86
5.4 Contributions of the study ........................................................................................................... 87
5.5 Limitations and future research .............................................................................................. 88
5.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 88
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................. 90
Appendix 1 Interview Questions........................................................................................................... 99
Appendix 2 Invitation letter ................................................................................................................ 100