Explaining the low utilization of government websites: Using a grounded theory approach

• Developing a holistic theory on the mechanism of government website utilization
• Using the theory to explain the low utilization of government websites successfully
• Identifying a few new theoretical concepts that were not explored in previous studies
• Revealing that value acquisition is the essence of government website utilization
• Formulating a derivative conceptual model for delineating the process of information source selection

The low utilization of government websites is a worldwide problem, and many governments have been criticized for this reason. Several existing fields are relevant to this complex phenomenon, but few succeed in providing a holistic explanation because of their segmentary perspectives and limitations in conceptual innovation due to deductive paradigms. In order to explore the mechanism of government website utilization from a more integrated perspective, a grounded theory approach is adopted in this study. 51 respondents were interviewed and a grounded theoretical model for government website utilization was generated. The contributions of this study include: (1) developing a holistic understanding on the mechanism of government website utilization, (2) identifying a few new theoretical concepts that were not explored in previous studies, (3) revealing that value acquisition is the essence of government website utilization, and (4) formulating a derivative conceptual model for delineating the process of information source selection.