The willingness of e-Government service adoption by business users: The role of offline service quality and trust in technology

Prior e-Government research has paid much attention to e-Government service adoption from the supplier side – the government – while mostly overlooking the user side of e-Government, such as citizens and businesses. While there have been some initial efforts to study citizens in their adoption behavior, few have examined what influences the willingness of businesses in adopting e-Government services. This research attempts to fill this research gap by addressing the following research question: Why are some businesses more willing to adopt e-Government applications to perform transactions with the government than others? The authors argue that the willingness of a business to adopt e-Government depends on the perceived quality of government services through traditional brick and mortar service channels (offline service channels), and the level of trust businesses place in the internet technology itself. Competing hypotheses are developed with regard to the role of perceived quality of offline services on the business user's willingness to adopt e-Government services. Using data obtained from a local district government in Seoul, Korea, the analysis revealed that the willingness to adopt e-Government increased when business users perceived high quality service provision in offline service channels. However, trust in the internet technology itself did not have any significant impact on their willingness. The theoretical and practical implications of the study finding are discussed.

Research Highlights
► This study examines why some business users are more willing to adopt e-Government.
► We model that offline service quality and trust in the internet are the antecedents.
► Our analysis finds support for the positive effect of off-line service quality.
► Trust in the internet does not have any significant impact on the willingness.