Toward the Utilization of M-government Services in Developing Countries: a Qualitative Investigation

Recent advances in wireless and mobile communications infrastructure are enabling governments to deliver and manage services to citizen efficiently and economically. Governments that utilize these advances effectively are the prime movers of the next generation of e-government services. A major area of interest in e-government is the management of data collection, transmission and storage, security and access, and management of locationbased events and indicators, by advancing digital government through the adoption and use of mobile wireless network technologies and by implementing government best practice in sharing data, information, and knowledge. In this context, however, m-government services implementation is still in its very early stages and have not been utilized to full extent or potential in most of the Arab counties including Jordan. Therefore, this paper explores the major issues faced by government toward fully realized these services. This qualitative study gathered issues from semi-structured interviews with key e-government officials in Jordan. The data was analyzed using qualitative content analysis technique. Results indicated that the main issues are trust, public awareness, cost, infrastructural constraints, and the lack of an enabling legal framework.