Understanding the Antecedents and Consequences of E-Government Service Quality: Transactional Frequency as a Moderator of Citizens' Quality Perceptions

Difficulties in defining as well as understanding the antecedents and consequences of e-government service quality have stymied the design of efficacious e-government websites. This study presents a definition and model of e-government service quality that bridges the gap between e-government and marketing literatures. We then explore the delineation between service content and delivery quality as antecedents of e-government service quality. While service content quality deals with what service is a citizen receiving from an e-government website, service delivery quality pertains to how well he/she is accessing it. Drawing on the concept of value in marketing literature, we further position transactional frequency as a moderator of citizens’ quality perceptions towards e-government websites. As transactional frequency increases, citizens tend to place greater emphasis on the effectiveness of content functionalities such that the positive impact of service content quality on overall service quality is amplified. The same relationship is observed for service delivery quality when transactional frequency is low. We then develop and empirically test hypotheses from an egovernment service quality model on a sample of 647 existing e-government service users. All hypothesized relationships are supported, thereby attesting to the saliency of the constructs and validity of the relationships represented in this model.