The Importance Of Culture, Trust, And Habitual Patterns - Determinants Of Cross-Cultural Egovernment Adoption

The objective of this paper is to examine national cultural factors that may influence citizen adoption of eGovernment websites in two culturally different countries: Germany and Slovakia. In this purpose we developed a behavioural model basing on the three columns: Trust, culture and habitual patterns. We used the Hofstede’s national culture dimensions in combination with latest research in IS adoption and eGovernment as theoretical basement. Based on survey data collected from a total of 576 German and Slovak citizens, our research holds the following contributions: The first is, that uncertainty avoidance has a significant impact on citizens’ attitude to adopt eGovernment Services, but only in one of the two countries, which emphasizes the importance of cultural differences with respect to development stages in eGovernment in a country. Second, our data indicated that habitual patterns of citizens to personally handle services at government agencies significantly inhibit their eGovernment adoption behavior within both countries. Third, general trust and thus in the public sector and thus a governments reputation positively influences the adoption of eGovernment Services by its citizens.