The Role of National Culture on Citizen Adoption of eGovernment Services: An Empirical Study

Increasingly governments around the world have realized the imperative of providing the public with not only improved government information and services but also improved public governance, transparency and accountability through eGovernment services. However, many governments still face the problem of low level adoption of eGovernment websites. It is because the issue of eGovernment adoption is complex and multidimensional in nature. In consequence, it must be carefully addressed not only from technological perspectives but also from social, cultural, and organizational perspectives. The business case for developing sustainable successful eGovernment initiatives critically depends on our knowledge and understanding of how to increase citizen adoption of eGovernment websites. A review of the literature, however, shows that much of extant eGovernment research has focused on eGovernment adoption in developed countries. In consequence, little is known about national cultural factors that may influence eGovernment adoption in developing countries. This knowledge gap is particularly apparent in Jordan. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to examine national cultural factors that may influence citizen adoption of eGovernment websites in this culturally different part of the world. We developed an integrated model by extending the technology acceptance model (TAM) with Hofstede’s national culture dimensions, which is used to evaluate the impact of national culture on eGovernment adoption in this paper. Based on survey data collected from a total of 197 Jordanian citizens, evidence shows that while two cultural dimensions: power distance and uncertainty avoidance had significant impacts on citizens' intention to adopt eGovernment, the other three cultural dimensions: individualism, masculinity, and long-term orientation had no discernible impacts. The results also indicate that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude are significant indicators of citizens’ intention to use state government services online.