Graduate School of Global Information and Telecommunication Studies, Waseda University
Abstract of Doctoral Dissertation
A Study on User Traits Toward
Public e-Service Quality and Satisfaction
利用者特性が公共電子サービスの 品質及び満足度に与える影響の研究
Chih-Hao CHANG
Global Information and Telecommunication Studies Info-Com., e-Gov. & CIO Policy
August 2011
1 ABSTRACT
Research Context
E-government, a trend of public administration, has been traditionally thought as an efficient tool to make government information transparent, and to provide various online services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Therefore, most researchers in this field tend to focus their studies on how best to bring the current services online or on ways to improve the system process. Emergence of the e- governance concept, dealing with the relationship between political structure (of a government) and its people, on an electronic level or via virtual means derived, has attracted much attention of academic communities. Compared with e-government, e-governance contains more elements of citizen-centric decision making process, and views a citizen as the customer of a government.
Consequently, government agencies have to attract more customers and ultimately obtain their satisfaction. In order to formulate a sophisticated marketing strategy for attraction of their customers, government agencies need to understand the profile of the user of the online services. Unfortunately, there are very few discussions or debates on this rising issue until now.
Research Objectives and Uniqueness
The purpose of this study therefore is to examine the traits (intrinsic factors) of a public e-service user from various aspects. It is hypothesized that these intrinsic factors of a user affect her perception on e-service quality and consequently her satisfaction with a service. The study proposes 5 intrinsic factors that affect perception of public e-service quality and develops a corresponding framework for identifying the relationship between public e-service quality and user satisfaction. To verify the fitness of these factors, the study employed a structured survey and applicable analytical method to test the causality of the proposed model. The results provide a user profile containing information which can be further used for design and implementation of e-government marketing policy.
Many previous studies which adopted user-centric approach to e-government are concerned with how to provide a more convenient and continuous service to user from a system perspective.
However, there is no research that explores user’s intrinsic characteristics and their effect on public e-service. Considering the innumerous evidence on that public e-service has only been adopted by a specific group of users and we are able to spread out the user experience as we firstly know their profile-more comprehensive work is needed to inform approaches to reveal specific characteristics of a user and the influence on e-public service adoption.
This study tries to look into this important variance in order to gain insight into the current user’s profile, by discussing user traits and perception on quality of e-service and by examining the causality. Meanwhile, unlike previous studies that discuss from a single perspective, such as information system or service marketing, this study employs a multi-faceted analytical method by integrating different kinds of theories and perspectives, namely sociology, management and informatics, thus providing a interdisciplinary blueprint to be further used for revealing use traits.
The essence of public e-service is different from other e-services as it contains political structure and authority which could intimidate users from embracing it. To explain a user’s behavior towards public e-service, the study introduced the concept of civic engagement tendency derived from public administration perspective. Engagement tendency refers to people’s experience in terms of involving in public affairs, and it is exclusive in the context of public e-service. Another two factors - technology readiness and anxiety- were obtained from the perspective of information system, while need for interaction with service employee and perceived risk were derived from service marketing theory.
Methods
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The factors proposed in this study are verified through a survey conducted in 2 major cities in the region. Taipei and Tokyo, two leading edge cities in terms of e-service implementation, were chosen to examine the proposed framework. Both Taipei and Tokyo are dedicated in developing their own e- government system, named “CyberCity project” and “E-city project”, respectively. Taipei had attracted many attentions due to its ICT deployments and was awarded Intelligent Community Award 2006 by World Teleport Association. Similarly, Tokyo has the highest utilization rate, among cities in Japan, when it comes to online services. The study employed statistic methodology called Partial Least Square (PLS) to verify the hypotheses and the causality of the model. PLS was chosen as a powerful method of analysis due to its minimal demands on measurement scales, sample size, and residual distributions.
Findings
This study provides a full theoretical understanding of user’s intrinsic factors in the context of public e-service. Moving on to case comparison, three factors, including engagement tendency, need for interaction with service employee and perceived risk, were identified as crucial to the perceived e-service quality in both surveys, while technology readiness and anxiety of user were significant in perceiving e-service quality in the case of Taipei. The outcome is useful as a basis for further research because these factors might be affected by other mediatory variable like regional one, which should be taken into consideration in future. Moreover, perceived e-service quality played a significant role, in both cases of Taipei and Tokyo, towards influencing satisfaction of e-service and government. This enhances the importance of perceived e-service quality, as a factor, not only in determining user’s satisfaction towards e-service but also towards entire government. Finally, people in Tokyo are hesitant to accept public e-service, even when some of them are at ease with technology.
This might be due to their high perceived risk from the system itself, as compared to those in Taipei.
These findings have also offered determinative elements in actual practice.
Implications and Contributions
From the perspective of policy marketing, it becomes easier in practice as policy makers are able to manage the profile of user. The confirmed user’s traits in this study could be a blueprint for government CIO to lock onto target customers to encourage them to share their experience of using e-service more rapidly and seamlessly. A proposal named “Reinforced Public e-Service Policy Marketing Model” was concluded in the end. In the case of Tokyo, for example, the user who perceived a high e-service quality also possesses the characteristics of high engagement tendency, high need for interaction with service employee and low risk tendency. In this case, a more effective way of promoting a brand new public e-service is to target these users on site or online. Once these users have had better experience of using the e-service, it would be easier to broadcast their experience to others, as a multiplier effect. It also corresponds to the nature of technology diffusion.
In practice, it is suggested that promotion of new public e-service can be made as user is being served by government agency or by sending emails to those who are often involved in public affairs, such as online forum, or volunteers of public works.
Theoretical contribution of the conducted research consists in the knowledge of theoretical development of e-governance, service marketing and policy marketing. First of all, this study confirmed that the user’s intrinsic characteristics can influence perceived e-service quality and the satisfaction toward e-service consequently, and the profile of public e-service user is constructed from a multi-faceted perspective of comparing other similar researches. The findings of this study provided a much required complement to e-governance theory from the user perspective and it serves as a guideline for government to manage the relationship with citizen in an electronic means.
Secondly, even when the e-government is considered a sub-stream of public administration and information system theory, the findings of this study confirmed that management related theory, like service marketing, is able to explain the phenomenon of e-government. In this case, further research
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into e-government can be derived not only from public administration theory but also management theory, which is in line with the essential of New Public Management movement. Moreover, as mentioned above, this study also provided an applicable and multidimensional model for e-service policy marketing. This model considered more detail on the specific policy, public e-service, and the service delivery process according to the finding of this study.
Dissertation Structure
Chapter 1 introduces the field of research and provides background information on ICTs, e- Government research and the importance of policy marketing. This chapter puts an emphasis on three perspectives of public e-services—civic engagement, service marketing and information system—in order to explore the nature of user’s intrinsic characteristics in terms of new technology usage.
Chapter 2 presents causal factors extracted based on a literature overview from fields of sociology, management and informatics. The chapter first illustrates the concepts of e-government and e-service, and the relationship between ICTs and civic engagement. Then, theories related to user behavior towards technology acceptance are discussed, including Social Cognitive Theory, Theory of Reasoned Action, Theory and Planned Behavior, and Technology Acceptance Model. The literature survey is complemented by the examination of the determinants of Self-Service Technology adopted from the service marketing perspective. The chapter completes with a discussion on service quality and customer satisfaction.
Chapter 3 presents a research framework. It provides specification of the main proposition and formulates to test it. To assume in a well-designed e-services context and the user has adopted the e- services, user’s traits should influence his or her perception on e-service quality. The traits in this study refer to technology readiness, technology anxiety, engagement tendency, need for interaction with service employee and risk tendency. Other relationships like satisfaction with e-service and with government are mentioned as well.
In chapter 4, the methodology of this study is discussed. The chapter first presents the profile and e-government related projects of the two cities - Taipei and Tokyo- selected to examine the proposed research framework. Then the particulars of the survey, including questionnaire design as well as the specifics of SmartPLS statistic software applied to examine the raw data are detailed.
In chapter 5 and 6, both cases are analyzed and discussed. It contains a descriptive analysis of respondents and presents results of a hypothesis testing respectively. The result of Taipei case shows that all the factors are significant toward perceived e-service quality, while Tokyo case reveals only three of them have the same effect. The perceived e-service quality of both cases is significant toward satisfaction of e-service and government, which enhances the importance of perceived e- service quality in terms of user’s satisfaction toward not only e-service itself but overall government.
Finally, chapter 7 presents the theoretical and practical contributions of this research and outlines recommendations for future research. Theoretically, this study makes a contribution of understanding user’s intrinsic factors in terms of public e-service context. Even though two cases tell different stories respectively, the outcome is still meaningful to be a basis for further research. In practice, policy marketing becomes easier as the policy makers are able to cope with the profile of user. An applicable and accountable policy marketing model based on the confirmed user’s traits in this study is proposed. It could be a principle for government CIO to lock target customer and to make e-service using experience spread out rapidly and smoothly. Further research directions are also given in the final.
4 List of academic achievements
Category (Subheadings) Articles in refereed journals or book chapter
○ 1. Chih-Hao Chang and Toshio Obi, Global Comparative Study on the Relationship between User's Traits and Public e-Service Quality, in E- Governance and Cross-boundary Collaboration: Innovations and Advancing Tools, Y.C. Chen & P.Y. Chu Eds., IGI Global publishing, USA, pp. 87-106, 2011, [ISBN13:978-1-60960-753-1]
○2. Chih-Hao Chang, The Influence of User’s Trait on Public e-Service Usage: A Self-Service Technology Perspective, Asian Social Science, Vol.7, No.7, pp.3- 11, 2011, [ISSN: 1911-2017]
○3. Chih-Hao Chang, The Antecedents of E-governance: A Study of Civic Culture and ICTs Readiness from Macro Perspective, Journal of CIO, Vol. 2, pp.23-30, 2008
Refereed articles published in proceedings of international academic conferences
○ 4. Chih-Hao Chang, E-government: An Effective Strategy toward Civic Engagement, Proceedings of 2006 Annual conference of Taiwan Academy for Information Society; Taoyuan, Taiwan, pp.21-31, 2006
Non-refereed articles in journals
5. Chih-Hao Chang and Toshio Obi, User’s Profile on Public e-Service Usage: A Self-Service Technology Perspective, Journal of CIO, Vol. 4, pp.39-45, 2010
○6. Chih-Hao Chang, Who is knocking at your door? A Comprehensive Study on Citizen’s Traits toward Public e-Services Usage, Journal of CIO, Vol. 3, pp.39- 43, 2009
Non-refereed articles or poster published in academic conferences
7. Chih-Hao Chang, Who is knocking at your door? A Comprehensive Study on Citizen’s Traits toward Public e-Services Usage, Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on ICT and Higher Education 2008 Conference: ICT &
Knowledge Management, Siam University, Bangkok, Thailand. Organized by International Association of University Presidents (IAUP), Asia and Pacific Distance Multimedia Education Network (APDMEN), Siam University, December 3rd-4th, 2008
8. Chih-Hao Chang, The Patterns of E-governance: A Study of National- Level Context, presented at GITI Workshop, Honjo, Japan, pp.12-13, 2007
5 Presentations at
domestic conferences
9. Chih-Hao Chang, Introduction of 2009 Waseda Univ. e-Government Ranking, presented at The 3rd Waseda International Forum on CIO: ICT e- Government/Municipality and e-Governance, November 6th -7th, 2008, Tokyo, Japan.
10. Chih-Hao Chang, The Patterns of E-governance: An Analysis of Civic Engagement and E-tendency, presented at The 2nd IAC Annual Conference, March 23rd, 2007, Tokyo, Japan.
11. Chih-Hao Chang, E-government development: 2007 Waseda e-government Ranking, presented at The 2nd IAC Annual Conference, March 23rd, 2007, Tokyo, Japan. (Presented in 「世界電子政府ランキング」研究会)
Presentations at international workshops
12. Chih-Hao Chang, e-Government development, presented at APECTEL and CIO project in Connection with Asia Broadband Program “CIO and e-Governance”, February 19th-20th, 2007, Tokyo, Japan
13. Chih-Hao Chang and Diana Ishmatova, Mobile Government, presented at the 2nd NECTEC-Waseda Workshop, sponsored by the Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT) and Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication (MIC), January 15th-17th, 2006, Bangkok, Thailand.
