Understanding information technology use in public institutes of developing countries

Abstract

Along with the development in information communication technology (ICT), public sector has witnessed rapid growth in ICT adoption and technology transfer for improving public services. Over recent years, developing countries have prioritized the transformation thorough ICT enabled service delivery mechanisms, such as e-government initiatives to ensure efficient, effective, transparent, and responsive services to the citizen. The growing demands from citizen and business for responsive and effective government services amplifies the importance of ICT deployment in the government organizations. Academia has shown greater interest in harnessing the ICT benefits effectively through maximizing the investment and mitigating the risk associated with ICT. This dissertation analyzes the case of developing countries concentrating on users’ behavior on adopting information technology. It contemplates the uniqueness of government setting into widely accepted research models in information system (IS) to examine user’s behavior through primary survey of targeted respondents from government employees in Nepal. The objective of the dissertation is to understand user’s behavior toward adoption and continue intention to information technology in the public service delivery with a view to point out critical issues for the success of ICT initiatives in developing countries.

Building on the literature review, the study first identifies appropriate models to analyze users’ adoption of information technology and intention to use new technology. Then, it incorporates social power theory and construal level theory into the models to analyze users’ behavior in the government organization setting. This dissertation consists of two studies: The first essay combines social power in organizational perspective and use of technology. It investigates role of transparency, accountability, trust, and work-fitness in the context of supervisor power and peers’ power on users’ continue intention. The second essay concentrates on users’ hindering behavior in regards to new information technology. It builds on status quo theory that users’ inertia and habit increase switching cost of new information technology. Further, it develops on Theory of Reasoned Action that trade-off between switching benefits and switching costs influences subjective norms and users’ attitude towards intention to use new information technology. It incorporates social, technical, and temporal construal from construal level theory to contextualize the uniqueness of government organization setting to examine their moderating roles between subjective norms and users’ intention as well as attitude and users’ intention for new information technology.

The studies rely on extensive discussion with the focal government officers responsible for e-government projects, 161 survey responses for first study, and 207 survey responses from targeted respondents from government employees in Nepal. The results show that transparency and trust positively influence users continue intention that further increases through moderating effects of peers’ power on accountability. The results also show that higher inertia and habit both increases switching cost and provides negative perception of new technology. The moderating effects of social, technical, and temporal construal show significant positive influence on attitude for users’ intention to new information technology. The findings of the studies indicate that social power role influences user’s behavior that also obtained validity through experts’ opinions. It suggests that users’ attitude to use new technology improves when they find social support, technology becomes more familiar to them, and tasks are time-defined. However, some of the hypotheses couldn’t find strong support including moderating effects of social, technical, and temporal construal play totally different role on between subjective norms and the intention because the atmosphere may not be encouraged from the individual level’s specification. The studies provide evidence that managerial initiatives to familiarizing users about the new technology improves their attitude for using new technology. Thus, it recommends government organizations to incorporate such measures while implementing new ICT projects.

Furthermore, the studies make academic contribution by introducing social power theory and construal level theory into established research models in information system, which may be utilized in future studies. The constructed indicators for all three social, technical, and temporal construal measures have been confirmed reliability and validity using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), which is another useful contribution as a tool for future study using construal level theory.