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6.5 Challenges to Citizens’ m-Government Service Adoption
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(Savoldelli, Codagnone & Misuraca, 2014). Also, Ogunleye & van Belle (2014) noted that most m-government service deployment fails as a result of negligence of non-technical factors in service designing and provisioning.
User emotions and their cognizance need to be integrated with primary functionality motives in order to enhance adoption of m-government services. Functionality traits or instrumentality traits encompass both usefulness and usability motives for m-government services. Abaza & Saif (2015) argue that awareness needs to be complemented with positive emotions on service functionality for adoption to take place. Similarly, Almarashdeh &
Alsmadi (2017) and Venkatesh, Thong & Xu (2012) confirm the significance of functionality attributes on adoption by demonstrating the significant effect of perceived usefulness or performance expectancy on user intention to use m-government services. Contrary to study findings on performance expectancy, the proposed solution also incorporates functionality attributes, as they are the basis upon which services are developed and evaluated.
Thus, from the discussion above, three components, emotions, cognizance and functionality, are essential to be considered in designing a solution to enhance m-government service adoptability. The effect of not achieving these factors becomes a hindrance to adoption; it is thus critical to identify challenges facing citizens as a result of the implications of the study findings. Identifying components upon which adoption decisions are based on is one step;
however, there is a need to understand further the implications of these findings as a hindrance to citizens’ adoption of m-government services.
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delivery, identified six-consumer dissatisfaction gaps categorized as users, providers or user- provider context. By applying a similar gap analysis technique, three barriers to citizens' adoption of m-government services in Tanzania are identified and discussed in the following sections.
6.5.1 Citizens’ Unpreparedness
The first barrier, citizens’ unpreparedness for m-government services, is demonstrated through limited awareness of the presence and the benefits of m-government services, and the lack of the necessary skills set to navigate through m-government services (Section 6.2.1). Similarly, Henningsson & van Veenstra (2010) identify limited awareness as a persistent hindrance to governmental IT transformations. Likewise, in Tanzania, Yonazi, Sol
& Boonstra (2010) note citizens’ unawareness of e-government as a significant challenge towards its adoption. Section 6.2.2 counts limited public awareness campaigns and lack of user-focused awareness campaigns as results of limited budgets, competing priorities, limited citizen support and limited ICT skilled personnel within government structures as reasons perpetuating citizens’ unpreparedness in Tanzania. Thus, citizens’ preparedness, which manifests itself in two perspectives –user readiness and system readiness to accommodate users’ level of readiness –, is among the significant challenges to m-government service adoptability in Tanzania.
According to Ogunleye & van Belle (2014), mobile readiness (m-readiness) is defined as the citizens' competencies and the extent of accessing mobile technologies, including mobile devices, networks and applications. In line with Mtingwi & van Belle (2012), m-readiness can be assessed in four dimensions, namely, motivation, individual competencies, usability and obstacles. Transposing Ogunleye & van Belle (2014) and Mtingwi & van Belle (2012), contextualisation of technology readiness in the context of m-government service adoption translates to citizens’ readiness; that is, the willingness and the state of being equipped with knowledge and skills to receive public services via mobile devices, especially mobile phones.
However, findings revealed the un-readiness of Tanzanians to take up m-government services because existing provisioning practices do not cater to existing levels of citizens' preparedness. This finding reveals a mismatch between expected and actual citizen level of preparedness. Yonazi, Sol & Boonstra (2010) point out that citizens’ perceptions of public
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service provision still lean towards physical contact, which affects citizens’ trust and confidence in alternative public service provision channels.
Compared to similar services from the private sector, Lubua (2017) notes that using mobile phones to complete online transactions is a common practice among Tanzanians. This discovery raises the question of why not m-government service? This implies that while Tanzanians may possess the minimum skills required in utilizing m-government services, government organisations need to focus on visibility and advocate the benefits of using m- government services to the public. Consequently, with current provisioning practices that focus on service usability, usefulness and accessibility, citizens’ adoption is unlikely to become a reality (Ogunleye & van Belle, 2014). m-Government service adoption in Tanzania and elsewhere is only a possibility if citizens’ preparedness is enhanced; that is, citizens’
awareness and adequacy in technological skills, and also the government’s ability to match actual and expected preparedness, is enhanced.
6.5.2 Mismatched m-Government Service Requirements
The second barrier to citizens’ adoption of m-government service initiatives is the mismatch between citizens’ expectations and m-government providers’ service quality specifications.
According to Jinhua, Yong & Peng (2010), service quality significantly affects its adoption as it influences consumers’ satisfaction, retention and loyalty. Consumers’ satisfaction or dissatisfaction is derived from the comparison between expectations and actual perceptions of a service experience. Literature establishes that public services that are perceived of high quality are those that are geared towards producing meaningful and desirable public values (Mousa, 2013; Rose & Grant, 2010). Moreover, Feeney & Welch (2012) posit that the quality of public service delivery is evaluated through public opinion of the value and transparency of the process. Correspondingly, Savoldelli, Codagnone & Misuraca (2014) acknowledge that quality and public values should not be defined self-referentially by public administrators but must incorporate the needs, views and values of the targeted group.
However, the current provisioning practices that exclude citizens is unlikely to support this requirement, thus causing a hindrance to adoption.
Findings in section 6.2.2 indicate current m-government service provisioning practices, namely service need establishment, requirements elicitation and service testing processes, are characterized by limited citizen involvement. Ibrahim & Mohammed (2008) affirm that the
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unfortunate practice of working with assumed citizens' needs in the development and provision of new or innovated existing public services is common among government organisations. Thus, citizens’ emotional, functional and cognizance needs are neglected in the resulting m-government services. Also, the limited involvement of citizens in activities such as m-government service testing and service access pricing or costing affects both citizens’ emotions and cognizance of service interactivity and affordability. With the resulting perception of the quality m-government services being unsatisfactory, citizens tend to revert to traditional physical channels for accessing public services.
6.5.3 Mismatched m-Government Service Provision-Consumption Focus
The third barrier that contributes to poor citizens’ adoption of m-government service initiatives in Tanzania is the m-government service provision focus. The current m- government service provision is focused on achieving system and service functionalities with minimal effort on experience, which is vested in emotional and cognitive aspects (Sections 6.2 and Section 6.3). Interviews with respective government organisations involved in the m- government service provision indicated current practice on requirements establishment, service development, service positioning and delivery are characterized by minimum citizen engagement. Current m-government service provisioning practices in Tanzania can thus be generally contextualized as following the business process re-engineering principles;
however, with established practices of excluding the users in the process (Section 6.3). For instance, service requirement establishment focuses on extracting service requirements from the physical service provisioning, and re-engineering these requirements directly into electronic services to be offered through the mobile platform (Section 6.2.2 and Section 6.3.2). Consequently, with such practices, citizen's needs are excluded from the existing m- government service initiatives, and as a result, a wide gap exists between citizens' expectations and their perceptions of m-government services.
Furthermore, Wanjau, Wangari & Ayodo (2012) note that most government organisations concentrate on accomplishing electronic transactions that provide services with an e-business focus. The e-business focus is centred on achieving technical functionalities for completing a transaction through electronic platforms, and has been widely contested for its omission of socio-technical requirements, including emotional, aesthetic and cognition attributes (Abro et al., 2015; Stamenkov & Dika, 2015). Abro et al. (2015) posit that in citizen-involving
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services, citizens' service experience plays a vital role in how they react to services, and for that matter, service provision focus needs to shift towards e-service where both technical (functionality) and socio-technical (cognizance and emotional) attributes are considered.