Service Design and Citizen Satisfaction with E‐Government Services: A Multidimensional Perspective
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| Author | Frank K. Y. Chan,James Y. L. Thong,Susan A. Brown,Viswanath Venkatesh |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13308 |
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited,
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874
Research Article
Abstract: This research examines the relationship between service design and citizen satisfaction with e-government
services. Based on a multidimensional conceptualization of service, we define three key service perceptions, each
comprising different design characteristics, that jointly influence perceived service quality and citizen satisfaction with
e-government services. The service perceptions and their corresponding design characteristics are: (1) perceptions of a
core service—accuracy, completeness, self-service capability, and convenience; (2) perceptions of facilitating services—
accessibility, privacy protection, security protection, and user support; and (3) perceptions of supporting services—
personalization capability and transparency. We tested our research model using data from a two-stage survey of 3,065
users of three e-government services. The results showed that all design characteristics contributed to their respective
service perceptions that influenced perceived service quality that in turn influenced citizen satisfaction. The finding
of a three-way interaction among the service perceptions supported their complementary role in influencing perceived
service quality.
Evidence for Practice
• Service design characteristics of e-government services are central to citizens’ evaluation of service
experiences and lead to important outcomes, including perceived service quality and citizen satisfaction with
e-government services.
• The design characteristics correspond to different elements of a service offering that include the core service,
facilitating services, and supporting services. This mapping helps distinguish between design characteristics
that are essential for service use and those that are optional and serve only to improve the service experience.
• Citizens’ perceptions of the service elements (i.e., core service, facilitating services, and supporting services)
play a complementary role in influencing perceived service quality of e-government services. All three service
elements must be present to provide the best service experience to citizens.
The Internet and digital technologies have
enabled governments to transform public
service provision and deliver electronic
government (e-government) services to citizens. The
Internet has become an essential channel for citizen-
government interaction and public service delivery. A
majority of governments around the world are offering
e-government services, complementing and sometimes
replacing traditional offline services. For example, all 193
United Nations member states have launched national
portals for disseminating government information,
with 47 percent of these countries providing online
transactional services, such as filing income tax returns
and paying for utilities (United Nations 2018).
Despite the continued efforts in transforming public
service delivery, significant challenges remain in
designing effective e-government services that address
citizens’ needs and requirements (Goldkuhl 2016;
Tummers and Rocco 2015). Service design determines
the key elements of a service offering and consequently
influences users’ service experience and forms the
basis for delivering valuable service outcomes, such
as perceived service quality and user satisfaction
(Beltagui, Candi, and Riedel 2016; Li and Shang 2020;
Wirtz and Kurtz 2016). Service design is especially
important in the public sector, as governments are
obliged to provide accessible e-government services
for the entire eligible population. Citizens’ service
experience determines the success of governments in
accomplishing broader social and political goals, such
as trust in government, social inclusion, community
well-being, and sustainability (e.g., Porumbescu 2016;
Twizeyimana and Andersson 2019).
Early approaches to designing e-government services
often mirror those of the private sector, focusing on
Frank K. Y. Chan
James Y. L. Thong
Susan A. Brown
Viswanath Venkatesh
Service Design and Citizen Satisfaction with E-Government
Services: A Multidimensional Perspective
Susan A. Brown is the APS Professor and
Department Head of MIS at the University
of Arizona. Her research on individual
motivations and consequences of IT use
and research methods has appeared in
MIS
Quarterly
,
Information Systems Research
,
Journal of Management Information
Systems
, and others. She is a Fellow of the
Association for Information Systems (AIS)
,
co-Editor-in-Chief for
AIS Transactions on
Replication Research
, and has served as a
Senior Editor for
MIS Quarterly
.
Email: suebrown@arizona.edu
James Y. L. Thong is the Michael Jebsen
Professor of Business and Chair Professor
of Information Systems at the Hong Kong
University of Science and Technology.
His research on technology adoption,
e-government, and human-computer
interaction has appeared
in MIS Quarterly
,
Information Systems Research
, and
Journal
of Management Information Systems
. He is
a Fellow of the
Association for Information
Systems (AIS)
, Senior Editor for
MIS
Quarterly
and served as an Associate Editor
for
Information Systems Research
.
Email: jthong@ust.hk
Frank K. Y. Chan is an associate professor
in the Department of Information Systems,
Decision Sciences and Statistics at ESSEC
Business School, France. His research
interests include electronic government
and technology implementation. His
work has appeared in
MIS Quarterly
,
Information Systems Research
,
Journal of
the Association for Information Systems
,
Information Systems Journal
, and
Journal of
Operations Management
.
Email: chanf@essec.edu
Public Administration Review,
Vol. 81, Iss. 5, pp. 874–894. © 2020 The Authors.
Public Administration Review published by
Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American
Society for Public Administration.
DOI: 10.1111/puar.13308.
ESSEC Business School
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
University of Arizona
University of Arkansas
The copyright line for this article was changed on 21 June 2021
after original online publication.
Service Design and Citizen Satisfaction with E-Government Services: A Multidimensional Perspective 875
automating existing processes and moving existing
government services online (Roberts 2011). However,
many e-government services are designed according
to common practice without considering quality as
defined by citizens (Goldkuhl 2016). It is believed
that a fundamental redesign of what government
provides and how it interacts and engages with
its citizens is required for true service innovation
(Roberts 2011). The need for effective service design is
evidenced by the fact that a significant proportion of
citizens are not satisfied with their online interactions
with public organizations in terms of functionality
and interactivity (e.g., Linders, Liao, and Wang 2018;
Sharma et al. 2018; Zheng and Schachter 2017).
The influence of service design on citizens’ experience
with e-government services can be examined
through the psychological lens of behavioral public
administration (Grimmelikhuijsen et al. 2017;
Hassan and Wright 2020). Given the technological
nature of e-government services, prior research has
applied behavioral models of information systems (IS)
adoption and continuance—such as the technology
acceptance model (TAM: Davis 1989), the unified
theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT:
Venkatesh et al. 2003), and the IS continuance model
(Bhattacherjee and Premkumar 2004)—to examine
citizens’ perceptions of the benefits and difficulties
encountered in the service process that influence
service use and associated outcomes, such as perceived
service quality and user satisfaction (e.g., Chan et
al. 2010; Chen and Aklikokou 2020; Dwivedi et
al. 2017; Mensah 2020; Mensah and Adams 2020;
Moynihan and Lavertu 2012; Venkatesh et al. 2011;
Wirtz, Mory, and Ullrich 2012).
Despite the predominant use of IS adoption
and continuance models in previous studies on
e-government, these models are unable to provide
specific guidance to direct service design due to
the generic nature of their core constructs. For
example, TAM suggests that perceived usefulness and
perceived ease of use influence individual adoption
of a technology, but it does not specify which design
characteristics contribute to usefulness or ease of
use—this limitation of TAM and other technology
adoption models has been identified in much previous
technology adoption research for some time now
(e.g., Venkatesh, Davis, and Morris 2007; Venkatesh,
Thong, and Xu 2016). Also, these models contain
a very small set of constructs and relationships,
thus limiting the possibility of examining a broad,
diverse set of design characteristics and their potential
complementarity (Hong et al. 2014). Taken together,
although previous studies provide an understanding of
the general drivers of e-government service adoption,
further research is needed to understand what specific
design characteristics citizens value and to develop
usable knowledge for practitioners to guide service
design (Grimmelikhuijsen et al. 2017; Hassan and
Wright 2020). There is a need for a systematic
approach for the identification and validation of
service design characteristics.
The objective of this research is to identify key design
characteristics of e-government services and examine
how citizen perceptions of these characteristics
influence service experience outcomes. We leverage
prior research on services and IS to guide our model
development. First, we draw on Grönroos’s (2000)
multidimensional service conceptualization to define
three key elements of e-government services—i.e.,
core service, facilitating services, and supporting
services—and identify 10 design characteristics
pertaining to these service elements—i.e., accuracy,
completeness, self-service capability, convenience,
accessibility, privacy protection, security protection,
user support, personalization capability, and
transparency. Second, we specify the three service
perceptions as second-order formative constructs
comprising various corresponding first-order
design characteristics. These service perceptions
capture user evaluations of the key aspects related
to service use. Third, we identify perceived service
quality and citizen satisfaction as service experience
outcomes, which are two key measures for evaluating
government performance (Brown 2007; Olsen 2015;
Petrovsky, Mok, and León-Cázares 2017; Shingler
et al. 2008). Overall, we posit that the three service
perceptions, formed by various service design
characteristics perceptions, will jointly influence the
service experience outcomes.
The proposed research model was tested using data
from a two-stage survey of 3,065 users of three
e-government services in Hong Kong. Hong Kong
is one of the most connected cities in the world (i.e.,
100 percent population covered by mobile network
and public Internet access) and ranked 18th globally
in e-government development (Obi 2018), providing
a suitable research context for this study. The findings
will provide insights into how to effectively design
e-government services to improve citizen satisfaction.
The lessons learned from Hong Kong will provide
guidance for similar countries with advanced
e-government services to manage citizens’ service
experience, and also help less developed countries
to anticipate and prepare for the challenges in
e-government development.
Theoretical Foundation
A Multidimensional View of Service
Designing a new service requires the consideration
of all elements of the delivered service. Most services
are multidimensional bundles consisting of three
major elements: core service, facilitating services, and
supporting services (Grönroos 2000). Core service
is a primary service or basic value offered by service
Viswanath Venkatesh is widely regarded
as one of the most influential scholars in
business and economics, both in terms
of premier journal publications and
citations. The sponsorship of his research
has been about US$10M. His work has
appeared in leading journals in human-
computer interaction, information systems,
organizational behavior, psychology,
marketing, medical informatics, and
operations management, and included
best paper awards (e.g.,
Academy of
Management Journal
). He has been cited
about 110,000 times (Google Scholar) and
about 35,000 times (Web of Science), with
an
h
-index of 73 and
i
-10 index of 115.
He has served in editorial roles in various
journals. He is a Fellow of the
Association
for Information Systems
(AIS)
and the
Information Systems Society, INFORMS
.
Email: vvenkatesh@vvenkatesh.us
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