Rebuilding public trust in government administrations through e-government actions

Do you see my effort? An investigation of the relationship between e-government service quality and trust in government

Purpose

Electronic government (e-government) has been suggested as an important tool to improve public services and enhance citizens’ trust in government. Several studies have examined the relationship between e-government service quality, satisfaction and trust in government with conflicting results. This conflict reveals the need for additional examination of the process relating e-government service quality to trust in government. This study aims to introduce a theoretical approach that considers a crucial factor, which is perceived government effort. The model proposes that perceived e-government service quality first leads to satisfaction, which in turn increases perceived effort that finally translates into trust in government.

Design/methodology/approach

This study proposes and tests a conceptual model that examines the relationship between e-government service quality, satisfaction, perceived effort and trust in government. The model is tested using mediated regression analyses and Hayes’s PROCESS macro. Data were collected from an online survey of 723 individuals who interacted with e-government services in Kuwait.

Findings

The results supported the proposed theoretical model and particularly confirmed the mediating role of perceived effort in the link between e-government service quality and trust in government.

Research limitations/implications

The findings improve the understanding of the behavioral process linking satisfaction with citizen’s trust in the government.

Originality/value

The model introduces a crucial yet previously overlooked factor to the trust-building effect of e-government, which is perceived effort. This factor is particularly important in electronic services that inherently lack face-to-face interaction between citizens and government representatives.

Smart City Applications to Promote Citizen Participation in City Management and Governance: A Systematic Review

This systematic review aimed to provide a comprehensive view of (1) the purposes of research studies using smart city infrastructures to promote citizen participation in the cities’ management and governance, (2) the characteristics of the proposed solutions in terms of data sources, data quality, and data security and privacy mechanisms, as well, as strategies to incentivize citizen participation, and (3) the development stages of the applications being reported. An electronic search was conducted combining relevant databases and keywords, and 76 studies were included after a selection process. The results show a current interest in developing applications to promote citizen participation to identify urban problems and contribute to decision-making processes. Most of the included studies considered citizens as agents able to report issues (e.g., issues related to the maintenance of urban infrastructures or the mobility in urban spaces), monitor certain environmental parameters (e.g., air or acoustic pollution), and share opinions (e.g., opinions about the performance of local authorities) to support city management. Moreover, a minority of the included studies developed collaborative applications to involve citizens in decision-making processes in urban planning, the selection of development projects, and deepening democratic values. It is possible to conclude about the existence of significant research related to the topic of this systematic review, but also about the need to deepen mechanisms to guarantee data quality and data security and privacy, to develop strategies to incentivize citizen participation, and to implement robust experimental set-ups to evaluate the impact of the developed applications in daily contexts.

How Does Social Media Influence Young Chinese Females' Government Trust?

This paper makes a multi-group analysis with gender as a grouping variable through a structural equation model and analyzes the intermediary chain role of political knowledge, political participation, and political efficacy between social media and government trust of the youth groups in Beijing. Results show that social media directly affects young females' political participation and does not directly impact young males' political participation. In both groups, political knowledge and political participation have a mediating chain role in social media and government trust. These results implicate that the government should pay attention to the development of social media, make good use of the indirect effect of social media on youths' government trust, focus on promoting correct and healthy political knowledge on social media, cultivate youth political consciousness, create more opportunities for youth political participation, and let the youth understand the significance of political activities, so as to improve their government trust.