Adoption of E-Government Services in Ukraine Oleg Shovkovyy*

The Internet, which emerged at the conclusion of the 20th century and its subsequent development, has changed and will continue to change our lives, our ways of communication, sharing information, working, learning, and governing. It also created an opportunity for the governments to use information and communication technologies (ICT) for delivering information and services to the clientele (Nixon, Koutrakou & Rawal, 2010). Accordingly, the use of ICTs and Internet for delivering government services to various recipients and stakeholders is called e-government (Alshomrani, 2012). According to Brown, there are at least four main areas where “E-Government has lasting impacts on public administration: citizencentered service, information as a public resource, new skills and working relationships, and accountability and management models” (Brown, 2005). The main distinctive characteristic of electronic compared to traditional government is its focus on the clientele: citizens, businesses, and organizations. Focus on citizens made available more profound involvement of them into democratic dialogue with governments, allowed to create more relevant, personalized and increasingly cost-effective services as well as enhanced practice of the citizenship (Nixon et al., 2010: 19). The changes to the governmental environment in the late 1990s urged for even further incorporation of ICTs into the work of governments and was seen by politicians and public managers as a way of reforming public administration (Homburg, 2008: 88). On the other hand, the perspectives to reap off the potential benefits offered by e-government, were forcing governments all around the world, including Ukraine, to develop and deploy requested services. However, analyzing the state of development of e-government projects in the world, Heeks (2006: 3) concluded that most of them failed. Most e-government initiatives fail due to the low adoption and underutilization. Similarly, Carter and Bélanger (2005: 5) believed that the acceptance of e-government services depends upon citizen willingness to adopt them. It became evident that since e-government influences the public administration and at the same time depends on the willingness of clientele to use it, the low rates of its adoption will ultimately affect the quality of public administration. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that “the progress and outcomes of the implementation of e-government in developing countries has not been adequately studied” (Yimbo, 2011: iv). While a large portion of the egovernment adoption academic literature to date has focused on the national and local governments’ adoption of e-government, relatively little is known about why, and under what circumstances, citizens adopt e-government services (Carter & Bélanger, 2005; Choudrie & Dwivedi, 2005; Gilbert, Pierre & Darren, 2004; Reddick, 2005). There is also a lack of empirical research that considers the behavioral intentions of the recipients of e-government services (Hung, Chang & Yu, 2006). The absence of systematic research was also confirmed in this researcher’s private correspondence with a number of officials and scholars that are working on or are familiar with the field of e-government in Ukraine. Despite the fact that Ukraine has capable human resources, developed ICT infrastructure, a sufficient legislative base and, according to ForUm (2013), strong support from the President and the Government of Ukraine, the 2014 e-government development index measured by the UN Public Administration Programme, was one of the lowest in Europe: No.87 out of 193 surveyed countries (DESA, 2014: 203). According to Kolesnichenko, the e-government in Ukraine is mainly limited to updating the official websites of the government (the “paper” government is still winning over the electronic), and most Ukrainians have not heard of egovernment (Kolesnichenko, 2014: 53). For more than 10 years after it began, “Ukraine’s egovernment is still on paper” (Khmara, Kifenko & Tymchenko, 2013). All these clearly identify that implementation of e-government in Ukraine is facing certain problems and, since “egovernment is likely to succeed only if there is strong demand and support from the majority of the population” (Lee & Oh, 2011), it is very likely that these problems related to the low rates of adoption of e-Government services by Ukrainians. Accordingly, this research investigates the challenges and barriers that influence the adoption of e-government services in Ukraine by addressing the following research questions: - What are the factors affecting the adoption of e-government services in Ukraine from eready citizens’ perspectives? - What is the current state of the adoption of e-government services in Ukraine? The note by Holliday (2002: 7), that “to understand human affairs it is insufficient to rely on quantitative survey and statistics, and necessary instead to delve deep into the subjective qualities that govern behavior,” implied that quantitative and qualitative techniques of conducting scientific research could be used together. Similarly, Babbie (2010: 25) suggested “a complete understanding of a topic often requires both techniques.” Combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, especially their strongest points, at different stages of the scientific research, lead to the development of various mixed methods research designs (Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009). Guided by these considerations, the researcher decided to use the MM research design, particularly sequential (according to notational system by Morse (1991)) explanatory MM research design where less-dominant qualitative phase follows after dominant quantitative phase. Research that incorporates two complementary phases into a single study was defined as a two-phase study (Plano Clark & Creswell, 2008). During the quantitative phase, the researcher used a face-to-face and online self-administered survey questionnaire to collect the research data from the representative sample of e-ready citizens whereas during the qualitative phase, the researcher conducted a series of face-to face interviews with selected e-ready individuals. The quantitative phase of the research used the nonprobability quota sampling technique that in many regards recalls stratified random sampling (probability sampling) and which, according to Babbie (2010: 194), “addresses the issue of representativeness.” The size of the sample, calculated with statistical formula at 95 percent of confidence level and five percent of confidence interval for the targeted population of 15,274,752 e-ready Ukrainians, would be 384. The researcher decided to collect data from 400 e-ready citizens, members of four age groups without differentiation by gender, social, racial, ethnic, professional or other characteristics. The qualitative phase of the research employed a purposive sampling technique. According to Plano Clark and Creswell (2008: 200), this technique is mainly used in qualitative research and particularly useful because it allows selecting members of the sample based on specific purposes associated with research question. In order to obtain a more reliable picture of the current status of e-government development in Ukraine, and to gain a deeper insight into the phenomenon, interviews were conducted with those that were directly involved with the development, implementation or evaluation of e-government in Ukraine, employees of selected government offices and other organizations. Out of nine e-ready citizens selected for the interviews, four were male and five were female 28 to 40 years of age. To ensure the homogeneity of MM research and to provide a good basis for triangulation of the findings, the same unit of analysis used in both phases of the research. The survey questionnaire written in the Ukrainian language, which was used in the quantitative phase of the research, was comprised of 56 close-ended questions, designed with proper wording, responsive formatting, and a structured layout. Each construct of the model was represented by five questions measured on five-point Likert scale. Positive and negative questions were used to avoid having all negatives on one side and all positives on the other side, thus helping to prevent the HALO effect. The collection of the survey data was performed using a mixed mode: 100 surveys were distributed online with the help of Google Forms and 300 surveys were distributed using a face-to-face self-administered survey to e-ready citizens in three Ukrainian cities. Twelve semi-structured interview questions guided the interviews during the qualitative phase of the research and meant to explore the participants’ experiences and perceptions regarding the adoption of e-government services in Ukraine. The participants were interviewed in sequential order during the face-toface interviews held mostly in the interviewees’ offices at their workplace between May and June 2015. The languages of the interviews were Ukrainian and Russian. The findings from the quantitative phase were used to identify the patterns and to group the data, which later were analyzed for similarities and differences in between case analyses. The approach where the researcher “Looks for patterns appearing across several observations that typically represent different cases under study called cross-case analysis” (Babbie, 2010: 395). The essence of at least two factors, awareness and computer literacy, which were found to be significant influences on the actual use, seemed to be easy to understand and “tangible” in its nature. This made the researcher believe that these factors have a good chance to be noticed and to be reflected in the initiatives and practice of those that are designing, developing, and implementing e-government services. The fact that 71.7 percent of the respondents to the survey questionnaire most frequently accessed the Internet from various mobile devices suggests changes in the pattern of Internet users. It implies that the role of mobile wireless communication and mobile government (mgovernment) in particular will only be growing. It is important that the Ukrainian government take advantage of this discovery and not miss the opportunity to be on top of the situation and to be on time with this emerging trend. Practically all of the interviewees and a majority of the respondents surveyed reported a lack of trust in the government as one of the factors that influences adoption and actual usage. Therefore, it would be advisable if the government, along with all of its subordinate bodies, make the necessary effort to change this situation for the better. For researchers, this study offers a comprehensive model of adoption, presented in Figure 3, which proposes a model for studying e-government adoption that is completely different to previous models. The theoretical contributions of the research are not only limited to model development, but also include a new and more thorough way of defining egovernment adoption, e-ready citizens, and e-government.

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1- Describe how the researchers obtained their sample?

2- What are the main findings of this study?

3- Formulate two research hypotheses for this study.

4- Discuss the best sampling technique for this study

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ANSWER1 The researcher obtained their sample in two ways qualitative and quantitative During the quantitative phase the researched used the facetoface ... View the full answer