Purpose -This paper aims to engage with the growing debate on the factors that affect e-government adoption in the developing country of Jordan. The change from traditional interactions between government and citizens in Jordan to interaction via the web needs further exploration in order to understand the factors that might affect e-government adoption by citizens. This paper therefore aims to report on a study to identify the main factors that influence citizens' intention to adopt e-government websites in Jordan, using a theoretical framework consisting of diffusion of innovation theory (DOI) and the technology acceptance model (TAM). Design/methodology/approach -A survey study of 400 Jordanian citizens who were internet users investigated the influence of the aforementioned factors on the adoption and use of e-government websites. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Findings -Contrary to previous research, trust in the internet, relative advantage, compatibility and perceived ease of use were not found to be significant predictors of intention to use e-government websites. Trust in government, website design, beliefs, complexity and perceived usefulness were significant factors in Jordanian citizens' intention to use e-government websites. Originality/value -This study is one of the few to examine what influences adoption and use of e-government websites by citizens in the Middle East. The study clearly identifies the relationship between the constructs of "beliefs" (religious views) and website design and e-government adoption, and explores the influence of attitudes towards e-government adoption in Jordan. Although previous studies show similarities between the constructs related to DOI (relative advantage and complexity) and those related to TAM (perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEoU)), this research shows the importance of including these constructs when considering the topic of e-government adoption in a Middle Eastern country.

Purpose – This study aims to explore how citizens socialise and network in relation to using and adopting e-government. The paper suggests that governments need to consider social networks when introducing e-government initiatives. Using qualitative research, this study explores the reasons, fears, motivations and factors with respect to e-government relevant to two social groups of people, those who do and those who do not have regular access to the internet in the Middle Eastern country of Jordan. Design/methodology/approach – The study analyses the results of focus groups representing different social groups of Jordanian citizens across the digital divide. The focus groups followed the nominal group method to explore questions relating to e-government adoption. The nominal group method provided preliminary categorisations of responses; however, further initial and axial coding of data were used to analyse recordings of focus group transcripts. Findings – Contrary to previous research, this study highlights the importance of considering factors that most likely appear as organizational terms, such as resistance to change, when investigating the adoption of e-government within a social community. Cultural and social themes that emerged include resistance to change, wasta (favouritism), and word of mouth (WOM). Few qualitative studies have investigated the main factors relevant to the adoption of e-government by citizens in the Middle East. Originality/value – To investigate the adoption of technological innovations including e-government, this paper encourages researchers and practitioners in information technologies (IT) to consider cultural and social factors that have been rarely discussed in IT research in general and e-government in particular. Examples of these factors are wasta (favouritism) and WOM.

This paper explores the measurement of social factors in e-government adoption in a developing country (Jordan). The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is developing strong Information Communication Technology (ICT) with the aim of becoming a knowledge based country and a regional Information Technology (IT) centre. Although e-government is an important part of this strategy, there appears to be a lack of understanding of the social factors that may influence citizens' intention to use e-government. This paper makes a contribution in examining these factors through a literature search and questionnaire and data collected from 400 Jordanian participants.

E-government has been considered as one approach for changing the face of government in the eyes of the citizenry. Therefore, citizens' socialization in relation to their engagement with e-government should be explored. This study argues that citizens played a significant role in determining the success of an e-government project in the Middle Eastern country of Jordan. This paper aims to provide insight and evaluation into the factors that could influence e-government's effective functioning in the Jordanian social community through its interaction with citizens. The study collected data from 356 Jordanian citizens via a survey, to ascertain their understanding of 10 factors that may influence their intention to use e-government services. To investigate the adoption of e-government services in depth, two departments in Jordan were selected: the Jordanian Government's Income and Sales Tax Department (ISTD) and its Driver and Vehicle Licenses Department (DVDL). The factor analysis technique was used to identify the main factors related to e-government services' adoption. The results indicated that trust in the internet, website design, religious beliefs, internet and computer skill confidence, word of mouth, resistance to change, perceived usefulness, relative advantage and complexity are the main factors that should be considered when addressing the topic of e-government services' adoption in Jordan. This study is different from most existing studies on e-government adoption as it empirically investigated the impact of word of mouth (WOM), wasta (favoritism), and resistance to change on e-government adoption. This study highlights the importance of considering the social cohesion of the Jordanian community when exploring factors related to egovernment adoption.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present factors that affect e-voting adoption in the Middle East and, in particular, Jordan. Changing the election voting method for the people in Jordan from traditional voting to interactive voting via the web needs exploration to understand the factors affecting e-voting adoption by citizens. Therefore, this paper reports on a study undertaken to identify the main factors that would influence citizens’ intentions to adopt the use of an e-voting system in Jordan, using an established e-government adoption model and a theoretical framework consisting of the diffusion of innovations (DOI) theory and the technology acceptance model (TAM). Design/methodology/approach A survey study of 267 Jordanian citizens who were internet users investigated the influence of the aforementioned factors on the adoption and use of e-voting websites. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Findings Contrary to the previous established e-government adoption model, beliefs and website design were not found to be significant predictors of the intention to use e-voting websites. The paper found that trust in government, attitudes, perceived usefulness and complexity were significant factors in Jordanian citizens’ intentions to use e-voting websites. Originality/value This is one of few studies to have used an established e-government adoption model to test the adoption of e-voting as one of the e-government applications. In addition, this paper is one of the few to examine the factors that influence the adoption and use of e-voting systems by citizens in the Middle East. Although the previous e-government adoption model showed the impact of attitude to be non-significant on e-government adoption, this paper shows the significant influence of attitudes on citizens’ intentions to use e-voting websites. On the other hand, this paper supports previous e-government adoption studies in showing the importance of including constructs of the DOI theory (relative advantage and complexity) and those related to TAM (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use) when considering the topic of e-government adoption in a Middle Eastern country, although previous studies have shown similarities between these constructs.