Privacy, security, trust, risk and optimism bias in e-government use: The case of two Southern African Development Community countries

Abstract

This study investigated how privacy, security, trust, risk and optimism bias factors are affecting citizens' perceptions and decisions to use e-government systems in Zimbabwe and Zambia. The keyword 'perceived' prefixed on each construct (e.g. perceived security) refers to both citizens' perceptions and actual experience. The results of this study would be significant to practitioners, decision-makers and policymakers who seek to strengthen the G2C relationships in developing countries.This article is structured as follows: firstly, the theoretical underpinnings are laid out for the study. Then the research model and hypotheses followed by the research methodology are presented. The findings of the empirical study are then presented and discussed. Theoretical underpinningsThe complex nature of the G2C phenomenon requires multiple models to help interpret the data collected. This study draws from several models: the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education cybersecurity capability maturity models (NICE-CMM) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework (NIST 2018; US Department of Background: Many Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries are adopting and implementing e-government systems to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their service delivery systems, and Zimbabwe and Zambia are not an exception. However, scholars have noted that the acceptance and utilisation of e-government systems by citizens in Zimbabwe and Zambia is affected by many factors, among others, perceived privacy, perceived security, perceived trust, perceived risk and optimism bias. Objectives:The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of privacy, security, trust, optimism bias and perceived risk on citizens' use behaviour of e-government systems in the SADC.Method: This study proposes an e-government utilisation model. A quantitative design was employed to collect data from a survey of 489 e-government users in Zambia and Zimbabwe to test the model fit using structural equation modelling.Results: Perceived lack of privacy, security, trust; perceived risk and optimism bias were all confirmed as salient factors affecting the utilisation of e-government systems by citizens in Zambia and Zimbabwe. The structural equation model results confirmed the model fit of the proposed e-government research model. All eight hypotheses for this study were confirmed. Conclusion:The findings of this study provide pointers to practitioners, decision-makers and policymakers on e-government matters on the need to seriously consider privacy, security, risk and trust issues of e-government systems to encourage the utilisation of such systems by citizens.

Investigating the influence of transparency on the adoption of e-Government in Indonesia

“…Transparency in e-Government refers to the availability of relevant information and procedures to citizens through e-Government (Almukhlifi et al, 2019). It plays a critical role in developing countries such as Indonesia for fighting corruption (Ionescu, 2013) (Al-Hujran et al, 2015) and improving the trust of citizens in government (Munyoka and Maharaj, 2019). The availability of public information to citizens can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public organizations (Deng et al, 2018).…”

A Sustainability‑Based Multi‑Criteria Decision Approach for Information Systems Project Selection

“…The findings of this study reaffirm as true some of the previously theorised technology acceptance and use relationships (Venkatesh et al, 2012; Ami-Narh and Williams, 2012) by shedding more light on some critical factors affecting and contribute to the successful adoption and use of e-government in Zimbabwe and other developing countries with similar socio-economic conditions. The author argues that to date there are very few studies (Maharaj and Munyoka, 2019;Manenji and Marufu, 2016) done that empirically test the utilisation of e-government systems by citizens in the context of Zimbabwe. Therefore, this study is expected to elevate the discourse of e-government adoption and utilisation by citizens in developing nations by adding new constructs like service quality and optimism bias which never existed in the original technology acceptance and use models and not covered by most prior studies (Furusa and Coleman, 2018;Rajah, 2015).…”

“…These conditions make Zimbabwe an interesting country to investigate; especially on how citizens perceive e-government as a preferred mode for accessing government services. Similarly, Munyoka and Maharaj (2019) posit that it will be exciting to establish how citizens react to government calls on using e-government systems in a country like Zimbabwe that is characterised with information censorship, reported security breaches and dwindling citizen trust on the governance processes. On another note, this study acknowledges that there are numerous studies (Verkijika and De Wet, 2018;Kyem, 2016;Munyoka and Maharaj, 2017a) that have addressed many other factors affecting e-government adoption and use by citizens in Southern Africa.…”

Electronic government adoption in voluntary environments – a case study of Zimbabwe

“…Price value. Price value (PV) refers to the cost and price structures of accessing the Internet and e-government services by the public (Munyoka and Maharaj, 2019). In the consumer user-setup as opposed to an organisation set up the costs are directly incurred by the consumers (Venkatesh, Thong and Xu, 2012) and this has an impact on system adoption and service utilisation as postulated below:…”

“…As alluded to in the corpus of literature reviewed above, findings of this study confirm that freedom of opinion, expression and access to information are major security concerns that frustrate citizens' efforts and intentions towards using e-government systems in Zimbabwe. One plausible explanation for this finding could be the reported high levels of information and government surveillance and censorship (Sutherland, 2018;Zhou, 2011), some repressive legislation (Moyo, Osunkunle and Chabwinja, 2014) and security concerns (Munyoka and Maharaj, 2019) reported in Zimbabwe. Likewise, findings of this study concur with Bwalya (2018) who attests that for most countries in Africa there are no proper and effective procedures in place to prosecute perpetrators of cybercrimes and enforce security policies to guarantee the confidentiality, integrity, privacy and availability of secure transactions on e-government.…”