The Impact of Trust in Government – Young Voters’ Behavioral Intention to Use I-voting in Slovenia

Abstract

In order to create public value and meet the demands of the modern information society, governments and public administrations strongly rely on information technology and e-government, but its acceptance is significantly influenced by the level of citizens’ trust in government. This study explores the issue of citizens’ trust in government in relation to i-voting in Slovenia, a country with existing interest in i-voting but a low level of trust in government, especially among the young population. The authors analyze how such distrust impacts behavior intention towards i-voting, decomposing trust into a political component and an administrative component, and into local and state levels. Based on a modified version of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, the results of 194 respondents show that young student voters’ trust in politicians and electoral committees does not affect their intention to use i-voting. However, they trust the local level of government more than the state level, and electoral committees more than politicians.

Adopting e-government to monitor public infrastructure projects execution in Nigeria: The public perspective

“…From the SEM path model analysis of the variables and empirical data from the Nigerian public, the perception of PE, FC, SI, and EE were found to positively influence and collectively explain 50% of variations (R 2 = 0.50) of the data on public's BIE to monitor PIP execution. This result aligns with previous studies on application of UTAUT model to predict behavioral intention to adopt e-government to participatory budgeting in Portugal and behavioral intention to use internet voting in local election in Slovenia [ 10 , 12 ]. Similarly, a modified UTAUT model applied to adoption of solar water pump for agriculture in Nigeria was able to explain about 60% of variance in the data even though the model had an additional determinant factor, “awareness level” besides PE, EE, FC, and SI [ 83 ].…”

“…The Nigerian public believes that if the adoption of e-government tools can help save time to access, efficiently share, and effectively discuss information and participate in decision-making for PIPs, they will be willing to adopt e-government tools to monitor execution of the projects. Similar results were obtained in application of UTAUT to internet voting in Portugal and public adoption of technology to management of COVID in Nigeria [ 12 , 14 ].…”

“…Availability of ICT infrastructure and public willingness to adopt e-government service platforms are key requisites for widespread e-government utilization in a country. Several empirical studies examine the provision of ICT infrastructure to support implementation of e-government for public service delivery [ [10] , [11] , [12] , 19 , 27 , 37 ]. These previous studies conclude that ICT infrastructure development and support by the government is required for effective adoption of e-government in a country.…”

“…For example, price value and perceived safety gained from use of technology were added as contextual factor to UTAUT framework for adoption of technology to manage bicycle sharing system in Iran [ 20 ], hedonic motivation and perceived price value were additional contextual factors in solar power technology adoption studies in India [ 47 ], and technology awareness and culture influence were added as additional factors towards adoption of smart city technology for elderly people in Saudi Arabia [ 48 ]. Empowerment, social capital, trust, insecurity, gamification amongst other contextual factors were specifically included in the application of UTAUT models to explain technology adoption to participatory budgeting in Portugal [ 10 , 11 ]; electronic voting in local elections in Slovenia and Jordan [ 12 , 19 ], e-participation in Indonesia [ 18 ] etc. Few other authors [ 37 , 49 ] used the model to study e-government service adoption in Kuwait and Jordan, respectively, validating the UTAUT model.…”

“…There are several behavioral studies on adoption of ICT tools to personal commerce and delivery of basic government services [ [10] , [11] , [12] , [13] , [14] , [15] , [16] , [17] ]. Generally, these studies held adoption of ICT tools to be a positive enabler to effective client-customer engagement in personal commerce or basic government service delivery.…”