Assessing citizens’ non-adoption of public e-services in Germany

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Distel, Bettina

Affiliations: Department of Information Systems, University of Münster, Leonardo-Campus 3, 48149 Münster, Germany | Tel.: +49 251 83 38 067; E-mail: bettina.distel@ercis.uni-muenster.de

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author: Department of Information Systems, University of Münster, Leonardo-Campus 3, 48149 Münster, Germany. Tel.: +49 251 83 38 067; E-mail: bettina.distel@ercis.uni-muenster.de.

Abstract: The amount of acceptance literature stands in sharp contrast to the persistently low adoption rates of public e-services in most European countries. Despite huge investments on the one hand and a vast body of literature on success factors on the other hand, citizens are surprisingly uninterested in the use of public e-services. However, only few studies explicitly address phenomena of resistance or non-adoption. In order to explain citizens’ non-adoption and adoption of public e-services, this article builds on the Inhibitor Theory as an analytical framework, based on which a dual factor-model is proposed and tested with survey data from 495 German citizens. The results of this study indicate that non-adoption of public e-services is less driven by technical issues than suggested in current literature. Instead, the need for personal consultation and status quo bias are the strongest predictors of citizens’ non-adoption.

Keywords: Public e-services, citizens, non-adoption, inhibitor theory, survey research

DOI: 10.3233/IP-190214

Journal: Information Polity, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 339-360, 2020