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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify critical factors that enable citizens to adopt e‐Government services in a society which is at a rudimentary stage of e‐Government adoption. To achieve the objective of the research study, an integrated conceptual model has been proposed and validated which is based on sound theoretical conditions, keeping in view the local context of Pakistani society.Design/methodology/approachAn integrated conceptual model is proposed highlighting a comprehensive set of potential factors influencing the adoption of e‐Government services. The conceptual model was developed using related literature review and also by conducting expert reviews with government officials, academic researchers and software engineers in Pakistan.FindingsFrom expert reviews, the results indicate that awareness, trust in the internet and trust in the government are the significant variables specific to the context of Pakistani society. The results of this study prove that awareness is a significant variable having influence on the citizens' intention to use e‐Government services, either to get information or to perform a transaction using the government web site. Information quality is found to be a significant variable when getting information from the government website. Perceived ease of use, service quality and transaction security are significant variables which influence the citizens' intention to perform transactions with the government.Research limitations/implicationsAn integrated conceptual model is a robust way to explore the key factors that have great influence on e‐Government adoption. The target respondents for this study are internet users. In future, the research work will be extended by including technology divide citizens called offline respondents, i.e. less frequent internet users. The results of online and offline respondents are compared so that the perception of technology divide citizens may also be included to identify the factors influencing the adoption of e‐Government services.Practical implicationsThe key findings are useful for policy makers and decision makers, for a real understanding of the needs of the citizens. The proposed model can be used as a guideline for e‐Government strategy formulation and implementation for the Government of Pakistan.Originality/valueTo address the originality, an integrated conceptual model is proposed to overcome the shortcomings of the previous models by adding factors and their respective variables to make the model more comprehensive. Later, the proposed conceptual model is customized and also validated according to the local context of Pakistani society.

Governments around the world are working continuously in order to improve services for their citizens. However, the success of these initiatives is dependent not only on the government support but also on the citizens' willingness to use these services. To implement e-government successfully, it is important to determine the factors related to its adoption. This paper examines the factors influencing adoption of e-government services by the Pakistani citizens. Factors that have been explored in the extant literature present inadequate understanding of the relationship that exists between 'adopter characteristics' and 'behavioral intention' to use e-government services. These inadequacies have been identified through a systematic and thorough review of empirical studies and also by conducting expert reviews from the government officials, software engineers and academic researchers to get their perception according to the context of Pakistan. On the basis of thorough review of literature and expert reviews conducted, an integrated conceptual model is developed and proposed by integrating the influential factors which have been highlighted by the various researchers into a single comprehensive model. In this context, this paper describes and tracks in a fruitful way the factors related to the adoption of e-government services and also proposes conceptual model according to the context of Pakistan.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze and evaluate the current status of e-government services in Afghanistan. To identify the evaluation criteria based on citizen satisfaction from e-government services, the proposed government-to-citizen (G2C) evaluation model is considered in the context of Afghanistan. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual G2C evaluation model and e-government evaluation model are proposed. The criteria used for the G2C evaluation model is based on the demand and supply side, which have an immense effect on citizen satisfaction. The mixed research method (quantitative and qualitative) is used, and quantitative data analysis results are supported through qualitative data analysis. Findings The findings reveal that citizen satisfaction from e-government services in Afghanistan are affected by services availability on multiple channels, citizen-centric features, paralingual support, process performance, skills divide, awareness, information security and transaction security. Research limitations/implications Yet to be addressed, three criteria deemed as significant factors are recommended to be included in the model, namely, government readiness, system quality (usability, service quality and information quality) for supply side and social divide for demand side. These three criteria can help in proposing a successful G2C evaluation model. Additionally, the quantitative data used in this study were collected through paper-based questionnaires. Data collection through Internet can help to get responses from various parts of the country for future evaluation of G2C services. Practical implications The key findings of this study are vitally important for e-government strategies and policy makers to design and disseminate appropriate e-government services to Afghan citizens. The proposed evaluation model can also be used as a guideline for e-government development in Afghanistan. Originality/value A conceptual model for e-government services evaluation approach is proposed based on literature review. The proposed G2C evaluation model identifies and validates key factors and criteria in the context of Afghanistan.

Social networking sites (SNS) are used for social and professional interaction with people. SNS popularity has encouraged researchers to analyze the relationship of activities performed on SNS with user behavior. In doing so, the term “user behavior” is rather used ambiguously with different interpretations, which makes it difficult to identify studies on user behavior in relation to SNS. This phenomenon has encouraged this thorough research on the characteristics of user behavior being discussed in the literature. Therefore, in this study, we aim to identify, analyze, and classify the characteristics associated with user behavior to answer the research questions designed to conduct this research. A mapping study (also called scoping study), which is a type of systematic literature review, is employed to identify potential studies from digital databases through a developed protocol. Thematic analysis is carried out for the classification of user behavior. We identified 116 primary studies for full analysis. This study found seven characteristics associated with behavior that have direct influence on SNS use and nine factors that have an indirect effect. All studies were conducted largely under seven areas that set the context of these studies. Findings show that the research on SNS is still in its early stage. The range of topics covered in the analyzed studies is quite expansive, although the depth in terms of number of studies under each topic is quite limited. This study reports that activities performed on SNS are either associated with user behavior or reflect personality characteristics. The findings of this study could be used by practitioners to evaluate their SNS platforms and develop more user-centered applications. These studies can also help organizations to understand better the needs of their employees.