Adoption of E-Communication Applications in U.S. Municipalities: The Role of Political Environment, Bureaucratic Structure, and the Nature of Applications

Abstract

E-government has been touted by many as a technological answer to improve citizen participation, government accountability, and transparency by facilitating a greater level of communication and flow of public information between citizens and the government. This article examines how political environment, government structure, and the nature of individual e-government applications influence the likelihood of adoption. Using data obtained from multiple sources, logistic regressions are conducted on a sample of six e-government applications that possess varying degrees of communicative and organizational impacts on the government to observe how different factors influence their adoption. Findings include a general disinclination for adopting e-government applications with high communicative impact; however, such disinclination dissipated when there was a high level of political competition in the area and perceived demand for online communication; active traditional channels of political communication, such as political parties and accessibility to local council members, reduced the likelihood of adoption; the preferences of the elected mayors coincided with the perceptions of nonelected officials who favor e-government applications that would reduce the workload while disfavoring applications that would increase it.

Measuring Local Government Transparency

“…ICTs in general and government websites in particular have the potential to create new forms of dialogue and informal interaction that enable greater involvement and participation of citizens in matters that affect them directly (Kaye and Johnson 2002;Pina et al 2010;Ahn 2011). Information available on government websites revitalizes the democratic process to create an electronic public square that allows citizens to contact with each other and with their rulers directly, increasing public access to information and contributing to create a more informed citizenry (Kaye and Johnson 2002).…”

Mandatory innovation in a decentralised system: The adoption of an e-government innovation in Dutch municipalities

“…The first municipal resource is organisational size (Walker, 1969;Weare et al, 1999;Ahn, 2011). Larger organisations are generally more inclined to adopt innovations than smaller organisations, because they have greater financial resources and more human resources.…”

“…So far diffusion research at the local level has mainly concentrated on voluntary adoption of innovations (for example, Sugiyama, 2008;Hansen, 2011;Krause, 2011;Walker et al, 2011). A considerable amount of research focusing on e-government (related) innovations has also been carried out at the local level (for example, Weare et al, 1999;Moon, 2002;Norris and Moon, 2005;Ahn, 2011;Homburg et al, 2013). In this article we aim to contribute to a better understanding of innovation in local government in a decentralised system by examining patterns of adoption of a mandated e-government innovation in Dutch municipalities.…”

Technology in government: How organizational culture mediates information and communication technology outcomes

“…Previous research has shown that organizational factors such as centralization, work routineness, formalization, and complexity are related to innovation adoption (Ahn, 2011;Tornatzky & Fleischer, 1990). In the case of e-government, for example, Li and Feeney (2012) find that both routineness and organization centralization are negatively related to the adoption of e-services.…”