Characterization of e-Government adoption in Europe

Abstract

The digital divide in Europe has not yet been bridged and thus more contributions towards understanding the factors affecting the different dimensions involved are required. This research offers some insights into the topic by analyzing the e-Government adoption or practical use of e-Government across Europe (26 EU countries). Based on the data provided by the statistical office of the European Union (Eurostat), we defined two indexes, the E-Government Use Index (EGUI) and an extreme version of it taking into account only null or complete use (EGUI +), and characterized the use/non use of e-Government tools using supervised learning procedures in a selection of countries with different e-Government adoption levels. These procedures achieved an average accuracy of 73% and determined the main factors related to the practical use of e-Government in each of the countries, e.g. the frequency of buying goods over the Internet or the education level. In addition, we compared the proposed indexes to other indexes measuring the level of e-readiness of a country such as the E-Government Development Index (EGDI) its Online Service Index (OSI) component, the Networked Readiness Index (NRI) and its Government usage component (GU). The ranking comparison found that EGUI + is correlated with the four indexes mentioned at 0.05 significance level, as the majority of countries were ranked in similar positions. The outcomes contribute to gaining understanding about the factors influencing the use of e-Government in Europe and the different adoption levels.

The digital divide and E-government in European economies

“…In case of Romania, Colesca and Dobrica (2008) find that younger population is more likely to use e-government services but finds no link to gender or income. According to Yera et al (2020), people with higher education as well as those who usually shop online are more likely to use e-government services.…”

Influence of attitude on online impulse buying: perspective on marketing communication

“…Regulatory supervision carried out by the government is intended so that both parties, both sellers and buyers, are equally protected, so that if there is a fraud on the one hand, they must be held accountable (Yera et al, 2020). Moreover, with the rise of fraud in online shopping and online purchases, these conditions require the participation of the government in regulating the use of technology as a medium of buying and selling.…”

Weibo to the Rescue? A study of social media use in citizen–government relations in China

“…Before empirically testing our hypotheses we have identified gender (Venkatesh, Morris & Ackerman 2000), age (Liébana-Cabanillas, Sánchez-Fernández & Muñoz-Leiva 2014) and education level (Liébana-Cabanillas, Sánchez-Fernández & Muñoz-Leiva 2014, Yera et al 2020) as controls.…”