Positioning e‐government services in the credence based setting

Abstract

Purpose -The article aims to identify the possibility of contextual shift in traditional notions of e-government service environment. The authors propose the existence of a new institutional entity as core service providers in addition to the government (G) and citizens (C) in the existing G2C e-government service environments. Considering the nature of actors involved, the authors position the new e-government environment under "credence based" service setting that emphasizes user's perspective. The work expands the scope of e-government to accommodate a much broader range of similar services. Design/methodology/approach -Scenario study has been chosen to understand the proposed contextual shift in traditional e-government service setting. Study of one of the e-government practices -"e-counseling in India" -has been illustrated to advocate the authors' viewpoint. The data is collected from authorized government websites in India that offer e-counseling services. In addition, 15 in-depth interviews were also performed with government officials and users to have a deeper understanding about the new service setting. Findings -The study has revealed and defended the authors' proposition on "contextual shift" and validated the existence of "credence based" setting in e-government service environments. Moreover, it provides preliminary insights about why and how information quality can be a critical element for the aforesaid setting. Practical implications -Identification of "credence based" e-government service environments may require a different design strategy for structures, policies, systems, and services to fulfil the user expectations. Originality/value -Attention is given to developing credence based context for G2C e-government environments. This "contextual shift" identified in this paper contributes to the existing stream of research that emphasizes user's perspective in e-government services.

Feasibility of m-governance in agriculture: insights from a multimodal study in rural India

“…Unfortunately, government and its departments are treated as unfamiliar sources of information. There are other studies which also have highlighted the existing large gap between what and how these services are offered and delivered (Amritesh et al, 2013). We prescribe that to establish a fruitful communication with farmers it is essential to win their trust.…”

Emerging scenario of online counseling services in India: a case of e-government intervention

“…It may be possible that government websites may not satisfactorily fulfill the information requirements of the users, for example quality of information and trust on information sources may be a cause of concern particularly for online counseling services. For this reason, online counseling services have been advocated to possess high credence attributes (Amritesh et al, 2013b) where using informal sources of knowledge through WOM communication are a common practice. Different stages of information acquisition through WOM communication are deeply examined by Patti and Chen (2009) in credence services, and more insights are required in this direction to understand the knowledge sharing behavior among the peer students for the given purpose.…”