E-GOVERNANCE DIMENSIONS IN THE REPUBLIC OF MAURITIUS

Abstract

Purpose: This study is the first attempt to examine the attitudes of citizens towards six key dimensions of e-governance in the Republic of Mauritius namely: ‘Perceived Ease of Use’ (PEOU) and ‘Perceived Usefulness’ (PU) of the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis,1989); ‘Collaboration’ and ‘Participation’ inspired by Al Athmay (2013); ‘Trust’ from Belanger & Carter, 2008; and ‘Transparency’ from Bhatnagar (2003).  Methodology: A random survey was conducted across all districts and among e-government users only.  Structured questionnaires were filled by 157 citizens mainly on a face to face basis.  Pearson’s correlation coefficients, independent samples T-tests, one way/Welch ANOVA and Games-Howell post hoc tests were used. Main Findings: The respondents revealed positive attitudes towards PEOU and PU but unveiled negative attitudes towards the remaining four dimensions of e-governance.  Citizens’ perceptions were only influenced by age, education, and frequency of e-government use. Lack of trust, absence of online democratic dialog, inadequate e-consultation and non-transparent decision-making may eventually lower trust in the government.   Implications/Applications: This study has generated key insights into the factors influencing citizens’ perceptions towards the six e-governance dimensions (PEOU, PU, Collaboration, Trust, Participation, and Transparency) and these insights were non-existence prior to this research.  Thus this study may aid policymakers to rethink and redesign their e-government initiatives to sustain existing users and attract more users of government websites.