Information Technology/Systems Adoption in the Public Sector

Abstract

State government has been moving from manual and paper-based processes to digital services. However, digital divide, declining trust in technology, and low IT/IS adoption rates by public sector employees are important challenges for successful delivery of e-government services to citizens. Previous studies in the area of IT/IS adoption and e-government have mainly focused on citizens. This paper examines IT/IS adoption by employees rather than citizens and the focus is on non-market environment and state government agencies. A research model has been proposed based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and technology acceptance model (TAM) which has been extended to include digital divide related constructs and trust in technology. To test the proposed model, a survey was conducted among early adopters of Office 365 at Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) in Springfield and Chicago. The paper contributes to research on IT/IS adoption in public sector. The findings also provide insightful design and practical implications for successful IT/IS deployment in public sector.