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Top1. Introduction
Information technology/systems (IT/IS) adoption by public sector employees is an essential first step for successful implementation of e-government, and delivery of services to citizens. Al Gore, the US Vice President in 1993 urged government state agencies to use IT/IS to transform citizens’ interaction with government (Gore, 1997). IT/IS adoption allows state government agencies to provide quality public services and better respond to constituents’ needs, improve performance, and effectively use resources and taxpayer money (Robinson, 1998; Vanagunas, 1999; Bharadwaj, 2000; Afuah, 2002). Organizational resources can be tangible such as IT/IS or intangible such as human skills (Choi, 2014). Previous studies suggest IT/IS adoption is a tangible asset that contributes to organizational capabilities in terms of ‘socialization capabilities’ and ‘coordination capabilities’ (Roberts et al., 2012; Liu et al., 2018).
However, the adoption of IT/IS by state government employees has been a challenge. Staff need to have the resources to learn how to use IT/IS and to understand its capabilities. Lack of access to technology can be referred to as ‘digital divide’, more specifically access divide (Belanger and Carter, 2009; van Dijk and Hacker 2003) (Bélanger & Carter, 2009; Van Dijk & Hacker, 2003) (Bélanger & Carter, 2009; Van Dijk & Hacker, 2003) (Bélanger & Carter, 2009; Van Dijk & Hacker, 2003) (Bélanger & Carter, 2009; Van Dijk & Hacker, 2003) (Bélanger & Carter, 2009; Van Dijk & Hacker, 2003) (Bélanger & Carter, 2009; Van Dijk & Hacker, 2003) (Bélanger & Carter, 2009; Van Dijk & Hacker, 2003) (Bélanger & Carter, 2009; Van Dijk & Hacker, 2003) (Bélanger & Carter, 2009; Van Dijk & Hacker, 2003). According to Pick and Sarkar (2016), the term ‘digital divide’ was born in mid-90’s and it was focused on technology access. The reason why the definition revolves around technology access was the technology cost. However, the dropping cost of technology as well as the impact of many social initiatives to improve technology access to the community has updated the digital divide definition. Now, the term incorporates technological literacy besides access, and digital divide has extended to ‘skills divide’ (Ferro et al., 2011; Pick and Nishida, 2015).
Skills divide relates to the disparity due to the lack of skills to use IS (Pick and Sarkar, 2016). One of the primary domains where digital divide has played an important role is government. The potential advantages of e-government services do not usually reach all citizens due to the disparity in technology access which may be caused by income, education and skills level disparity (Becker, 2003). Another study was conducted by the Internet and American Life Project under PEW Research Center in 2013 to find how digital divide is related to internet non-usage. The study sample included 2,252 adults who did not use Internet or email, and the data was collected through a survey as well as interviews. The findings showed a few primary factors that were associated with the internet non-usage including attitude, age, skills, usability, ease of use, price, availability, and access (Caumont, 2013). The significant portion of the identified factors belong to either ‘digital access divide’ or ‘digital skills divide’. Figure 1 shows the inequality of IT usage among rural, urban and suburban US adults based on a survey conducted by PEW Research Center in 2019 - (Perrin, 2019).
Figure 1. Rural, Urban and Suburban American Ownership of Digital Technologies (Perrin, 2019)
Basware (2015) argues digital transformation in government agencies through adoption of IT/IS, saves costs, accelerates the processing time and enhances the state financial performance. Graham (2015) suggests governments would save more than 85 percent of their processing costs with e-government. A study on 344 counties in US was carried out to investigate the relationship between the type and level of e-government services provided in each county and the county poverty level (Baired et al., 2012). The findings indicated 75 percent of the evaluated counties have some internet/web presence regardless of the county poverty level.