E-Government Success: An End-User Perspective

Introduction

The access and use of information technologies (IT) are substantial factors in the generation and distribution of data, information and knowledge, as they are key enablers in the organizational transformation, which together with the Internet, led the government to rethink the use of IT for better communication with citizens, businesses and other government entities. However, barriers arose such as lack of financing, technical personnel, resistance to change, poor technological infrastructure and legal issues such as privacy-data security (Wirtz et al., 2017). In other words, IT has forced governments to have tools that allow greater communication with citizens seen as taxpayers, users or customers of their services.

The common definition of electronic government (e-Gov) refers to the use of IT by the government to deliver information and services to citizens, businesses and public agencies (Horsburgh, Goldfinch and Gauld, 2011), in an attempt to facilitate access to government services in an efficient manner. In the same way, it improves transparency and efficiency in government with the use of electronic devices, which will serve both citizens and companies (Šimić, 2019).

The study of the direct acceptance of e-Gov services is in its beginnings, little is known about the attitude of citizens towards the various channels of service provision (Lamberti, Benedetti and Chen, 2014) and under the guideline from cost savings, using services and improving infrastructure by and for citizens, governments are trying to move traditional public service channels to more effective channels such as e-Gov (Ali, Mazen and Hassanein, 2018), but they need to ensure that their procedures are carried out with precision and quality for citizens, for this, they use IT and specifically the Internet.

The application of the e-Gov by itself is an innovation and at the same time a competitive advantage for all types of organizations and people, unfortunately in countries with emerging economies, not everyone has access to it. Gulati, Williams and Yates (2014) argue that the richest and most prosperous countries in the technological development of society are in a stronger position to respond to the demands of citizens, because there are still many of them who have never visited a Government website (Wang, 2014), so it is necessary to consider the technological culture of each country (Nguyen, 2016).

The lack of research on the public value of the e-Gov in industrialized countries and a total absence in countries with emerging economies has been determined (Twizeyimana and Andersson, 2019), often due to a common evil of governments in the world: inadequate infrastructure, non-existent service, low or no IT budget, software licenses and support, and difficulties in migration, integration and management of software and hardware (Ali et al., 2018), where there is little public awareness of the government data and information (Arwati and Verdania, 2019).

Therefore, it is necessary to detect those critical factors for success (CFS), in the e-Gov, these elements have been defined as those key areas of an institution that are essential to work in an adequate and coordinated way with the firm purpose of achieving the success. Public services are not left out of this context, their evaluation by governments is a current issue, which includes issues such as confidence, easiness of use, satisfaction, citizen technology, decision-making, security, privacy, risks, accessibility, utility, awareness, quality, among others. Osei-Kojo (2017) found that technological infrastructure and poor population development in emerging economies are serious weaknesses for their development. In Mexico, where this research takes place, it has been detected that it is the reduction of costs, personalization of the interface, efficiency in the processes, promotion of e-democracy, less corruption and better services quality (Luna-Reyes and Gil -García, 2014). Other elements are the value, effectiveness of the website, user needs and alternative sources of information (Wang, 2014), for this, transactions, transparency and interactivity are important factors that directly affect the e-Gov and indirectly confidence (Welch and Pandey, 2005), unfortunately in Mexico there are no important advances in terms of information transparency (Sandoval-Almazan, 2019).