Empirical Investigation of ICT Usage in Malaysian Public Sector: Extension of Theory of Planned Behaviour

Empirical Investigation of ICT Usage in Malaysian Public Sector: Extension of Theory of Planned Behaviour

Copyright: © 2015 |Pages: 19
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-6579-8.ch010
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Abstract

Information technology has been playing some important roles in expediting service delivery in public organizations to meet the demands of the people in Malaysia and elsewhere in the world. However, some of the civil servants still have pessimistic perceptions of technology devices with negative attitudes towards them. Some even prefer to remain with their traditional ways of doing the obligatory works assigned to them. In this context, this chapter extends the theory of planned behaviour by examining the antecedents of attitude such as perceived usefulness. The findings of the study show that perceived usefulness of technology devices by respondents has a strong and significant influence on attitude towards the use of the system among the civil servants. The practical significant of this finding is that a technology must be very useful to users and meet their expectations in terms of accomplishment of their goals of using it.
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Problem Statement

The big question mark arising in the adoption and development of the ICT in public sectors around the world is not only pertaining to the technology system itself but also rest on the shoulder of the civil servants who use the technologies provided with special references to their attitude, intention and actual behaviour towards usage of the system in Malaysia. Human behaviour is difficult to forecast, it keeps on changing over time. The changes had created positive and negative effects on the government’s targets and achievements. Such behavioural reactions of the civil servants towards adoption and usage of the new technology for service deliveries in Malaysia can be understood and explained via the theory of planned behaviour. As has been earlier discussed in the chapter 7 of this book, the theory of planned behaviour helps understand the link between attitudes, intention and actual behaviour towards a given object such as technology system. The theory was developed by Icek Ajzen to improve on the predictive power of the theory of reasoned action by including perceived behavioral control. It is one of the most predictive persuasion theories. The theory opines that attitude toward behaviour, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control, together shape an individual’s behavioral intentions and actual behaviours especially when it comes to non-volitional tasks. However, in the course of our preliminary investigation of the underlying antecedents of attitudes among the focus group of civil servants selected from the government agency, user friendly of a given technology system could play an important role in controlling and influencing attitudes. For example, when the focus group respondents was asked on their attitudinal reactions to the use of new technologies provided for delivering services to the public. The selection of the focus group interview was based on the prior experience of those that have applied and used the new installed technologies for accomplishing tasks assigned to them.

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