Exploring a new e-government adoption model – A social cognitive perspective

Government spending on e-government projects is reportedly over 1 percent of GDP a year (Dunleavy et al., 2008), which forms, undoubtedly, a critical part of government operations. However, the overall uptake of e-government by citizens is still low (United Nations, 2014). To better understand citizens’ adoption of e-government, this study takes a comprehensive and integrated approach. Drawing on the well-established social cognitive theory and grounded on its triadic reciprocal causation model, the study develops a new model for e-government adoption research. To test the model empirically, we conducted a questionnaire survey in the United Arab Emirates. The overall findings demonstrate that e-government adoption is significantly influenced by the interrelationships and interactions among personal, behavioral, and environmental factors. In other words, the triadic relationships among the three sets of factors are likely to determine citizens’ adoption of e-government. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed in the paper.