Exploring the effects of trust, perceived risk, and E-services systems on public services in E-government

This chapter is an attempt to better understand government perceptions on the adoption of technologybased service channels, in particular, digitalized administration processes. A model is proposed that combines the effect of behavioral beliefs and intentions together with research variables, perceived usefulness of e-services, subjective norms, self-efficacy, technology facilitating conditions, trust and perceived risk, as well as individual characteristics. The research method uses a questionnaire to query the intentions of government civil service employees towards adopting digitalized services. Structural Equation Modeling is applied to further analyze the data and to design a theoretical model predicting the intention to accept e-services in e-government. Results from 216 civil servants working in five cities and counties reveal trust as the most influential factor directly affecting behavioral intention towards administering digitalized services. The high trust of civil servants towards these digitalized e-government services unfortunately results in low risk perception, which is an issue to be addressed to limit exposure.