Social inclusion: an e-government approach to access social welfare benefits

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Chirara, SC, 2018. Social inclusion: an e-government approach to access social welfare benefits. DBA, Nottingham Trent University.

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Abstract

Today, governments worldwide are seizing the benefits of the Internet for better government administration. Governments must provide services to all citizens, but this is most challenging to achieve electronically when some citizens are offline, yet transformational to the government administration when achieved. Therefore, the thesis investigated the factors influencing egovernment adoption in Nottingham where social welfare benefits will be claimed exclusively online via the Universal Credit (UC) system. UC is an example of a government service conforming to the broader UK Digital by Default strategy for government administration, which supports the EU goal of improving social inclusion through digital inclusion. Therefore, the motivation for the thesis is social justice for those digitally excluded citizens who may be socially impacted by the unintended consequences of e-government initiatives.

The study used an adapted Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT2) model to understand the factors influencing citizens’ adoption of UC. The research model added Internet experience, awareness, security and trust as external factors influencing adoption, while hedonic motivation was modelled as an internal factor. UTAUT2 was also modified to reflect the broader goal of social inclusion. The study demonstrated that the behavioural intention to adopt e-government depended on whether the digital public service had a fall-back to use traditional channels or not. 61.3% of the benefits claimants were unaware of UC rollout in Nottingham, which indicates a lack of citizen readiness. Overall, the experience of using the Internet, facilitating conditions, behavioural intention and the habit of using digital public services determined usage behaviour. 40.2% of the participants thought digital inclusion improved their social lives, while 30.9% were indifferent. The 40.2% indicates a good starting point for e-government adoption. These findings led to the Modified UTAUT2 (M-UTAUT2) model, which is applicable outside the case study. The thesis also made other theoretical contributions.

The findings and the conclusions from the qualitative and quantitative researches conducted as part of the build-up to the thesis were used to derive an e-government adoption process that considers the continued use of e-government, which leads to successful e-government. The model has two processes: awareness (with two stages: awareness and initial use) and habitual (with one stage: continued use). Additionally, the study recommended the global digital technology market as a new e-government actor due to the changing digital inclusion landscape.

Item Type:	Thesis
Creators:	Chirara, S.C.
Date:	2018
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Business School
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	17 Dec 2018 13:53
Last Modified:	17 Dec 2018 13:53
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/35355