Trust in E-government Practices: A Platform Perspective of a Postal Service Organisation

Abstract. E-government continues to gather research momentum from academics of diverse theoretical and practical orientations to signify the enduring significance of the concept, especially from the standpoint of digital service delivery in much of the developing world. A platformisation perspective driven by digital service delivery is teased out to make a case for this study. Dwelling on the fundamental assumptions of a positivistic research philosophy with the UTAUT epistemological model as the guiding frame to solicit responses of students in an online environment, the study employs quantitative techniques to analyse eight hypothetical scenarios. Findings suggest trust in e-government, Internet trust, social influence and performance expectancy are some of the strong predictors of intention to use e-government services. The study discusses the revelation that citizens are particularly influenced by peer pressure in their intention to use public digital services. Theoretical implications and empirical lessons of the factors that should be of significant consideration to system designers and policy makers in e-government practice have been accounted for. Future research can take the direction of qualitative efforts to bring out the underlying rationale and tensions connected with digital service acceptance in e-government practice. Keywords: Digital Service, E-government, Emerging Economies, Platformisation, Trust