Acceptance and use predictors of open data technologies: Drawing upon the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology

AbstractPolicy-makers expect that open data will be accepted and used more and more, resulting in a range of benefits including transparency, participation and innovation. The ability to use open data partly depends on the availability of open data technologies. However, the actual use of open data technologies has shown mixed results, and there is a paucity of research on the predictors affecting the acceptance and use of open data technologies. A better understanding of these predictors can help policy-makers to determine which policy instruments they can use to increase the acceptance and use of open data technologies. A modified model based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) is used to empirically determine predictors influencing the acceptance and use of open data technologies. The results show that the predictors performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions and voluntariness of use together account for 45% of the variability in people's behavioral intention to use open data technologies. Except for facilitating conditions, all these predictors significantly influence behavioral intention. Our analysis of the predictors that influence the acceptance and use of open data technologies can be used to stimulate the use of open data technologies. The findings suggest that policy-makers should increase the acceptance and use of open data technologies by showing the benefits of open data use, by creating awareness of users that they already use open data, by developing social strategies to encourage people to stimulate each other to use open data, by integrating open data use in daily activities, and by decreasing the effort necessary to use open data technologies

Small firm e-business adoption : a critical analysis of theory

Purpose &ndash; The paper critiques a range of theories and evaluates their ability to provide a lens for explaining the idiosyncratic nature of small firms and their e-business adoption decisions.Design/methodology/approach &ndash; This literature review firstly summarises the existing research evidence that shows that small firms are idiosyncratic when it comes to e-business adoption. It then critiques theories commonly used in the literature in this field to examine the extent to which they take this small firm idiosyncrasy into account when explaining e-business adoption decisions.Findings &ndash; The critical analysis shows that no commonly-used theory adequately explains small firm adoption of e-business because each omits important aspects of small firm idiosyncrasy. The analysis suggests that an integrated theoretical framework is needed. Preliminary ideas on this framework are provided.Originality/value &ndash; Existing research generally applies a small number of selected theories and formulates research models of adoption factors. However, there is no systematic analysis of theories in this field and no consensus about theoretical frameworks. This paper addresses this limitation of the literature by critically evaluating the commonly used theories in terms of their individual suitability as lenses for explaining small firm e-business adoption. <br /

Factors Influencing eGovernment Progress in Oman: An Employee\u27s Perspective

While most early e-government efforts were concentrated on developed countries, in the recent past, it has also become popular in many developing countries. Most notably are the Middle Eastern countries that have continued to invest significantly into e-government initiatives in the last five years. However, compared to the West, the progress of e-government implementation and diffusion has been laggard in the Middle East region. The Sultanate of Oman is one such example, where, although large investments have been made since 2003 to facilitate the implementation of electronic services in the public sector, only limited progress has been made in terms of realising fully functional e-government. The aim of this paper is to identify the factors that are currently influencing the development and implementation of e-government in Oman using a quantitative survey-based empirical study in three key public service agencies. The research identified thirteen different factors that were influencing the progress of the national e-government project, e-Oman, from the viewpoint of government employees. The most salient of these factors were the Omani IT workforce capability and the citizens’ trust and confidence in using e-services