E-government and Digital Divide in Hail City: a Quantitative, Older Adults Study

The subject of information and communication technologies adoption, Internet and e-government services in particular, have been widely investigated by researchers. It is an indication of the significant roles that can be brought to individuals and societies by such advanced technologies in which enhancing quality of life is the ultimate goal. Unfortunately, many groups within societies are not gaining the advantages and benefits of the Internet and e-government because they are less receptive to ICTs. This has created a phenomenon known as the digital divide. Amongst these groups are the older adults. The rising attention towards the elderly is due to the increasing life expectancy. Thanks to health technological advancements and life style improvements, which are leading to better qualities of life, countries around the globe have older adults population rate larger than ever before. Saudi Arabia is no exception, as demographic characteristics have been changing in which life span is increasing and fertility is decreasing. However, literature of older adults and technology adoption, particularly adoption of Internet and e-government lacks the context of developing countries and the Arab world. Therefore, using this as a motivation, this study aims to identify, explain and understand the adoption, use and diffusion of e-government services within the older adults population (50+) of a vicinity in Saudi Arabia. The study uses a quantitative research method along with a positivist epistemology. The data collection technique involved distributing survey questionnaires to households’ residents (50+) in Hail city (area and simple random sampling). A small-scale pilot study was initially used (n=257) to validate and enhance the survey questions, followed by a wide-scale final study (n=937). Findings revealed that with regards to Internet adoption, age-based, gender-based, education-based and health-based digital divides do exist within the elderly population. It was also found by model analysis that elderlies’ intentions of whether to use or not use e-government services are considerably impacted by attitudinal, subjective norms, control and trustworthiness factors, excluding the two factors of image and trust in government, which showed insignificance. The study makes positive contributions to related literature, policy makers and industry. Finally, due to the restraints of time, finance and manpower, this study examined only a small portion of the whole population of Hail city; therefore, generalisations of findings cannot be claimed

Older Adults in Households and e-Government services in Saudi Arabia, Hail City: : A digital Divide Study of Adoption, Use and Diffusion.

Jyoti Choudrie, and Adel Alfalah, 'Older Adults in Households and e-Government services in Saudi Arabia, Hail City: A digital Divide Study of Adoption, Use and Diffusion', in Proceedings of the Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS) 2016: IT Governance for Future Society, ISBN: 9789860491029. Published by AIS Electronic Library, http://aisel.aisnet.org/pacis2016/.The subjects of ICTs adoption and e-Government services have been widely investigated by researchers. It is an indication of the significant roles that can be brought to individuals and societies by ICTs and e-Government. Enhancing efficiency and effectiveness of governmental services being delivered to citizens (G2C) is the ultimate goal. However, many groups within societies are considered to be benefiting less from e-Government, as they are less receptive to ICTs. This has created a phenomenon known as digital divide. Amongst these groups are the older adults; therefore, this study attempts to detect and explain the challenges existing for elderly when using e-Government services in a developing country of the Middle East, in this case Saudi Arabia. The study uses a quantitative approach in which survey questionnaires will be distributed to households’ residents (50 years old and above) in Hail city. The study will make a positive contribution to the existing literature on e-Government adoption, older adults and related body of knowledge. It will also produce relevant data that can be of assistance to Government policy makers and to the ICT industry

Older Adults Adoption, Use and Diffusion of E-Government Services in Saudi Arabia, Hail City: A Quantitative Study

Online Government products and services should provide benefits to all citizens, but not all of them are attaining the gains. A group that is not obtaining the benefits is the older adults. Such differences have led to a phenomenon known as the digital divide, which is a research gap that researchers are attempting to eliminate. Using this as motivation, this study aims to identify, explain and understand the adoption and use of e-Government services within the older adults of a vicinity in Saudi Arabia. This study uses a quantitative approach that collated data using a survey questionnaire from Hail city households and led to 278 completed replies. Findings depicted that age-based, gender-based and education-based digital divides do exist in Saudi Arabia. The obtained findings provide implications for the existing literature on e-Government adoption, for practitioners and policy makers

Challenges and opportunities facing emerging real estate markets: an empirical examination of the Kuwait residential real estate market

This thesis examines emerging real estate markets using Kuwait as an example. It is structured as a combination of three self-contained papers that complement each other. The first paper overcomes data limitations by using the limited existing data and different methodologies to improve the constructed indices. Because of data limitations, parametric methods could not be used. Instead, the central tendency method, with improvements, was applied and produced satisfactory indices. Approaches to improve performance included using the mean and median as central tendency, the type of property, monthly and quarterly observations, different weighting techniques, subsamples versus full samples, and stratification based on cities versus stratification based on long-term mean prices. As a result, 74 indices were constructed and their performance compared using out-of-sample forecasting methods. This paper overcame data limitations and constructed the first housing indices for Kuwait. This paper constructed the first housing indices for Kuwait. The second paper uses the indices constructed in the first paper to evaluate and study influences on the dynamics of the Kuwaiti housing market using Error Correction Model. The housing market seems highly driven by the shortage of housing supply, strong housing demand, the price of oil, and signs from investors and speculators. Furthermore, the market seems to be sensitive to tax regulations and terrorist events, but less sensitive to local and regional political events. The third paper considers an alternative source of funding for real estate development, called sukuk. Using the Dynamic Conditional CorrelationGeneralised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (DCC-GARCH) model to test the correlation between sukuk and bonds, it has been found that sukuk are highly similar to bonds and are not expected to provide much of a diversification advantage if included in a portfolio with other assets. Furthermore, their relationship to bonds increases in volatile times. Also found that different types of sukuk perform similarl

Are Older Citizens Using the E-Moi portal in Saudi Arabia, Hail City: A Quantitative Study-‹

ICT has been widely exploited as a powerful tool of development and prosperity. Therefore, Governments are increasingly moving their civil products and services online. However, there are several groups within societies that are missing out on government benefits due to no online access or/and knowledge, including the elderly. This research attempts to understand the factors affecting older adults’ adoption and use of e-government in a vicinity of Saudi Arabia. To achieve this, a quantitative method used an online survey questionnaire resulting in 937 completed responses. The findings offer implications for existing literature on e-Government adoption, for practitioners and policy makers

An empirical investigation of firm performance through corporate governance and information technology investment with mediating role of corporate social responsibility: Evidence from Saudi Arabia telecommunication sector

This study intended to examine the effect of information technology (IT) investment and corporate governance mechanism on the performance of the Saudi telecommunication sector with mediating role of corporate social responsibility (CSR). A survey method was used to collect data from the targeted Saudi telecom firm. Results show that corporate governance practices, i.e., internal audit, internal audit committee, and internal board size, have a significant and positive relationship with firm performance. Furthermore, IT investment positively affects the performance of Saudi telecommunication firms. Moreover, CSR mediates the relationship among internal audit, internal audit committee, internal board size, IT investment, and firm performance. This study contributes to the body of knowledge regarding IT investment, corporate governance mechanism, corporate social responsibilities, and firm performance of telecommunication firms in emerging markets. Furthermore, this study will help the top management of the telecom firms to improve corporate governance and IT investment, which will be beneficial to enhance firm performance

Factors influencing students’ adoption and use of mobile learning management systems (m-LMSs): A quantitative study of Saudi Arabia

In light of the conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic, people are looking for alternatives to accomplish their work. Education was not isolated from this change, where reliance, in whole or in part, on the use of modern ICTs has become imperative (e-learning). A related term is ''mobile learning'', which refers to the use of mobile devices in the learning process. Accordingly, the purpose of this research is to examine university level students’ behavioral intentions to use a mobile learning management system (m-LMS) (e.g. Blackboard application) in Saudi Arabia by empirically testing an extended version of the UTAUT model. For data collection, 258 university students participated in an online-based questionnaire. Six out of the eight proposed hypotheses were supported by analysis. PE, EE and LI showed a great impact on BI whereas FC was not significant factor. PMV and AR also demonstrated influence on PE, but UMS indicated no impact on PE. Further, UMS had a significant impact on EE. Results contribute to academia by enriching technology adoption literature in general and m-learning adoption in particular. Findings also contribute to policy and practice by providing insights to officials, decision makers, educators and learning management systems developers in terms of strategy, system design and resource management to meet the needs of students to increase their behavioral intentions to use m-LMS

Constructing house price indices in an emerging market: the case of Kuwait

The estimation of reliable house price indices can be problematic in the context of small and emerging markets, often due to data availability issues. This paper considers a number of alternative approaches to constructing house price indices in the context of Kuwait. Kuwait is an interesting case in that while it has considerable wealth due to its oil reserves, it still shares many of the characteristics of an emerging economy, and in turn faces many of the same challenges with respect to housing data. The lack of individual property level data means that hedonic or repeat sales index construction methods are not viable, the paper therefore has to rely upon weighting and stratification methods. The alternative index estimations are compared by considering their accuracy in out-of-sample forecasts. The results highlight that despite the data limitations in place, largely consistent and accurate measures can still be produced

Are Older Citizens Using the E-MOI portal in Saudi Arabia, Hail City: A Quantitative Study : Older Adults, web portals and Saudi Arabia

This is the accepted manuscript version of a conference paper http://hdl.handle.net/10125/50183ICT has been widely exploited as a powerful tool of development and prosperity. Therefore, Governments are increasingly moving their civil products and services online. However, there are several groups within societies that are missing out on government benefits due to no online access or/and knowledge, including the elderly. This research attempts to understand the factors affecting older adults’ adoption and use of e-government in a vicinity of Saudi Arabia. To achieve this, a quantitative method used an online survey questionnaire resulting in 937 completed responses. The findings offer implications for existing literature on e-Government adoption, for practitioners and policy makers