Public centric e‐governance in Jordan. A field study of people's perception of e‐governance awareness, corruption, and trust
| Pages | 317-333 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14779960810921123 |
| Published date | 21 November 2008 |
| Date | 21 November 2008 |
| Author | Rakesh Belwal,Khalid Al‐Zoubi |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Public centric e-governance
in Jordan
A field study of people’s perception of
e-governance awareness, corruption, and trust
Rakesh Belwal and Khalid Al-Zoubi
Faculty of Business, Sohar University, Sohar, Sultanate of Oman
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the efforts made by Jordan in the direction of
e-governance and people’s perception of corruption, trust, and e-governance.
Design/methodology/approach – Desk research was conducted using secondary data sources
followed by a field survey conducted with 412 sample respondents in three major cities of Jordan.
Following the triangulation approach, the responses of university professors and the common people
were also secured.
Findings – The Jordanian government’s efforts towards e-governance are commendable in the
Middle East. However, there are certain impediments that are witnessed in the form of the digital
divide, corruption, social bottlenecks, the stage of democratization, the lack of marketing to
stakeholders, and the citizen’s lack of adoption of technology. Educated people are aware of the merit
of e-governance contrary to the uneducated ones and perceive that corruption in the Jordanian public
sector is increasing.
Research limitations/implications – The study mainly reflects the views of the educated people.
The views of the uneducated ones are secured through basic interactions as they expressed their
inability to respond to the questionnaires. Somehow, the respondents are not very open to freely share
their opinions or have abstained from participation-since they consider this a sensitive issue within the
Jordanian cultural and political setup. Further, asking opinions of members of the public might not be
the ideal way of judging the level of corruption, or changes in it.
Originality/value – People’s perception is that Jordan is affected by a low level of corruption and
that its citizens lack awareness of e-governance. To remedy this, its citizens need to be motivated to
trust and to participate in the process of e-governance and to increase their understanding of the tools
and technologies available.
Keywords Governance, Corruption, Trust, Jordan,Perception, Citizens
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The emergence of the internet has offered almost a new era where earlier operations are
to be prefixed by “e”: e-commerce, e-banking, e-learning... and e-governance. Several
such processes have emerged in the recent past that are all set to change the rules of the
game. Organizations have amended their initial websites from mere web publishing to
transactional support. Several countries have demonstrated what electronic modes of
transactions are capable of doing in different areas. e-Governance is one such area
which has achieved success in some countries (UNESCO, 2008).
E-governance can be studied with several kinds of values in mind, including
economic, social, and political (Gro
¨nlund, 2004). The success of e-government initiatives
depends critically on four factors: infrastructure, computerization and integration,
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Public centric
e-governance
in Jordan
317
Journal of Information,
Communication & Ethics in Society
Vol. 6 No. 4, 2008
pp. 317-333
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1477-996X
DOI 10.1108/14779960810921123
legislation, and the attitude of enablers (Garson, 2005). The attitude of enablers
according to Garson (2005) means the attitude of civil servants, particularly towards the
inculcation of a customer orientation, a willingness to change, adequate IT literacy, and
an ethic of honesty and integrity. However, the focus on the attitude of the users has
somehow been relegated to the background. We believe that these aspects are important
to conduct a situation analysis of e-governance in any country. This research is focused
on the study of the state of e-governance in Jordan with an emphasis on corruption
reduction, trust, and ethics. Though there are several stakeholders in any e-governance
initiative viz. government (G2G), business (G2B), employees (G2E) and citizens (G2C),
the study recognizes that there cannot be any better judge other than citizens an d that
their perception is important for the success of any e-governance initiative.
What e-governance denotes
e-Government and e-governance are key issues on the agenda of various governments
across the world. While the former has been looked at from the perspective of
administration, the latter strives to secure an appropriate engagement of citizens at the
policy level so as to affect the former (McNiven and Marche, 2003) According to McNiv en
and Marche (2003), governance stresses the ways in which decisions are made, while
government stresses the way in which they are carried out. According to them,
e-governance is a technology mediated relationship between citizens and their
government while e-government is the provision of routine government information and
transactions using electronic means. UNESCO document CI-2002/WS/1 considers
e-governance a wider concept than e-Government, which is the use of Information and
Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the dissemination of the services of government
(See http://unesdoc.unesco.org/). The document cites the use of the Internet and its
capacity to mobilize opinion; the increase in the electronic delivery of government and
commercial services; the electronic publication of draft legislations and public feedback;
and the increased adoption of e-enabled community centres, web-enabled mobile
telephony and digital television as the prime factors responsible for this evolution. We
feel that the notion of e-governance can be studied from two perspectives: one as a
process (governance) and the other as the entity practising that process (government). In
this paper the concept is being used interchangeably using a single term “e-governance”
since it is difficult for the common man to understand the fine distinctions of the
academic world.
In today’s world, e-governance is looked upon as a strategic appro ach that supports
and simplifies governance for all parties: governments, citizens and businesses (Basu,
2004). The eCitizenship for All (2004) survey has revealed that e-Governm ent is now a
permanent agenda item of local councils, and some 80 percent of 102 participating
cities from 23 European countries have developed an e-governance policy to deliver
services electronically (CMA Management, 2005). But despite having invested bill ions
of dollars, governments around the world are still struggling to meet their citizens’
growing expectations of better customer services (CMA Management, 2005).
According to the UNESCO website:
[...] e-Governance is the public sector’s use of information and communication technologies
with the aim of improving information and service delivery, encouraging citizen participation
in the decision-making process and making governments more accountable, transparent and
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