1,720,956 research outputs found
Evaluating Local e-Government in New Zealand: A Socio-Technical Approach
No full textGovernment organisations around the globe have embraced e-government as a powerful tool to improve and reform how government operates and delivers services to citizens, the private sector, and other arms of government. While e-government initiatives have taken place at all levels of government, the implementation of e-government at the local government level is trailing behind national e-government progress in most countries, including New Zealand. Even though prior studies have provided a rich set of factors that are considered critical for adoption, the perceived high failure rate of e-government initiatives or their slow adoption rate has made scholars aware that existing models are inadequate. Further, there has been little research on local e-government maturity and the factors that influence citizens’ participation in e-government and restrict local government bodies in their e-government initiatives. This study addresses these shortcomings by assessing the progress of local e-government in New Zealand, identifying citizen’s expectations and factors that have influenced their participation in local e-government, and exploring the range of factors that have affected local e-government initiatives. A theoretical framework is developed using a socio-technical approach, which identifies a range of citizen-related, organisational, environmental and technological factors that potentially influence e-government development, implementation and use.
A multimethod research approach is used to collect the data needed to achieve the study’s research objectives. First, a four stage e-government maturity model and a website maturity assessment instrument are developed from prior studies. All 67 New Zealand local council websites are assessed and the overall level of local e-government maturity is found to be in the information stage. Second, a web-based survey is used to collect data from 336 citizens across New Zealand. The results indicate that citizens perceive local e-government to be important and offer a relative advantage over traditional channels. Their awareness of online information and services available and their motivation to use local e-government are relatively low. This generally low level of motivation of citizens towards a digital engagement with their local councils could be, at least partly, the result of a gap observed in the study between citizens’ expectations of local e-government, particularly around communicating, interacting and transacting online with local councils, and the current level of delivery of such services by New Zealand local government organisations. Third, semi-structured telephone interviews are used to collect information from officials at 44 local councils. The analysis of data shows that the main objectives behind e-government initiatives are to empower citizens, enhance customer service, improve citizen engagement, and reduce costs. The major barriers include lack of e-government strategy, broadband access and skilled human resources, interoperability, inter-agency collaboration, and small organisation size.
The results of the three empirical research strands suggest that it will be difficult for local government organisations in New Zealand to meet the national e-government targets for 2020, progressing at their current pace. Without a strong mandate from central government or stronger citizen interest in and demand for local e-government, the proposed benefits of e-government focused on interaction, transaction and integration will remain largely unrealised
Evaluating local e-Government in New Zealand: a socio-technical approach
No full textGovernment organisations around the globe have embraced e-government as a powerful tool to improve and reform how government operates and delivers services to citizens, the private sector, and other arms of government. While e-government initiatives have taken place at all levels of government, the implementation of e-government at the local government level is trailing behind national e-government progress in most countries, including New Zealand. Even though prior studies have provided a rich set of factors that are considered critical for adoption, the perceived high failure rate of e-government initiatives or their slow adoption rate has made scholars aware that existing models are inadequate. Further, there has been little research on local e-government maturity and the factors that influence citizens’ participation in e-government and restrict local government bodies in their e-government initiatives. This study addresses these shortcomings by assessing the progress of local e-government in New Zealand, identifying citizen’s expectations and factors that have influenced their participation in local e-government, and exploring the range of factors that have affected local e-government initiatives. A theoretical framework is developed using a socio-technical approach, which identifies a range of citizen-related, organisational, environmental and technological factors that potentially influence e-government development, implementation and use.
A multimethod research approach is used to collect the data needed to achieve the study’s research objectives. First, a four stage e-government maturity model and a website maturity assessment instrument are developed from prior studies. All 67 New Zealand local council websites are assessed and the overall level of local e-government maturity is found to be in the information stage. Second, a web-based survey is used to collect data from 336 citizens across New Zealand. The results indicate that citizens perceive local e-government to be important and offer a relative advantage over traditional channels. Their awareness of online information and services available and their motivation to use local e-government are relatively low. This generally low level of motivation of citizens towards a digital engagement with their local councils could be, at least partly, the result of a gap observed in the study between citizens’ expectations of local e-government, particularly around communicating, interacting and transacting online with local councils, and the current level of delivery of such services by New Zealand local government organisations. Third, semi-structured telephone interviews are used to collect information from officials at 44 local councils. The analysis of data shows that the main objectives behind e-government initiatives are to empower citizens, enhance customer service, improve citizen engagement, and reduce costs. The major barriers include lack of e-government strategy, broadband access and skilled human resources, interoperability, inter-agency collaboration, and small organisation size.
The results of the three empirical research strands suggest that it will be difficult for local government organisations in New Zealand to meet the national e-government targets for 2020, progressing at their current pace. Without a strong mandate from central government or stronger citizen interest in and demand for local e-government, the proposed benefits of e-government focused on interaction, transaction and integration will remain largely unrealised
Factors Influencing the Adoption and Usage of Internet Banking: A New Zealand Perspective
No full textAlthough the offering of financial products and services over the Internet by banks and financial institutions continues to spread, reports on Internet banking show that the adoption and usage of such services by consumers are low. Further, relatively little empirical research has been carried out to examine factors influencing users' adoption or use of Internet banking services, particularly in New Zealand. Hence, there is a need to identify relevant factors that influence New Zealand's bank customers' intentions to use Internet banking. This research used two commonly applied and empirically supported models of information technology adoption to achieve this objective. In this study, Davis's (1989) technology acceptance model (TAM) is extended by two external variables, namely risk and self-efficacy. The second model used is a reduced version of Moore and Benbasat's (1991) perceived characteristics of innovation (PCI) model, without the image and voluntariness constructs. A questionnaire was used to conducting a postal survey of 1000 individuals in Auckland, New Zealand. Out of 163 responses received 157(15.7%) were usable and with this data both research models were tested.The results reveal that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, self-efficacy, relative advantage, compatibility, and result demonstrability have a significant association with intention to use Internet banking, while risk, visibility and trialability are not significant. Both the modified TAM and PCI models used in the study have a similar explanatory power of slightly over 20% of the variance in intention. In the TAM model, perceived usefulness and self-efficacy are significant variables, while compatibility is the only variable significant for the PCI model. Further, results indicate that users' perceptions of various aspects of Internet banking are more positive than non-users' perceptions, except for risk.The results of this study indicate that both TAM and PCI have low capabilities in explaining the variances in users' intention to adopt or use Internet banking services. Therefore, further studies are recommended to examine the performance of these models in Internet banking studies and also to improve the prediction power of these models by incorporating additional constructs. Although risk is found to be insignificant in this study, considering results of prior studies, further studies are required to examine its influence on intention.For banks point of view, banks should consider launching campaigns to demonstrate the usefulness and benefits. Once users perceive that advantages outweigh disadvantages, they are more likely to adopt or use Internet banking. Additionally, banks must make continuous effort to understand consumers' requirement and design and deliver their products and services in such a way that it is consistent with customers' requirements, beliefs and the way customers are accustomed to work. Banks website should facilitate customers with a 'one stop comprehensive financial' service. Banks can arrange hands-on training for prospective users to enhance their self-efficacy or may pay additional interest on online-deposit accounts (can be access through Internet only). Besides promoting services, banks need to invest in staff education and training and be equipped with advanced computer technology
Factors influencing the adoption and usage of internet banking: a New Zealand perspective
No full textAlthough the offering of financial products and services over the Internet by banks and financial institutions continues to spread, reports on Internet banking show that the adoption and usage of such services by consumers are low. Further, relatively little empirical research has been carried out to examine factors influencing users' adoption or use of Internet banking services, particularly in New Zealand. Hence, there is a need to identify relevant factors that influence New Zealand's bank customers' intentions to use Internet banking. This research used two commonly applied and empirically supported models of information technology adoption to achieve this objective. In this study, Davis's (1989) technology acceptance model (TAM) is extended by two external variables, namely risk and self-efficacy. The second model used is a reduced version of Moore and Benbasat's (1991) perceived characteristics of innovation (PCI) model, without the image and voluntariness constructs. A questionnaire was used to conducting a postal survey of 1000 individuals in Auckland, New Zealand. Out of 163 responses received 157(15.7%) were usable and with this data both research models were tested.The results reveal that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, self-efficacy, relative advantage, compatibility, and result demonstrability have a significant association with intention to use Internet banking, while risk, visibility and trialability are not significant. Both the modified TAM and PCI models used in the study have a similar explanatory power of slightly over 20% of the variance in intention. In the TAM model, perceived usefulness and self-efficacy are significant variables, while compatibility is the only variable significant for the PCI model. Further, results indicate that users' perceptions of various aspects of Internet banking are more positive than non-users' perceptions, except for risk.The results of this study indicate that both TAM and PCI have low capabilities in explaining the variances in users' intention to adopt or use Internet banking services. Therefore, further studies are recommended to examine the performance of these models in Internet banking studies and also to improve the prediction power of these models by incorporating additional constructs. Although risk is found to be insignificant in this study, considering results of prior studies, further studies are required to examine its influence on intention.For banks point of view, banks should consider launching campaigns to demonstrate the usefulness and benefits. Once users perceive that advantages outweigh disadvantages, they are more likely to adopt or use Internet banking. Additionally, banks must make continuous effort to understand consumers' requirement and design and deliver their products and services in such a way that it is consistent with customers' requirements, beliefs and the way customers are accustomed to work. Banks website should facilitate customers with a 'one stop comprehensive financial' service. Banks can arrange hands-on training for prospective users to enhance their self-efficacy or may pay additional interest on online-deposit accounts (can be access through Internet only). Besides promoting services, banks need to invest in staff education and training and be equipped with advanced computer technology
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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