User Acceptance of Intergovernmental Services: The Case of Electronic Document Management System

The traditional focus of intergovernmental services research has been on the technological development, not on user acceptance; yet intergovernmental services in each electronic government (e-Government) implementation affect the ultimate success of the e-Government project. In the e-Government implementation context, many governments have invested huge amounts of money to make intergovernmental services both available and user-accepted, although some individuals have no intention of using them. The electronic document management system (EDMS) is the most popular intergovernmental service in the e-Government project. Thus, e-Government researchers need to identify the factors that determine user acceptance of EDMS. Using the theory of planned behavior (TPB) as a theoretical framework, this study investigates the effect of a set of antecedent factors on the intention to accept EDMS. Collected from a sample of 186 users of real e-Government´s EDMS in Taiwan, the results strongly support the utilization of TPB in predicting users´ intention to accept EDMS. In addition, the findings indicate that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, training, compatibility, external influence, interpersonal influence, self- efficacy, and facilitating conditions are significant predictors of users´ intention to utilize EDMS. Finally, implications for research and practice are discussed.