Factors that impact the acceptance of e-services in the public sector in the United Arab Emirates case study: the general directorate of residency and foreigners affairs (GDRFA) - UAE

Factors that impact the acceptance of e-services in the public sector in the United Arab Emirates case study: the general directorate of residency and foreigners affairs (GDRFA) - UAE

The invention of the computer and the development of the Internet has proven to be of vital importance and benefit to society, with increasingly more services delivered through the Internet are becoming available to end-users. E-services are usually more convenient to use, although it is still not fully known how inclined consumers are towards acceptance of e-services. The level of e-government adoption in the Gulf Corporation countries is still at an immature state despite various efforts taken by the government to propagate the importance of e-services. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) government is investing significant funds for its e-services; but there is still low acceptance in the adoption of these services.

The primary focus of this study is to investigate and identify the perceptions of potential end users relating to factors which impact on e-services acceptance. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been adopted in this study as it can be extended when technologies are introduced. This research validates the developed TAM model and evaluates the variance of the outcome variable (acceptance of e-services). Seven factors were adopted as determinants of acceptance of e-services: security, trust, support, e-marketing mix, computer self-efficacy, web skills, and language.

The study was undertaken in the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA) in the UAE. A quantitative survey methodology was adopted in this study, which surveyed 466 customers who use the GDRFA e-services.

The overall findings revealed that security, e-marketing mix, language, web skills, computer self-efficacy and support significantly affected ease of use and perceived usefulness. However, the trust and computer self-efficacy doesn’t affect the ease of use. Further, ease of use significantly affects intention to use and perceived usefulness while in turn intention to use was influenced by perceived usefulness.

This study offers an understanding of people’s adoption of e-government services with the help of established theories such as TAM and various factors that influence the e-government adoption with reference to UAE.