Determinants of Continuance Intention towards Self-Service Innovation: A Case of Electronic Government Services HSU, WANG, DOONG

1. Determinants of Con7nuance
Inten7on towards Self‐Service
Innova7on: A Case of Electronic
Government Services
HSU, WANG, DOONG

2. Research Ra7onale‐1
• Service science was proposed to integrate
people, management and technologies.
• By revealing how people interact, innovate,
evolve and learn the self‐service systems, such
as electronic government (e‐Government)
services, the service science has brought
together the wisdom of marke7ng science in a
way that is poten7ally transforming
informa7on communica7on technologies
prac7ce.

3. Research Ra7onale‐2
• e‐Government innova7on service was regarded to
have transformed governments’ capability to
serve their ci7zens and businesses (Bekkers,
2003). Thus it is a good instance showing such
service innova7ons demands the presence of a
user par7cipa7ng in the service manufacturing
and delivery process.
• Building a successful e‐Government was crucial for
governors worldwide. Government spending on
the Internet and related network technologies had
gone up to nearly five 7mes more by 2005 than
that in 1999 (Gartner Group).

4. Research Ra7onale‐3
• However, despite all the hype revolving around e‐
Government, it has been argued that its promised
benefits may con7nue to be an elusive dream in
many cases.
• Studies conducted in various countries, such as
Switzerland [5], Canada [11], Australia [2] and the
Netherlands [7], have reported that governmental
agencies s7ll face a high volume of contacts via
tradi7onal service channels, i.e. telephone and
face‐to‐face. In other words, ci7zens apparently
do not perceive the e‐Government to be more
convenient or useful than tradi7onal channels.
They thus prefer to request services either in
person or via the telephone.

5. Research Ra7onale‐4
• Such findings may reflect the fact that
– e‐Government development was mainly explored from
a supply‐side approach, whilst the demand side, i.e.
from the user’s approach, was few [31].
– Most exis7ng e‐Government literature was too
theore7cal in nature [10]. The majority of user’s
approach studies only used classical theories such as
Innova7on Diffusion Theory and Technology
Acceptance Model.
• As service science is proposed to integrate people,
management and technology, lacking the
knowledge about how user will respond to an
innova7ve self‐service means losing the connec7on
to one core component, resul7ng in the difficul7es
of many countries in abaining success in their e‐
Government implementa7on.

6. Research Ques7ons
• Which ci7zen segment will use e‐Government
service more frequently than other segments?”
• It aims to reveal how ci7zens’ psychological traits of
innova7veness and involvement may interact with
each other and further shape their usage towards
“e‐Housekeeper”, a new e‐Government service
launched in Taiwan at 2007.

7. Research Objec7ves
1. To facilitate the understanding of government towards
the ci7zen’s actual needs so as to (1) recognize the
value of crea7ng a collabora7ve process between
government and ci7zens/business and (2) bridge the
front stage and back stage in innova7ve service design
and implementa7on.
2. To respond to Chan et al.’s (2008) call for governments
to recognize that even the best e‐Government
infrastructure cannot guarantee widespread adop7on
and con7nuous usage, the promo7on of e‐services is
equally important in its implementa7on.

8. e‐Government
• e‐Government is u7lizing the Internet and the World‐
Wide‐Web for delivering government informa7on and
services to business and ci7zens (American Society for
Public Administra7on).
• Means and Schneider focused on the inter‐
rela7onship and defined e‐Government as “the
rela7onships between governments, their customers
(businesses, other governments, and ci7zens), and
their suppliers by the use of electronic means”.
• Brown and Brudney highlighted the efficiency aspect
and defined e‐Government as the use of technology,
especially Web‐based applica7ons, to enhance access
to and efficiently deliver government informa7on and
services.

9. e‐Government
• From the government perspec7ve, e‐Government is
believed to be a cost‐efficient channel that can
enhance efficiency, improve effec7veness and reduce
bureaucracy in government affairs [29].
• It will improve ci7zens/business interac7on with
government by empowering them to deal with
government online at any7me while saving the hours
spent in the paperwork, traveling to a government
office, and wai7ng in line [31].
• Building a successful e‐Government was a priority for
governors’ major administra7ve plans worldwide.

10. Cogni7ve Style of Innova7veness‐1
• Innova7veness is “consump7on of newness,” a
tendency to buy new products more oken and more
quickly than other people within the same market [25].
• Individuals that are most likely to buy a new product
aker it is introduced into the marketplace are
innovators [33] or market ini7ators [12].
• Clark and Goldsmith [9] asserted that determining the
personality characteris7cs that influence innovators to
purchase a new product early in the product life cycle
is essen7al for the success of innova7ons.

11. Cogni7ve Style of Innova7veness‐2
• In the adap7on‐innova7on theory, Kirton [21]
proposed that individuals characteris7cally exhibit one
of two dis7nct cogni7ve styles of problem solving and
decision‐making: innovators or adaptors.
• Innovators love to break exis7ng rules or process, take
risks and look out for novel solu7ons. However, the
adaptors feel most comfortable to follow well‐
established rules or process. Kirton posited that
individuals can be located on this con7nuum and their
loca7on represents their style of problem solving and
decision‐making.

12. Cogni7ve Style of Innova7veness‐3
• This dis7nct cogni7ve style is closely related to the
regularity and consistency of individual’s behavior
(Foxall, 2003).
• Innovators are important sales sources for any
company as
– they use the product more frequently than other customers
do
– they are good sources of informa7on regarding crucial
insights into how customers view the new product, its
posi7oning, features and other key marke7ng aspects
– they are oken heavily involved in the product field (Bloch,
Sherrell, and Ridgway, 1986). That is, innovators find, for
example, e‐Government service is important to them.

13. Individual’s Involvement‐1
• Involvement has played a significant role in behavior
theories [36] and its impact on customers’ responses to
adver7sing, products, and technology has been widely
discussed [22].
• Involvement is the interest an individual finds in a
product class: that is, the individual’s percep7on of
whether the product class meets his/her important
values or goals [26].
• Individuals with higher product involvement are likely to
seek more informa7on about products [3], and form
antudes toward the product which are more resistant to
change [28].

14. Individual’s Involvement‐2
• Personal involvement has been widely used to explain
customer behaviors in interac7ng with new services in
the e‐marketplace, such as how personal involvement
posi7vely influences customers’ Website purchase
frequency [35] and how they respond to avatars and
sales agents [20].
• To a great extent, the adop7on of innova7ve self‐
services is a type of customer behavior: users act as
customers and the innova7ve self‐service is the
product. As such, involvement may provide good
explana7ons of ci7zens’ percep7ons and behaviors
toward an innova7ve e‐Government self‐service.

15. Research Proposi7ons 1
• Product Involvement is the interest a consumer finds
in a product class, which stems from the consumer’s
percep7on that the product class meets important
values/goals.
• The more involved a consumer is with a par7cular
product, the more likely it is that product knowledge
will be established through the experiences gained in
possessing, purchasing and using the product (Park
and Moon, 2003).
• P1: There are posi.ve rela.onship between users’
involvement level and their innova.ve e‐Government
self‐service usage frequency.

16. Research Proposi7ons 2
• Foxall and Bhate [15] reported that innova7ve
cogni7ve style is significantly related to the number
of home computer sokware packages used by
individuals. In another study, Foxall and Bhate [14]
indicated that compared to adaptors, innovators
have significantly higher overall computer usage,
frequency of computer use and number of sokware
packages used.
• P2: There are posi.ve rela.onship between users’
innova.veness level and their innova.ve e‐Government self‐
service usage frequency.

17. Research Proposi7ons 3
• Foxall argued that individuals’ choice is shaped by their
innova7veness level [21] and involvement level [37].
Upon the interac7on of these two psychological
constructs, customers’ purchase decision making can
be categorized into four different types: complex
buying, dissonance buying, habitual buying and variety
seeking [13].
• P3: Less‐involved adaptors, less‐involved innovators,
more involved adaptors, and more‐involved innovators
differ in their con.nuance inten.on toward innova.ve
e‐Government self‐services. More‐involved adaptors
have the highest level of con.nuance frequency toward
innova.ve e‐Government self‐service.

18. Contribu7ons
1. It verifies and advances past studies in term of the
profiles of innovators [32], Foxall’s [12] proposi7on of
the rela7onship between individual’s cogni7ve style/
involvement and their behavior, and Wang et al.’s [35]
empirical results in a new and different service science
context in terms of e‐Government self‐service.
2. This study may contribute to the ini7al opera7on of
new innova7ve self‐services, which has long been
regarded as a difficult task. By showing that some users
are more likely to accept the new innova7ve self‐
services faster and use these services more frequently
than others, this study’s findings can be well integrated
into and enhance the effec7veness of the pilot
implementa7on strategy.