Factors influencing e-government use in non-urban areas

Evidence suggests that citizens outside larger urban centers are less prone to use the various functionalities of e-government, while they are the most likely to benefit from these services. Few studies have been performed to understand rural citizens’ attitudes. Our purpose was to identify factors that influence the use of e-government services in outlying regions in the Province of Quebec (Canada). Our study was based on a subset of attitude-related variables that were shown to be strong predictors in prior research. We performed a survey involving 1587 citizens living in four selected outlying regions of Quebec, and held two focus groups with users and non-users of e-government. Our results confirm that attitude is influenced by perceived usefulness; perceived ease of use, perceived risk and trust and that attitude is strongly related to the intention to use e-government services. These results may help to plan more effective strategies to increase use in non-urban areas.