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Chapter 2. Literature Review Adoption, Diffusion and Use of E-government
Hassan Al-Zaabi Services in Abu Dhabi Police Force
Following the exemplary success of Malaysia the UAE government believes that, by raising the level
of intelligence within its citizens and providing them with a high standard of education, this will lead to
a more intelligent generation that can take the country to the level of developed countries (Ministry of
Higher Education, 2008). This example identifies the UAE government‟s efforts at providing well-
educated citizens who can then make the most of the current and new online products and services
when implementing e-government. This is something that Jaeger and Thompson (2003: 390) also
found and argued for: “an e-government system would fail if the government did not take an active role
in educating citizens about the value of e-government”.
2.4 E-government and Public Sector
E-government is provided by the public sector and since the ADPF is a public sector organisation, a
review of some issues related with the public sector and e-government is also provided. One of the
main issues that was emphasised is that “the public sector tends to lag behind in the process of
technology adoption and business reinvention” (Ndou, 2004: 1). Therefore the finding that was
acquired in the ADPF, still lagging behind in terms of internet use was confirmed, although indirectly
by such research. However, the public sector has begun to consider technology adoption as important
and is considering this matter in more detail. From their understanding, need of ICT in daily activities
to improve different government services has been identified. This is due to the pressure made by
private sector innovative services of e-business and e-commerce models (Ndou, 2004). “E-government
is often heralded as the new way forward for the public sector in both developed and developing
countries. This led to increase rate of development and democracy” (Dada 2006: 1).
As given earlier by Heeks (2003), there is a big difference between public and private sector e-
government projects. The main difference is that private sector focus on customers while the public
sector focuses on citizens (Ciborra, 2005). Therefore, everyone should have their own needs and
having similar e-government plans may lead to project failure. “The private sector sees customers as a
means to increase profitability. On the other hand, public sector governments should provide equal
services to all its citizens” (Dada, 2006: 6).
Public Sector can benefit and improve a lot from having an e-government (World Bank, 2004;
Schuppan, 2009). For example, “The use of ICT also offers particular potential to improve financial
and taxation systems. The introduction of integrated financial systems with appropriate databases
offers the possibility to better control financial flows within the state” (Schuppan, 2009: 121).
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