The uptake of digital government services: toward digital transformation in the Kingdom of Bahrain

Abstract

The current study was conducted as part of a grant-funded national project between Information and eGovernment Authority - iGA and University of Bahrain which aims to explain why users are not using the e-government service and why they prefer to access services using non-digital methods in addition to identifying the willingness of non-digital users to use e-government services. The population of the current study included individual who currently do services manually. Therefore, users from three services centres: identity card - ID card, general directorate of traffic - GDT, and electricity and water authority - EWA were selected randomly. The findings of the study revealed that if the iGA are to accelerate public uptake of new e-services, they have to provide good design of e-services which reflect the needs of the public rather than the needs of the government agencies which provide them. Moreover, overcoming cultural inertia is one of the main challenges to e-government implementation that needs a study to support the acceptance and trust in the use of e-government services.