Users’ attitudes in Asia and Africa

Abstract

This issue continues the growing emphasis on contributions from Asia, with only one paper from Africa. In the first paper, ‘Website satisfaction dimensions: Factors between satisfaction and dissatisfaction’, Chorng-Shyong Ong and Shu-Chen Chang, of the National Taiwan University, report on a study to assess the influence of perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment on users’ experience of satisfaction or dissatisfaction when using websites. The second paper also focuses on the use of online services. In ‘User acceptance of Internet banking in Indonesia: Initial trust formation’, Aries Susanto, Hwansoo Lee and Hangjung Zo, of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), and Andrew P. Ciganek, of the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, report on a large-scale survey of prospective Internet banking service customers in Indonesia which aimed to assess the impact of trust, perceived security, and perceived privacy on consumers’ initial trust of Internet banking. The contribution to this issue from Africa, ‘HIV/ AIDS-related information needs of urban and rural residents of northwest Ethiopia: alerting the rural populace and meeting the progressive needs of the urban populace’, by Mesfin Awoke Bekalu and Steven Eggermont of the University of Leuven, reports on a study designed to assess the impacts of urbanity vs. rurality on HIV/AIDS-related information needs in northwest Ethiopia. The findings indicated that urban residents were more concerned about, and had greater information needs on HIV/ AIDS, than the rural populace. The two groups also had significantly different preferences for specific types of HIV/AIDS-related information. We return to Asia with the next paper, ‘Achieving horizontal integration of municipal e-government in China: assessment of managerial mechanisms’, by Bo Fan of Shanghai Jiaotong University. This reports on a study which aimed to analyze managerial determinants, identify key stakeholders, and redesign managerial mechanisms for the task of horizontal integration of Chinese municipal e-government. Data were collected from a nationwide survey administered in selected municipal cities in China. The research identified multiple managerial factors necessary for horizontal integration in e-government; these were: experience in general management, reforming authority, experience in projects, and legal regulation. The final paper in this issue again deals with users’ attitudes to an aspect of information technology. In ‘Acceptance of open source software amongst Thai users: an integrated model approach’, Veera Bhatiasevi of Mahidol University International College, and Donyaprueth Krairit of the Asian Institute of Technology, report on a survey of 1,005 open source software users in Thailand which led to the development of a comprehensive model that integrates individual, social, and software characteristics to measure the acceptance of open source software. The results illustrate that perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, intention to use, output quality, compatibility, software functionality, and software maintainability have a positive relationship with open source software acceptance. Also in this issue, Archie Dick’s column on Education for librarianship and information studies: fit for purpose?, while Msafiri tries to ‘Catch the Wind’. A Commentary by Ian M. Johnson considers the question of ‘Development goals after 2015 – the role of information, books and libraries’, while we also include a brief summary of a recent SAGE report, ‘Library Value in the Developing World’, by Nell McCreadie, Group Marketing Manager, SAGE Publications Ltd. The full report is available free of charge at http://www.sagepublications.com/libraries/dw, and will also be published in IFLA Journal, Vol. 39, no. 4 (December 2013).