1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1

Preface

Since almost two decades, public administration has become a centre of attraction, affected and motivated by the changing society that moves towards modernization that demands governments to add more technological and organization sophistication (Gil-Garcia and Moyano, 2007) to provide public services and improving managerial effectiveness (Vassilakis et.al., 2007).b This has resulted in among others, the introduction of `electronic government (e-govt) where government invest a huge amount of money in modernizing their services through the use of information and communication technologies which affects the public sector in providing such services to the public (Montagna, 2005; Gil-Garcia and Moyano, 2007; Vassilakis, et.al., 2007; Hin and Subramaniam, 2008). A smooth transition from a conventional method to `E-govt needs not only a modern telecommunication network but also an IT literate employee. Productivity improvement through manpower maximization and optimization has become an important subjects in public service to response to the general perception that government servants are generally lackadaisical in terms of response times (Hin and Subramaniam, 2008). Citizen for example, expect through e-govt, services offered

2 by most of government departments and agencies can be done through the web, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The Malaysian government as well as other governments worldwide hope that the nature of government services and daily tasks will change through IT. Although the use of IT application is becoming more important in government departments, its transformation is suspected to be slow (Montagna, 2005) and not all government employees is seen to make full use of the technologies provided to them. This has led to the underutilization of computer and its related technologies in the public sector. According to Montagna (2005), many governments have not been ready to take the advantage of the internet potentiality or the government itself may have managed to do so but too slow in action due to their structure, management style and type of leadership. This has raised the question whether government itself are not prepared to adapt to the transformation. Hence, there is a need for a

comprehensive administrative planning and management approach to integrate ICT application in a public service environment. However, literature in understanding ICT acceptance in the Malaysian public service environment is rare compared to the same in the private and business organization.

Among the established and widely used ICT applications in many organizations includes electronic mail (e-mail), voice mail (v-mail), group decision support systems, video conferencing, audiotext and also computer bulletin boards (Fang, 1998). Electronic mail (e-mail) for instance, have been widely introduced and used in different environment to cater for different needs such as to allow web-based learning in the educational environment (Strenski, 1995; Krishnamurthi, 1998 ; Fang (1998); Aiken, et.al., (2003); Spennemann and Atkinson (2003) and Lightfoot, 2006), delivering information and training manuals to workers in manufacturing firms (McGaughey, 1999); promoting an effective internal communication in nonprofit organization (Hewitt,2006) and corporate organizations (Mohammed Noorman, et.al., (2008) and also in setting up a new pattern of communication in government organizations (Meijer, 2008).

3 The main reasons to introduce electronic communication especially the use of e-mail in government are to eliminate paper-based work which in turn will help government to save cost of paper, gain greater accessibility and greater efficiency in delivering services to the public. Whatever the purpose to introduce electronic communication is, its implementation and success in any organizations depends on many factors including organizational, technological and individual users (Mohammed Noorman, et.al., 2007)

This study look into how existing e-mail communications is being utilized in the Johor State Government by its personnel. The use of e-mail in the Johor Electronic Government (JEG) settings have been introduced since 1999 as a way to promote effective and fast information exchange between the state government employees throughout the state. Its usage is considered to be more important

nowadays because the state government are aggressively promoting the `Iskandar Malaysia growth region to get as much investors to accelerate the state economy.

1.2

Problem Definition

The underutilization of computer and its related technology in public service administration has not drawn so much attention. Because employees seem to accept or reject technologies provided to them, organizations fails to achieve the benefits from such investment. This phenomenon has contradict the principal effort made by the government when introducing e-govt initiatives.

E-government aims to simplify government processes and improve the interaction between citizens and state organizations through the use of electronic communications (Kaliontzoglou et al., 2008). Studies by Gasco (2008) reveals that reluctance to change is a common and natural phenomenon when introducing information and communication technologies into the public sector. Gasco (2008) found that there exists reluctant in sharing information and lack of cooperation

4 among departments in the public sector due to problems related to attitude. Hence, collaboration among different departments must be enhanced through attitude changes.

Predictably, the success of any EG lies in the quality of its human resources. There is a need for public service employees to be IT literate through continuous training to keep them abreast with new work processes and technologies. Parrado (2008) identified three sets of skills that relates to EG : Information technology skills (IT), Information management skills (IM) and Information society skills (IS). According to Parrado, there is a need to identify different group or communities of public servant so that what ICT skills needed to specific group can be identified and plan can be made to improve ICT skills in public agencies. As mention in the earlier part, among diffused information and communication technology in organization is the use of electronic mail (e-mail).

In the case of Johor State Government, The introduction of e-mails as a communication tools has started way back in 1999 to reduce paper usage and speedup communication, information and data exchange especially between officers of different district throughout the state. However, its usage among state government employees has been said to be not encouraging. Despite such claim, there is yet a systematic study that can prove its truth. Therefore this study is conducted to offer an in-depth study direct from the respondents which are affected by the introduction of e-mail and working full-time with the Johor State Government.

In realizing that the usage of e-mail should be given serious attention by all employees, the state government issued an official circular to remind and informed the relevant guidelines. The Johor State Government Circular No.2/2001 emphasize that e-mail must be use actively in daily work to communicate and performed tasks such as calling for meetings, intra and inter-department queries, official invitations and writing memos. Officers were asked to open e-mails as soon as they reach office and remain it open to immediately respond to incoming mails. However, this is still an ongoing challenging initiative. Sending of conventional administration letters to

5 call for meetings, official functions as well as applying for official claim is still practiced and will remain. Initial observation through communicating with many state government officers reveals few issues related to the acceptance of e-mails as a communicating tool within the JEG framework but nothing is conclusive. In short, there may be problems faced by the Johor State Government is relation to the acceptance of IT tools by its users. Thus this study is considered timely and appropriate in indentifying factors related to ICT acceptance especially in a public service culture and environment.

1.3

Purpose of Study

The purpose of this study is to look into how technology is being accepted in a public service environment by analyzing the usage of electronic communication via e-mails among employees of the State of Johor, Malaysia.

This study will also identify how the aspects of `perceived ease of use (PEOU) and `perceived usefulness (PU) by using the `Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) among Johor State government officers affects the use of electronic mails as a major means to communicate within the JEG framework.

1.4

Study Objectives

The objectives of this study are as follows :

1.4.1

To determine what the level of acceptance among Johor State government officers in using electronic mails as a preferred means of communication.

1.4.2

To analyze and rank factors that affects the use of electronic mails among Johor State government officers.

6 1.4.3 To analyze factors that could be associated with acceptance or rejection of the usage of e-mails among state government officers.

1.4

Study Questions

The primary objective of this study is to identify and analyze the factors that is associated with the use of e-mails among Johor State Government employees. The provision of e-mail connection among Johor State officers is to enable effective communication through speeding up public service response times in exchanging data and information. Hence, this study aims at answering the following research questions:

i)

What is the intensity of the usage of e-mails among the Johor State Government officers?

ii)

What are the factors that are associated with the acceptance and lead to utilization of IT applications such as e-mail in public service settings?

1.5

Scope of the Study

The introductions of E-govt have transformed the way public services do work. One of them is the implementation of e-mail system where each State Government employee was given access to e-mail accounts to communicate and work efficiently.

In this study, data will be gathered directly from a total of 441 Johor State Government officers working in various departments and agencies throughout the State of Johor, Malaysia. These officers were chosen because they are the decision

7 maker and officers in charge of daily routine at their respective departments and agencies. Each of these officers has been allocated to one official e-mail address domain in the `Johor State Intranet e-govt infrastructures.

This study cover factors that are associated to the e-mail usage among Johor State Government officers to use e-mail as their preferred communication medium. Three (3) main categories of factors that will be observed in this study include : i) Organizational factors, ii) Technological factors and iii) Individual factors.

1.6

Significance of Study

The significance of this study is based on the findings that the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) developed by Davis (1989) has gain much attention in technology acceptance research in the private sector organization but lack in the public service environment. Given the global E-government phenomenon throughout the globe, there is a need to understand whether TAM is applicable in a public service especially in a e-govt settings. This study is expected to provide an insight information and analysis from the Johor State Government employees which may represent the public sector environment.

By exploring the usage patterns, belief

and attitude of a public service

employees, this study hopes to explain on the factors that may influence future use of e-mail as a preferred communication medium in a e-govt setting. This study will also help the Johor State Government as the major stakeholder to identify the strengths and weaknesses of current operating communication practice so that a comprehensive policy formulation can be made for future technology strategy.

8 1.7 Limitation of Study

This study will only cover Johor State Government officers. Hence, the data, information and findings will be directly related to their outcomes. This study does not covers employees from clerical and administration group which is also given an e-mail account by the government for the same reason and purpose.

As the main purpose of this study concentrate on the use of e-mails, it does not covers the acceptance and usage of other computer applications used in daily office tasks and specific applications used in the JEG framework which has 12 other computer applications.

This study also specifically targeted the Johor State Government officers as a group of respondents for its sample. Hence, any possible findings of this study may not indicates the actual or same situation in any e-govt environment in any state government administration in Malaysia and elsewhere.

1.8 Summary

The purpose of this study is to look into how existing e-mail communications is being utilized in the Johor State Government by its personnel. The study questions mentioned in this chapter will try to answer the objectives of this study, that is: i) to determine the level of acceptance among Johor State Government officers in using email as a preferred communication, ii) to analyze and rank factors that affects its usage and iii) to analyze factors that could be associated to its acceptance or rejection.

The following chapter will discuss literatures from past studies and researches in relation to the use of e-mails in different organizations as well as issues surrounding its usage.

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1

Introduction

Technological innovations in ICT technologies has resulted in the emergence of computer mediated communications (CMC) technologies such as electronic mail, voice mail, video conferencing and computer bulletin boards. These new method has become prevalent communication channels that transform the ways individuals work (Fang,1998). Among widely diffused CMC technology is electronic mail

communications or e-mails.

This chapter will review some of the relevant IS literature on the usage of emails as an official communication among peers and also its acceptance in formal and informal organizations. It also contained literatures on the importance of e-mail as an effective and efficient ways of communications in many organizations in general and in the context of public sector in particular. The advantages and

disadvantages on the use of e-mail communication is also been discussed based on past studies and research. Since `Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) will be adopted in this study, this chapter will also provide a review of the TAM model with the hope that it will

10 direct to a better understanding the concept of technology acceptance and the framework that will be proposed at the end of this chapter.

2.2

Electronic Mail Communications

Gluck (1994) defined e-mail as the combination of a message transport portion whose task is to send and deliver messages passed to it by some other frontend application. Krishnamurthi, (1998) defined e-mail as a collection of computer programs that facilitate the exchange of electronic documents via a computer.

E-mail is an electronic communication tool that predates the internet and was used initially for intra-corporate communications via mainframes and later by private dial-up networks (Lightfoot, 2006). Nowadays, the use of electronic mail as a communication channels has been diffused in our society due to the increasing availability of internet access and free e-mail account offered by many websites. The advancement in communication technology has offered high-speed internet access through broadband connectivity and hotspots that allows internet based communication to become more preferable.

The study of e-mails as part of CMCT has developed many empirical study on the matter. Scholars have written in many literatures and journals on its use, characteristics and evaluation in different fields.

Literatures on e-mail usage as a communication tools in different field has been researched by many scholars such as in the educational environment (Strenski, 1995; Krishnamurthi, 1998 ; Fang (1998); Aiken, et.al., (2003); Spennemann and Atkinson (2003) and Lightfoot, 2006), manufacturing firms (McGaughey, 1999); non-profit organization (Hewitt,2006), corporate organizations (Mohammed

Noorman, et.al., (2008) and government organizations (Meijer, 2008).

11 Krishnamurthi (1998) surveyed universitys student attitudes towards e-mail and their usage pattern to understand its acceptance in various conditions such as computer experience, system user-friendliness, communication responsiveness and comfortablility in a college curriculum. The researcher found that computer experience, system user-friendliness and perceiving e-mail as a useful tools positively influence the use of e-mail among these students. Aiken, et.al., (2003) found that e-mail is being extensively use by college student with 66% of them have at least two e-mail address. They also check their e-mail at least once a day (72%) and 42% socially communicate each other online. Spennemann and Atkinson (2003) also found positive use of e-mails between students and lecturers. Both called this as a `asynchronous communication where extensive use of e-mails has led it to diffused intra and inter-community. Lightfoot, (2006) investigate e-mail as a medium for internet-based education on college undergraduates found that e-mail communication is preferred by students who are more comfortable with technology compared to face-to-face verbal communication.

The work of Fang (1998) established a model to explain e-mail system usage and choice. McGaughey(1999) found that e-mail usage helps delivering education and training to individual workers and groups in manufacturing firms. As a results, it contributes to the firm agility to compete in the global market.

The work of Montagna (2005) suggest that internet advantages and its potentialities has not been grab enough by many governments due to its own structure, management styles and type of leadership.

The work of Mohamad Noorman, et.al., (2008) proved that the use of e-mails or forum room as a communication tools is very effective and efficient in an office environment organization. Selecting four corporate organizations operating in Malaysia as a case study, they found that employees in an office environment organization communicates not only between subordinates and superiors but also with outsiders and e-mails communications helps message to reach the addressee in a right and efficient manner (Mohammed Noorman, et.al., (2008).

12 2.2.1 E-mail advantages :

There are numbers of e-mail advantages discussed in many literatures. E-mail communication not only allows information sharing among peoples and organizations, it also allows different electronic formats to be sent and received efficiently (McGaughey, 1999). E-mail breaks down the barriers and time compared to face-to-face communication (Lightfoot, 2006) and enabled for a web based, distance learning in an education environment which allows student to communicate with instructor and peers at time convenient to them (Spennemann and Atkinson, 2003; Lightfoot, 2006). Hence, e-mail enabled a timely communication in an

environment where face-to-face communication is not easily done.

Kierkegaard (2005) found that electronic communication is becoming more vital in the workplace as it is a cheap and instantaneous electronic communications, improves productivity and communications, lower transaction costs and increases employee efficiency.

Information in the e-mail can easily forward either to a single recipient or a large group of recipient in the nailing list. It can also being attached to other messages and kept forever on a disc or tape.

2.2.2

E-mail disadvantages

Although e-mail enabled quick information transfer, not all information is useful to the receiver. There are cases where employees caught in a deep pressure to attend so many messages daily and feel bullied by the e-mail system due to incorrect or unsuccessful processing of information (Parker, 1999; Stevens and McElhill, 2000). Spamming or mass unwanted e-mail has become an unwelcoming problem. In a recent study involving college students, Aiken, et.al., (2003) found that they receive 119 to 268 spam message per month and 80% of American are disturbed by

13 spamming and agreed the activities to be outlawed. Managing spam is also costly to organization as it takes the time to do other things.

There are also cases of misinterpreted and misunderstood of e-mail messages by the receiver (Parker, 1999). Literatures in reviewing e-mail usage found that spontaneous and careless attitude when writting e-mails as a permanent nature in this type of communication (Lightfoot, 2006) that led to the problems mentioned by Parker (1999).

Because e-mail text can easily forwarded, attached to other messages and kept forever on a disc or tape, issues regarding what type of information is being pushed by this medium is getting much attention especially when it involves sensitive and private information. A PC left unattended but active in many organizations may poses danger not only to the owner/user but also to the organization they worked with. Gluck (1994) identifies three weak points in the email infrastructure: i) Its hard to identify positively the message sender, ii) impossibility to recall messages delivered and iii) message integrity assurance. Since security concerned were also being negotiated at all levels of the infrastructures from user access, user ID, physical networks and system administrator, technologies to protect e-mail is an essential application in an organization (Gluck,1994).

The study on advantages and disadvantages of e-mail as well as the users PU and PEOU is important to enable organizations make a proper planning on its future communication channels. For example, the work of Spennemann and Atkinson (2003) found that students respond differently towards using and accessing e-mails in the same environment. On a survey conducted for five years for internal student and three years for external student in an Australian universitys, Spennemann and Atkinson (2003) investigate the uptake and confidence in sending e-mails among management student in the university. They found that women have more access to e-mail and increasingly become frequent users of the technology. They also found that rural external students has the least usage of e-mails due to their infrastructure

14 disadvantages although previous studies in e-mails suggests that distance and technology availability are the main factor for e-mail usage.

The work of Mohamad Noorman, et.al., (2008) proved that the use of e-mails or forum room as a communication tools is very effective and efficient in an office environment organization. Selecting four corporate organizations operating in Malaysia as a case study, they found that employees in an office environment organization communicates not only between subordinates and superiors but also with outsiders and e-mails communications helps message to reach the addressee in a right and efficient manner (Mohammed Noorman, et.al., (2008).

2.2.3

Issues on e-mails and its challenges

Organization invest considerable amount of money to develop and operate electronic communications with the hope that it will contribute to its agility (McGaughey, 1999). It is therefore the role of top management support is important. However, top management commitment has not always the case in e-mail. Stevens and McElhill (2000) found that the purchase of e-mail is not a business-led strategy in many organizations they studied but merely an IT department own initiatives. As a result, companies install e-mail but then leave it to the employees to decide and in many cases it is cultural and individual factors affects its usage in that organization. Stevens and McElhill (2000) also found that e-mail had flatten organization hierarchies and affects the role of middle managers.

The advancement in ICT enabled us to do multi-tasking job such as interact via e-mails while engaging in our daily tasks. The benefits from e-mail also comes with ongoing issues related to the privacy of user e-mails, confidentiality from the communication and electronic monitoring and intercepting from the employers has been extensively discussed in many literatures in computer network security and

15 computer laws (Gluck,1994 ; Saxby, 1995 ; Parker, 1999 ; Prysby and Prysby, 2003 and Kierkegaard, 2005) Employers feel they have the right of whats going on in the office. Employee believes that their e-mail messages should be private although they are using the companys domain address for personal messages within working hours. Companies have to negotiate the use and abuse of this communication medium in its organization. The abuse of e-mail by employee had a significant risk to the company as there are increasing cases of defamation and libel suits due to the irresponsible use of e-mails (Parker, 1999).

Based on the above literature, it can be concluded that the usage of a computer applications such as e-mail has its relation to the aspects of human behaviour. The effectiveness and intensity of e-mail usage is related to behavioral factor of its user particularly those related to the acceptance of its usage. With this regards, a model known as the `Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is applicable and will be adopted in this study.

The following section will discussed about TAM and its applicability in various researches and studies that relates to the acceptance of a particular IS technology in various fields.

2.3

Technology Acceptance Model

The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was developed by Fred Davis and Richard Bagozzi (Davis et. al., 1989 ; Bagozzi et al., 1992) to explain how users accept and use a particular technology. The formulation of TAM is based on The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) developed by Fishbein and Azjen (1975).

According to the theory, the acceptance of any particular technology is based on the perception of the technology that the person will use. Two independent constructs in

16 TAM are `Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) and `Perceived Usefulness (PU). Davis validated that these two constructs (PEOU) and (PU) are main factors that determine the usage or intention to use (IU) of technology by individuals. Figure 2.3 below shows TAM model based on Davis et al., (1989) :

Perceived Usefulness
External Variable s

Attitude

Intention to use

Actual use

Perceived Ease-of-use

Figure 2.3 : The original TAM based on Davis et.al. (1989) Source : Davis et.al. (1989), pp.985

Davis defined Perceive ease of use (PEOU) as the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free from effort and Perceive Usefulness (PU) as the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance.

2.3.1

The Extension of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM2)

An extension model of TAM or TAM2 has been introduced by Venkatesh and Davis (2000) to include `Subjective Norms (SN) as an additional determinant of user acceptance as shown in Figure 2.3.1. The construct of SN in the extension model are image, job relevance, output quality and results demonstrability.

17

Subjective Norm

Image

Perceived usefulnesss Intention to use Perceived ease of use Usage behavior

Job relevance

Output quality

Result demonstrability

The Original The original TAM TAM

Figure 2.3.1 : Extensions of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM2) Source : Venkatesh and Davis (2000), pp.197

In reviewing the relationships among variables in TAM, Yuanquan, et.al., (2008) believes that the `Attitude Towards Using (AT) is the connection between PEOU, PU and `Behavior Intention (BI). AT and BI or U have a strong significant relationship. They also found that TAM is a flexible model as the use of external variables in TAM depends on the type of research. For example, study by Park, et.al., (2006) found that individual users and organizational users had different sets of variables that affected acceptance. In a study to understand users and organizational characteristics towards accepting a computer technology, they found that for individual users, acceptance on technology is influenced by subjective norms such as social group action (friends, family members and colleagues) and also mass media reports and expert opinions. A personal innovativeness and self-efficacy in an individual user also depicts positive characters towards technology acceptance. Whereas, for organizational users, they found that the acceptance of technology is greater when the organizations is challenged by uncertainty environments. Park, et.al., (2006) also found that psychographic variables like level of education and job

18 security plays an important factors in an organizational users compared to individual users who sees trust and privacy, readiness and innovativeness as an important factors in acceptance of a computer technology.

Demographic factors such as age, education, income and race has also being tested using TAM to explain how attitudes determine technology acceptance. Porter and Donthu (2006) used these factors as an external variable to study the use of internet by American individuals from different demographic background. By adding perceived access barriers as an additional belief variable in TAM, both found that different demographic factors act differently towards belief about an internet technology in this case and hence affect the attitude towards using the technology. Their study demonstrate how perceive access barriers influence consumer attitude that explained why older, less educated, minority and lower income Americans have lower internet usage rates.

User acceptance can be described as a product of user behaviour in relation to the available technology and a given environment and to achieve user acceptance, the development of the perceptions (PEOU/PU) need to be dealt with (Roggenkamp).

The use of TAM as a basis of research models in academic studies can be found in many literature. The TAM understandability and simplicity has make it among widely used model in IS literature (King and He, 2006).

Mohamed Zain, et.al., (2005) used TAM to study whether determinants of PU and PEOU in IT usage influenced organizational agility. Based on a survey made to 329 managers and executives of a manufacturing firm in Malaysia, they proved that technology usage had the strongest direct effect on organizational agility. McFarland and Hamilton (2006) uses TAM to examine the influence of contextual variables on end-user IT acceptance behaviours among end-users in mid to large profit organizations with at least 25 to 100 internal IS staffs. They found that system usage and computer efficacy are strongly affected by those contextual variables (computer

19 anxiety, prior experience, others use, organizational support, task structure, system quality).

The use of TAM together with other information theories can also be found in many literatures. Yi. et al., (2006) use an integrative approach that combined TAM, TPB and IDT to create a unified model to test contributing factors that lead to technology acceptance by skilled individual professionals. Using 222 physicians in the U.S as their research sample, they found out that perceived usefulness is the most significant determinant of intention to accept a technology.

In a study by Premkumar and Bhattacherjee, (2008), the basic TAM is used together with the `Expectation-Disconformation Theory (EDT) to form an integrated model to explain user acceptance and continuance usage of computer-based tutorial (CBT) among 175 university undergraduate students enrolled in IS course. The use of both models is to compare the relative ability of the two theories in explaining IT continuance usage (Premkumar and Bhattacherjee, 2008).

An integrated model of TAM (Davis, 1989) and IDT (Rogers, 1995) has been used by Zhang, et.al., (2008) to understand and predict IT adoption and use among Chinese senior managers in mainland China. They found that the integrated model to be useful in interpreting IT adoption.

From its first development in 1989, the technology acceptance model has attracted numbers of studies related to IT acceptance and users intention towards IT usage in organizations. A meta-analysis of the TAM by King and He (2006) involving 88 TAM empirical studies published in 22 journals reveals that the TAM measures are highly reliable and can be used in a variety of contexts and is a powerful and robust predictive model.

20 2.4 E-mail in Government Organization

E-mail communication is an effective way to enable timely communication especially when it involves text attachments and where communications between two or more users are restricted by distance. Although traditional communication channels such as telephone calls, facsimile transmission and exchanging letters still had been widely used by many government departments, communication through email is accepted as an alternative channel.

Although the use of e-mail is believe to be less formal compared to a face to face communication, its usage in bureaucratic organizations such as government departments and agencies is found to be different. A recent research made by Meijer (2008) in three government agencies reveals an important insight into how employees in government organizations interact and use e-mail. It also looked into the changes in civil servant working environment when e-mail became part of their communication media. According to Meijer (2008), the interrelation between the use of e-mail and characteristics of a bureaucratic organizations can be simplified by the following framework, shown in figure 2.4.

According to Meijer (2008), when civil servant adapt e-mail into their communication pattern (Arrow A), these communication pattern are influenced by the introduction of the new medium (Arrow B). Civil servant will have more

autonomy in terms of managing their work and information including contact networks. At the same time, bureaucratic organization influences these

communication patterns through rules and regulations stipulating how to communicate in various situations (Arrow c). These influences limits the autonomy enjoyed by the civil servants as they are bound to a certain degree on how to conduct their work. Arrow D indicates that bureaucratic will exists when civil servant act in this directions.

21

Characteristics of Bureaucratic Organization

D D

Communication Patterns of Civil Servant

B B

A Use of e-mail

Figure 2.4:

Interrelation between use of e-mail and characteristics of bureaucratic organization.

Source:

Meijer (2008), pp431.

According to Meijer (2008), it was concluded that using email in the government agencies does not change them into post-bureaucratic organisations. What happen is, government organisations that use email with emphasis given on the interplay between bureaucracy and technological properties, transform themselves into a late bureaucracy organisations. Meijer (2008) found that using emails in government agencies do not reproduce bureaucracy but introduce new ways of coordination among them. The new coordination uses email and its three affordance to facilitate its functions that is; i) asynchronicity, ii) instant capability to check on memory and iii) communications between one person to many people with managers monitoring and intervene whenever necessary. This had formalised communications that were before considered informal. The managers in government organization and other employees will be kept informed and thus the organisations

22 network are kept together. At the end, the use of e-mails makes the government organizations flexible and accountable.

2.5

Research Model

Based on IT acceptance research in many literatures, the basic concept in user acceptance of a technology can be explained by following the `Perception Intention Usage (P-I-U) lens in portraying IT acceptance phenomenon (Schwarz and Chin, 2007). For a better understanding, the following figure 2.5(a) shows the basic concept of IT acceptance and use based on Schwarz and Chin (2007):

Perception or : Basic concept of IT acceptance and use basedActual use Intention Figure 2.5(a) on Schwarz reaction to use IT to use IT of IT and Chin (2007)

Figure 2.5(a): Basic concepts of IT acceptance. Source: Schwarz and Chin (2007), pp.232

Based on the theories and concept reviewed above, a model is developed to better understand the actual factors towards PU and PEOU in influencing the acceptance of e-mail in a public service, e-govt settings.

Developing a model or a framework are useful because it allows us to organize and integrate various elements of a problem in a simple and consistent way and as a result, it assures the attainment of the pursued outcomes (Montagna, 2005). Hence, this framework is being proposed in this study to guide readers to understand the basic elements of this study in an easier way.

23

TAM

Category of Influencing factors

E-mail usage : Frequency / Intensity

Organizational PU Technological

High

PEOU

Individual (User Characteristics)

Low

Figure 2.5(b): Proposed model for e-mail acceptance in e-govt settings.

In

this

model,

organizational,

technological

and

individual

user

characteristics is believed to be the influencing factors that affects the use of e-mail by users in a e-govt settings. The organizational factor includes top management support, technological includes technical user support and intranet services and quality. The third influencing factor; the individual user characteristic involves users computer self-efficacy. These influencing factors interact with the two TAM beliefs; the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use and impact the usage frequency and intensity of e-mail in a e-govt organization.

E-mail usage frequency and intensity will be determined through average official e-mail (e-mail related to work) sent and retrieved by the users in pursuing their daily work in a day. In this study, e-mail usage frequency and intensity will be observed through the number of e-mails sent and retrieved by the Johor State Government officers. E-mail usage frequency and intensity can also being observed from State Government offices that have branches throughout the State. For example

24 e-mail usage frequency and intensity between District Offices, District Land Offices, District Religious Offices and between Offices of Local Government can be observed through how frequent they sent and share monthly and yearly reports through e-mail to their respective headquarters offices.

2.6

Construct of the Model

The construct of the model is based on the TAM2 developed by Vanketesh and Davis (2000). The determinants in this model (top management support, technical user support, intranet services and quality, computer self-efficacy and user involvement) is based on the work of Mohamed Zain, et.al., (2005) and Mohamad Noorman, et.al., (2008) as these determinants are considered justify in many organization.

2.6.1

Organizational Factors

2.6.1.1 Top management support.

The use of IT applications in any organizations requires a strong support and backing from their top management. Researchers agreed that top management support is needed in diffusion and implementation of e-mail (Romm and Pliskin, 1999; Stevens and McElhill, 2000). In their research on e-mail usage in business organizations, Stevens and McElhill (2000) suggests that the success of e-mail depends on a top-down direction. It is the top management responsibilities to decide how the system should work and succeed through an implementation of a policy.

Spennemann and Atkinson (2003) found that the extensively increasing usage of e-mail in a college university is attributed by the universitys administration and lecturing staff preferable to be contacted by e-mail rather than face-to-face

25 communication. Mohamad Noorman, et.al., (2008) defined top management support as `the degree to which top management understands the importance of the IS function and the extent to which it is involved in IS activities. A high degree of managerial support for IS/IT implementation will not only demonstrate commitment and continuous support for the project but also develop conducive implementation environment by providing necessary resources such as time, space, equipment and people.

The top management support is important as it will bring benefits to the organization. The top management has the responsibility to encourage conducive culture and shape IT utilization behaviour and provide sufficient fund and

manpower. The work of Mohamed Zain,et.al., (2005) and Mohamad Noorman, et.al., (2008) proved that top management support and commitment in using IT in any organization is essential as it will help the employees of that organization to generate timely information to make better decisions or decision support and sharing of knowledge.

2.6.2

Technological Factors

2.6.2.1 Technical User Support

In any organizations that deals with IT/IS application, scheduled maintenance and continuous upgrades of such applications, software and hardware is essential to make sure that it can be accessible and useable at all times. Any employees will definitely expect that their technical problems in using IT applications to be immediately attended by someone responsible to do it. A higher utilization of IT can be expected when these problems can be solved promptly and they can resume work without any delay.

26 2.6.2.2 Intranet

Intranet is defined as `a private TCP/IP network that usually supports the same protocols and services as the public internet including e-mails, news, chat rooms and web pages (Muller, 2002). Mohamad Norman, et.al., (2007) study the intranet effectiveness from three groups of variables, namely intranet effective usage, intranet service quality and its impact on user. They found that better understanding of intranet success will promote understanding towards organizational success since intranet effectiveness has direct and indirect impact on organizational effectiveness.

2.6.3

Individual Factors

2.6.3.1Computer self-efficacy

Computer self-efficacy has been identified as a factors in individual users characteristics in accepting a computer technology and its acceptance is influenced by technology characteristics such as PU and PEOU (Park, et.al., 2006).

To understand computer self-efficacy, ones must first know what is meant by self-efficacy. According to the user self-efficacy perspective, individual acceptance or rejection of communication media depends on the ease of use and usefulness of the users perception of these media for communication task performance (Bandura, 1982 ; Fang, 1998). MacFarland and Hamilton (2006) emphasized three critical characteristics of self-efficacy as follows: Self-efficacy is ones belief in his or her capability to produce an outcome rather than assessment regarding the impact of the outcome. Self-efficacys focus is on overall results rather than component level skills.

i)

ii)

27

iii)

Self-efficacy is a judgement of `what one can do in the future rather than an assessment of `what one has done in the past. Hence, McFarland and Hamilton (2006) defined computer-efficacy as ones

belief that he or she is capable of using a computer to complete tasks difficulty or consequences. According to them, `if a person is confident using one application to complete a particular task, he or she will be confident using any application to complete any task.

2.7

Summary.

The review of literatures in e-mails usage shows that e-mail will continue to have a great impact in our daily lives. As such, the concepts and theories pertinent to e-mail usage and particularly computer mediated communication technology will continue to evolve.

The literature discussed in this chapter proved that TAM is a validated tool in the information system study. TAM has been widely accepted as a robust and reliable model to explain and predict User acceptance of technology due to its validity, generality and ease of applicability (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000). Literatures in IS validate that TAM is the most powerful and influential IT acceptance model (MacFarland and Hamilton, 2006).

28

CHAPTER 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to look into how communication technology such as e-mail being accepted by employees of a government organization. In a modern public administration, the management and construction of an e-mail is believed to be an essential element in providing fast and efficient services intra and interorganization. This study attempts to explain the factors into which public service employees use e-mails as a preferred communicating tools in a government framework.

This chapter presents the proposed process of conducting this study which is divided into four topics including research design, sampling design, data collection and data analysis procedures.

3.2

Research Design This study will adopt the `Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) developed

by Davis et.al., (1989) for the purpose of identifying factors that lead to the usage of

29 e-mail by Johor State Government officers. Since the study of TAM is believed to have relations on human behaviour, a survey research method will be used. According to Wysocki (2001) a survey research is best used for topics where the researcher ask questions and learns about attitudes and behaviours reported by the respondents. Hence, it helps in understanding a particular social issue. The use of survey questionnaire is also efficient in the sense that it enabled data to be collected from a large number of people via cheap medium such as sending through mails (Wycocki, 2001).

A survey questionnaire will be prepared to accommodate the objective of this study as stipulated in Chapter 1, i.e: i) to determine what are the level of acceptance among Johor State Government officers, ii) To analyze and rank factors that affects the use of e-mails among them and iii) to analyze factors that leads or rejects such behaviour.

3.3

Sampling Method

This study focuses on understanding the factors that will lead the use of email as a preferred communication medium in a government organization. The Johor state government is chosen because e-mail has been introduced in the government administration since 1999. The Johor intranet facilities known as `Johor StateNet is to facilitate the state government internal communication between employees from different departments and agencies and also between state government employees and citizen outside the organization. Such application of ICT in government settings to provide efficient services to the citizens is in line with the concept of egovernment as proposed by many scholars such as Torres, et.al., (2005), Montagna (2005) and Galcia and Moyano (2007) as the Johor state government uses ICT in government settings to provide efficient services to the citizens.

30 As mentioned earlier, this study covers all 441 Johor State Government officers in the State of Johor, Malaysia. The Johor State Government staff with officer rank will be the population of this study. In all, the State of Johor has a total of 10,728 personnel working at time of study. Out of this, 3,594 employees have been allocated with an official e-mail domain address and 441 of them are ranked officers (Head of Departments or Agencies including Head of Units/Sections in a department or agencies).

Table 3.3 shows the total number of the Johor State Government employees and number of employee equipped with state government official e-mail domain. These officers were also chosen because they are the state governments personnel that performed professional and managerial role in running Johor State Governments administrative functions. It is expected that all respondents will complete the

questionnaire and return their feedbacks.

Table 3.3: Total number of Johor State Government employees with e-mail as at July, 2008 Service Group Total personnel Personnel with official e-mail domain 06

Public Service Higher Ranked Management Management and Professionals Administration and Clerical Support Staff

08

512

435

5675

3029

4533

130

TOTAL

10728

3594

(Source: Science, Technology and ICT Unit, Johor State Secretary Office)

31

As this study is aimed at recognizing factors that influence the usage of a particular ICT application (in this study is e-mails), the whole population of the study will focus on 441 Johor State Government officers from various department throughout the state. These officers have been allocated one computer and one e-mail domain address each in the `Johor StateNet for official use. The desktop computers were placed at the office where the officers were assigned duty. These officers were chosen because they play a key role in Johor public service administration as they are hold key positions in various government departments throughout the state.

3.4

Data Acquisition

In general, both primary and secondary data will be used in this study. Primary data will be gathered through returned questionnaire from the study population, that is the Johor State Government officers while secondary data will be sourced from readings of related literatures and various reports published internally by the Johor State Secretary office.

The respondents in this study will be all the 441 officers from the Johor Civil Service that has an email account. A total of 441 sets of questionnaires will be prepared and distributed to all the subject population in this study. The questionnaire in this study will be electronically-mailed via the `Johor State Intranet facilities to the subject population using their e-mails domain address in the intranet. As a contingency plan, conventional methods (where questionnaire will be mailed by post to the respondents) will be employed should there be no response from them via emails after a one (1) month grace period.

The 441 sets of questionnaire is expected to be e-mailed to the respondents via `Johor StateNet in the month of November 2008 after it is being approved by project supervisor and universitys examiners.

32

3.4.1

Primary Data

The primary data of this study will be sourced from the returned questionnaire. This will be the study tool that has the first-hand information of the topic being studied. Since questionnaire will be sent direct to the respondents, it is being assumed that the answers given will be honest and free from any form of biasness such as the influence of a third party.

3.4.2

Secondary Data

In preparing this project proposal, secondary data were gathered from related literature published in established journals via Sultanah Zanariah Library e-database facilities. Among journals referred in this study includes selected studies and articles from `Management Science, `MIS Quarterly, `Information and Management and `Public Sector Technology and Management journals. Sources from Johor State Government official information includes `Johor State ICT Coordination Monthly Reports, `Johor Information Infrastructure Operation Reports, `Johor State ICT Blueprint Report and Johor State Government Circulars.

Reviewing literatures and official reports from these sources has been the basis in preparing the background, problem definition, literature reviews and questionnaire formulation of this study.

3.5

Research Instrument

A written questionnaire will be used to gather data and other relevant information regarding the use of e-mail among Johor State Government officers in a

33 JEG framework. The questionnaire will be prepared in two different medium as mentioned earlier: i) An electronic survey questionnaire sent through e-mails, and ii) Conventional paper-based questionnaire which will be sent to the officers via normal mail.

3.5.1

Questionnaire Formulation

The questionnaire sheets that will be used in this study is a combination of open-ended question and a close-ended/multiple choice questions. An open-ended question allows respondents to formulate his or her own responses while the close ended/multiple choice questions provides the respondents with a fixed set of answers to choose from.

The questionnaire in this study will adapt several questions from previous work by various scholars. The items questioned for `perceived usefulness and `perceived ease of use will be adapted from Davis (1989). These items have been replicated in a similar manner with added items and minimal alteration by Lai and Li (2005); Mao and Palvia (2008) and Premkumar and Bhattacherje (2008) to suits the situation of respondents in different study background. Thus, the validity of the questions are believed to be good. A five point `Likert Scale will also be used in the questionnaire. The purpose of using the likert scale in this study is because it can be used to measure attitudes and other factors that relates to social behaviour as in the case of this study. Table 3.5.1 below indicates the ratings of each value of the Likert Scale that will be used in this study.

34

Table 3.5.1: Five points Likert Scale ratings Likert Scale Value 1 2 3 4 5 Ratings Strongly agree Agree Moderate Disagree Strongly disagree

In sections of the questionnaire where the five point Likert Scale were used, respondents will be asked to choose from a scale which represents their agreement or disagreement to each statement presented to them.

3.5.2

Organizations of Questionnaire

The Questionnaire will be divided into five sections as shown in Table 3.5.2(a) below. There will be a total of 45 different types of questions to answer the objectives of this study. Please refer to Appendix `A for the proposed questionnaire.

Questions in section I are mainly related to basic demographic information of each respondent in the population. This will be open-ended questions where respondents will have to give their own answer based on the questions asked. Section II of the questionnaire will consist of questions that will help to assess the behaviour of Johor State Government officers in using computer. Closed ended/multiple-item questions will be asked to provide data on computer usage behaviour.

Questions in section III (a), (b) and (c) are related to the organizational factors, technological factors and individual factors that affect the use of e-mail in Johor Electronic Government. This part uses five point `Likert Scale where

35 respondents will have to choose one value to indicate their degree of agreement or disagreement to each statement given to them. A value of 5 indicates a strong agreement with the statement and a value of 1 indicates a strong disagreement with the statement. Questions in section IV is designed to analyze respondents attitude towards using e-mail in their daily work. Section V of the questionnaire is designed to provide opportunities for the respondents to make comments or provide their views on any other issues which may be useful and relevant to the study

Table 3.5.2(a): Contents of Questionnaire Contents of Item Questionnaire Section I Section II Section III(a) Section III(b) Section III(c) Section IV Section V Total No. Of Questions Demographic Background Computer use behaviour Organizational factor Technological Factor Individual Factor Attitude towards using Comments No. Questions 6 12 8 6 8 4 1 45 Of Type of Questions Open ended Multiple choice Likert Scale Likert Scale Likert Scale Likert Scale Open ended

Table 3.5.2(b) below shows list of proposed questions that will be asked to the respondents of this study. As mentioned in previous parts of this chapter, some of these questions are adapted from past studies. However, most of the questions are self construct to adapt the situation in the Johor State Government settings.

36 Table 3.5.2(b): Lists of all the items asked in the questionnaire Question No. Items/Questions asked Section I 1 2 3 4 5 6 Section II 7 8 9 10 Demographic Background Age Gender Length of service with the Johor State Government Name of department currently working Number of staff working in your office Number of staff directly reporting to you Computer Usage Behaviour

Do you have personal computer at home Do you have personal e-mail address For how many years have you been using computers On an average working day, how much time do you spend using computer 11 On average, how frequently do you use computers during working day 12 According to your job requirements, please indicate each task you use to perform your job 13 What are the most office automation used in your daily work 14 How often do you access to your e-mail in your work 15 Are e-mail critical in your daily work 16 On the average, how many e-mails sent/received by you per day 17 How many e-mails related to work sent/received by you per day 18 How many e-mails not related to work sent/received by you per day Section III(a) Organizational Factors My superior encouraged using e-mail to communicate My superior use e-mail to communicate in daily work E-mail enhances communication with my superior E-mail were used regularly to communicate with superiors My organization accept e-mail as an official documentation My organizations e-mail policy and guidelines are clearly defined and understood. 25 You actually dont know your organizations e-mail policy and guidelines. 26 Official training in e-mail use and policy is provided by your organization Section III(b) Technological Factors 27 28 29 There are only minimum occurrences of e-mail network-down Technical support is adequately provided to help users Mailbox capacity is adequate for daily official use 19 20 21 22 23 24

37 E-mail additional features are useful in performing daily tasks Minimum effort and time are needed to retrieve e-mails and attachments 32 E-mail record keeping is properly managed and monitored by organization Section III(c) Individual Factors (Officers Perceived Ease of Use) 33 34 35 36 My interaction with e-mail is clear and understandable Interacting with e-mail does not require a lot of effort I find the e-mail given to me to be easy to use I find it easy to get e-mail to do the work I want to do Individual factors (Officers Perceived Usefulness) Using e-mail improves my performance in my job Using e-mail in my job increases my productivity Using e-mail enhances my effectiveness in my job I find e-mail to be useful in my job Officers attitude towards using E-mail E-mail can de-personalized communication E-mail is being used for personal matters as well as official duty There are more advantages than disadvantages to e-mail in a government setting We should go back to paper/verbal messages and ditch e-mail Comments by respondents Please use this space for any comments you wish to make 30 31

37 38 39 40 Section IV 41 42 43 44 Section V

3.6

Data Analysis

This study has a relatively large population of 441 respondents. Due to the large population and inline with the types of questions that will be asked, this study will adapt a `quantitative analysis. In this study, two types of quantitative methods will be employed; i) Descriptive Statistics and ii) Correlation analysis.

To facilitate the storage and organization of data, the final data will be input and analyze using `Statistical Package for Social Science considered by many to be easy and user friendly. The system is believes to enable faster data processing and reduced errors. The systems also allows for doing various statistical analyses.

38 3.6.1 Descriptive Statistics

According to Salkind (2006) descriptive statistics is used to describe the general characteristics of a set or distribution of scores which can be relates to the measurement of central tendency. The central tendency displayed data in the form of mean, median and mode.

3.6.1.1 The Mean

The mean is the sum of a set of scores divided by the number of scores. In order to get the mean value of a population sampling, the following equation need to be calculated:

Where;

X n

= = =

Mean value of the group of scores or the mean Total scores Size of the sample

Equation 3.6.1.1: Source:

Mean Calculation Salkind (2006), pp 153.

For example, Table 3.6.1.1(a) below shows an example on how the `mean is calculated. Here assumption is made that a total of 200 respondents reply the

questionnaire and the findings for question no. 35 (I find the e-mail given to me is easy to use) are as follows:

39 Table 3.6.1.1 (a): Example of Mean Calculation Agreement Level Strongly agree Agree Moderate Disagree Strongly Disagree Total Score (a) 5 4 3 2 1 Frequency (n) 160 15 20 5 0 200 Percentage (%) 80 7.5 10 2.5 0 100 Result (X) (a*n) 800 60 60 10 0 930

= 4.65

From this example, the value of the mean is 4.65, which is between 4 and 5. The desired output for this study is categorized into three outcomes; high agreement, medium agreement and low agreement. The calculation of mean scale and range is shown as:

Total number of respondents: 200 Range = highest mean value lowest mean value =51 =4

Since our desired outcome is divided into three categories, the intervals can be obtained by dividing the range to the number of outcomes. Thereby, the intervals are as follows:

Intervals: 4 / 3 = 1.333

Table 3.6.1.1 (b) below shows the interpretation of the rating scale of mean that will be adopted in this study. The mean range from 1.00 to 2.33 will be considered as a low agreement and 3.67 to 5.00 is treated as high.

40

Table 3.6.1.1 (b): The mean rating scale Mean 5.00 3.67 3.66 2.34 2.33 1.00 Mean Rating Scale High Medium Low

In this study, questionnaires in Section I, II, III and IV will be computed to test each mean rating scales.

3.6.2

Relationships between Variables

In this study, the usage of e-mail (will be known as variable x) among Johor State Government are believes to be affected by factors such as organizational, technological and individual (will be known as variable y1, y2 and y3 respectively). These variables (x, y1,y2 and y3) will be tested using `Pearson Correlation Coefficient to analyze each of these variables relationships to the usage of e-mail among these respondents. Question No.14 of the questionnaire shown in `Appendix A will be chosen as it directly relates to the usage of e-mail in respondents daily work. In order to test its relationships, each answers in this question will be given a value to indicate its weightage. Table 3.6.2 below shows an example of question No.14 in `Appendix A with its weightage value.

41 Table 3.6.2: Question No.14 with weightage value Question No.14: How often do you access to your e-mail in your work? No. i ii iii iv v Answer Several times a day Once each day Several times a week Once a week Dont access to e-mail at all Weightage value 5 4 3 2 1

In this study, `Pearson Correlation Coefficient will be used to explain the relationship between the variable x and y1, y2 and y3. Since there are four (4) variables in this study, it is expected that more than one correlation coefficient will be computed. The next part of this chapter shows the formula to compute `Pearson Correlation Coefficient.

3.6.3

Pearson Correlation Coefficient

According to Salkind (2006), the most frequently used measure of relationships is the `Pearson product moment correlation. Pearsons `r or ` It is also known as which represents a correlation between the variables x and y.

The value of Pearson correlation ranges between -1.00 and +1.00. It can also take on any value between those two. A correlation of +1 indicates high positive linear relationship between variables and -1 indicate the opposite relationship.

42 The Pearson Correlation Coefficient can be compute through this calculation :

[ ( )

( )( ) ) ( )]

( )][ (

Where n x y xy

= = = = = =

the correlation coefficient between x and y the summation sign the size of the sample the individuals score on x variable the individuals score on y variable the product of each x score times its corresponding y score

= =

the individual x score, squared the individual y score, squared

Equation 3.6.3: Source:

The Pearson Correlation Coefficient Salkind (2006), pp 195.

3.6.3.1 Interpretation of the Co-efficiency of Pearsons Correlation

The Pearson Correlation Co-efficient reflects the degree of relationship between variables. Table 3.6.2.1 below shows the interpretation of the co-efficiency of Pearsons correlation adopted in this study:

43 Table 3.6.2.1 : Interpretation of the co-efficiency of Pearsons Correlation Co-efficiency magnitude of Pearsons r 0.8 1.0 0.6 0.8 0.4 0.6 0.2 0.4 0.0 0.2 Interpretation Very high correlation High correlation Moderate Low correlation Very low correlation

In this study, the Pearsons correlation analysis is applied to analyze the relationships between the variables in the research model.

3.7 Summary

The proposed methodology in this chapter will be adopted to achieve the aims and objectives of this study. Data gathered from respondents will be computed using `Statistical Package for Social Science software which enables faster data processing. Results from this method will be analyzed to reach into a conclusion of this study.

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51

APPENDIX A

UNIVERSITY TECHNOLOGY OF MALAYSIA

FACULTY OF MANAGEMENT AND HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL QUESTIONNAIRE on

THE USE OF ELECTRONIC MAIL AS A COMMUNICATION TOOL AMONG JOHOR STATE GOVERNMENT OFFICERS IN THE JOHOR ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT SETTINGS

The purpose of this study is to look into how existing e-mail communications is being utilized in the Johor State Government by its personnel.

52

1.

The response to this questionnaires will be kept strictly confidential. No names of any department or individual will be mentioned in the report.

2.

There are no correct or incorrect answers to the items included in this survey. Although some items may appear similar to others, they express differences that are important to this study. Please response to all questions as honestly and as accurate as possible.

3.

Most of the question may be answered by placing tick in the place provided. Please read each question carefully and select the answer that best fit your case.

Your cooperation in completing this questionnaire is greatly appreciated.

APPENDIX A Proposed Questionnaire for the Study

Instructions: The purpose of this study is to analyze electronic mail usage in the Johor Electronic Government framework. This questionnaire is being distributed to all Johor State Government officers (Grade 41 and above). As there are no right or wrong answers, I appreciate if you can answer all questions to the best of your ability. What matters is your opinion.

Please be informed that the use of e-mails in this study is restricted to official Johor State Government Intranet e-mail domain address only. (for example : mridha@johor.gov.my).

Thank you for participating in this questionnaire.

Section I Demographic Background. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Age (please specify) : ________ Gender Female Male : __________ years : __________ : __________ : __________

Length of Service with the Johor State Government Name of Department youre currently working Number of staff working in your department Number of staff directly reporting to you

Section II Computer Use behaviour. YES 7. 8. Do you have personal computer at home? Do you have personal e-mail address? NO

53

9.

For how many years have you been using computers? i) ii) iii) iv) v) Less than a year 1 3 years 4 7 years 8 10 years More than 10 years

10.

On an average working day, how much time do you spend using computers? i) ii) iii) iv) v) More than 3 hours From 2 hours to 3 hours From 1 hour to 2 hours From 30 minutes to 1 hour Less than 30 minutes

11.

On average, how frequently do you use computers during working day? i) ii) iii) iv) v) Several times a day Once a day Several times a week Once a week Do not use computer at all

12.

According to your job requirements, please indicate each task you use to perform your job. i) ii) iii) iv) v) Letters and memos Producing reports Making decisions Analyzing, Planning and Forecasting Budgeting

13.

What are the most office software used in your daily work? i) ii) iii) iv) v) Microsoft Word Microsoft Excel Microsoft Power Point Microsoft Access Others. Please specify : __________________________

54

14.

How often do you access to your e-mail in your work. i) ii) iii) iv) v) Several times a day Once each day Several times each week Once a week Dont access to e-mail at all

15.

Are e-mail critical in your daily work? i) ii) iii) iv) v) Not critical at all Not so critical Neutral Fairly critical Very critical

16.

On the average, how many e-mails sent/receive by you per day? i) ii) iii) iv) v) None Less than 5 Between 5 to 10 Between 10 to 15 More than 15

17.

How many e-mails related to work sent/received by you per day? i) ii) iii) iv) v) None Less than 5 Between 5 to 10 Between 10 to 15 More than 15

18.

How many e-mails not related to work sent/received by you per day? i) ii) iii) iv) v) None Less than 5 Between 5 to 10 Between 10 to 15 More than 15

55
Directions: Read the statement. Decide if you strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly

disagree with the statement. Circle the number you decide. Strongly Agree Strongly Disagree

5
Section III(a) Organizational factor

19. 20. 21. 22.

My superior encouraged using e-mail to communicate My superior use e-mail to communicate in daily work E-mail enhances communication with my superior E-mail were used regularly to communicate with Superiors.

5 5 5
5

4 4 4
4

3 3 3
3

2 2 2
2

1 1 1
1

23. 24.

My organization accept e-mail as an official documentation My organizations e-mail policy and guidelines are clearly defined and understood You actually dont know your organizations e-mail policy and guidelines

5 5

4 4

3 3

2 2

1 1

25.

26.

Official trainings on e-mail policy and guidelines are Adequately provided by my organization

Section III(b) Technological Factors 27. There are only minimum occurrences of e-mail network-down 28. Technical support is adequately provided to help Email users 29. Mailbox capacity is sufficient enough for daily fficial work 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1

30.

E-mail additional features are useful in performing daily tasks

31.

Minimum effort and time are needed to retrieve e-mails and attachments

32.

E-mail records keeping are properly monitored and Managed by the organization

56
Section III (c) Individual Factors 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. Using e-mail improves my performance in my job. Using e-mail in my job increases my productivity. Using e-mail enhances my effectiveness in my job. I find e-mail to be useful in my job. My interaction with e-mail is clear and understandable. Interacting with e-mail does not require a lot of my mental effort. 39. 40. I find e-mail to be easy to use. I find it easy to get e-mail to do the work I want to do.

5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4

3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Section IV - Attitude Towards Using 41. 42. E-mail can depersonalized communication E-mail is being used for personal matters as well as official duty. 43. There are more advantages than disadvantages to e-mail in a government setting 44. We should go back to paper/verbal messages and ditch e-mail. 5 4 3 2 1

5 5

4 4

3 3

2 2

1 1

57
Section V - Comments: Please use this space for any comments you wish to make.

____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________

Thank you for your cooperation in participating this survey questionnaire. Your contribution is highly appreciated. Should you need further clarification, kindly contact the person below. Please e-mail this survey questionnaire to mridha@johor.gov.my.

Correspondence address: Mohammed Ridha bin Abd. Kadir JKR 1968 Jalan Serama 3 80200 Johor Bahru Johor Darul Tazim. Contact No: 019-7282000

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