Edinburgh Napier University

  The success of the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's (HKSARG) e-government initiatives is dependent on the government employees' acceptance and use of the underpinning information, internet and communication technologies (IT). Unfortunately, only a few empirical researches have been conducted to investigate the drivers of IT usage in government workplaces.To predict IT usage, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been tested and demonstrated its predictive power in various contexts. But it does not provide guidance to managers because Davis grouped the antecedents to the TAM constructs as "external factors" so as to focus on the main part of the model and to keep it robust. Hence, these factors are the ultimate drivers that determine the users' behaviors.This research aims to improve the explanatory power of TAM by identifying and including resistance to change (RTC) as a relevant external factor with the assistance from Max Weber's Theory of Bureaucracy (TB). To test the augmented TAM, an email questionnaire survey to 700 randomly selected HKSARG IT users was conducted.
Additional information was gathered from senior management to validate the survey results. The results show that the IT users in HKSARG are not valuing usefulness and ease of use of IT in the same manner as employees in most other contexts. In addition, the results confirm that RTC is a relevant and strong external variable to TAM. In line with theories, HKSARG employees, as a whole, tend to have above average level of resistance to change. But statistical test results also revealed that there are heterogeneous behavioural groups within HKSARG. Specifically, younger or more educated users are more willing to change. The existence of these groups has both practical and managerial implications for implementing change.In particular, it is argued that the government should not be viewed and understood monolithically. A better strategy for management to implement change is to target the younger or more educated users first for piloting and to build up sufficient user mass and exert peer pressure to older or less educated users for a more successful implementation of IT across all staff.
Because of the weaknesses of the established policies, the HKSARG has an undesirable structural composition (high percentage of older and less educated employees) in the face of change. To tackle the high level of resistance to change, it is suggested that continuous training is a must. Moreover, the training packages should be tailor-made for various groups in the civil service to suit their specific needs and to enhance their capabilities. In the long term, it is recommended that the human resources management policies should be reviewed and modified with an aim to adjust the structural composition of the civil service toward a more change ready workforce. In addition, more research on the characteristics of the public sector is required for a better understanding of the real nature of these large bureaucratic organizations.