Positioning e‐government services in the credence based setting: Illustrating an Indian context

Abstract

Purpose

The article aims to identify the possibility of contextual shift in traditional notions of e‐government service environment. The authors propose the existence of a new institutional entity as core service providers in addition to the government (G) and citizens (C) in the existing G2C e‐government service environments. Considering the nature of actors involved, the authors position the new e‐government environment under “credence based” service setting that emphasizes user's perspective. The work expands the scope of e‐government to accommodate a much broader range of similar services.

Design/methodology/approach

Scenario study has been chosen to understand the proposed contextual shift in traditional e‐government service setting. Study of one of the e‐government practices – “e‐counseling in India” – has been illustrated to advocate the authors' viewpoint. The data is collected from authorized government websites in India that offer e‐counseling services. In addition, 15 in‐depth interviews were also performed with government officials and users to have a deeper understanding about the new service setting.

Findings

The study has revealed and defended the authors' proposition on “contextual shift” and validated the existence of “credence based” setting in e‐government service environments. Moreover, it provides preliminary insights about why and how information quality can be a critical element for the aforesaid setting.

Practical implications

Identification of “credence based” e‐government service environments may require a different design strategy for structures, policies, systems, and services to fulfil the user expectations.

Originality/value

Attention is given to developing credence based context for G2C e‐government environments. This “contextual shift” identified in this paper contributes to the existing stream of research that emphasizes user's perspective in e‐government services.

Citation

Amritesh, Misra, S.C. and Chatterjee, J. (2013), "Positioning e‐government services in the credence based setting: Illustrating an Indian context", Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 7 No. 3, pp. 393-409. https://doi.org/10.1108/TG-08-2012-0006