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Evaluating and optimizing e‐government services is imperative for governments especially due to the capacity of e‐services to transform public administrations and assist the interactions of governments with citizens, businesses and other government agencies. Existing widely applied evaluation approaches neglect to incorporate citizens' satisfaction measures. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to contribute to the understanding of citizen‐centric e‐government evaluation and unify existing key performance indicators (KPIs); and to propose a reference process model of a novel evaluation approach that uses the unified KPIs to facilitate the creation of a “know‐how” repository.

The authors adopt a quantitative research approach for the evaluation of e‐government services that is based on data envelope analysis (DEA). A survey was conducted for the empirical investigation and data were collected from 13 e‐government services in Turkey. Based on the empirical application of the e‐government evaluation method, a reference process model is designed.

The proposed evaluation method was proved valid and able to provide assessment with richer explanations than traditional statistical measurements. DEA enabled the identification of insufficient e‐government services and the provision of suggested improvements.

The reference process model is constructed based on the experience gained by applying the method to a sole cultural setting;, i.e. e‐government services in Turkey.

The proposed evaluation method, in comparison to other user‐oriented ones, provided assessments with richer explanations than traditional statistical measurements, such as structured equation modelling. The reference process model constructed based on the empirical research is expected to accelerate the citizen‐oriented evaluation of e‐government and promote impact‐oriented indicators.

This is the first application of DEA in the e‐government field, although it has been widely applied for performance measurement in other fields, especially operations research. The novelty of DEA is that the assessment results provide suggestions for strategic improvement of the e‐services.

This study aims to examine the individuals’ perceived usefulness and ease of use of the government’s electronic services (e-government). It also explores the effect of the social influences, as well as of the facilitating conditions, on the individuals’ intentions to use the government’s digital and mobile services.

The researcher has adapted various measuring items from the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology and from the theory of acceptance model to investigate the participants’ utilitarian motivations to engage with the government’s online services. The analysis involved a two-step, structural equation modeling approach that included a confirmatory factor analysis that verified the constructs’ validity and reliability.

There was a satisfactory fit for this study’s research model. The findings revealed that there were direct and indirect effects that predicted the individuals’ readiness to use the e-government services. The results suggest that the respondents’ perceived usefulness and ease of use of this digital technology were significant antecedents for their behavioral intention to use it. The strength of these relationships was affected by the moderating variables, including, age, gender and experience. Yet, these demographic variables did not have a significant effect on the link between social influences and behavioral intention.

This study reported that the citizens felt that the e-government systems were useful and easy to use for them. The research participants indicated that they will continue accessing their government’s online services. Therefore, this research implies that the public services should continue improving the facilitating conditions, including the provision of service quality and capability; as well as secure the accessibility to their e-government systems via digital and mobile technologies. In conclusion, this contribution identifies possible research avenues to academia.

This paper aims to debate the main factors influencing trust in mobile government (m-government) in the developing country of Jordan. The transformation from government services offered through a government website to services offered via smartphone devices needs further investigation to better understand the factors that might influence citizens’ trust in m-government, in particular, young citizens. This paper presents the concept of m-government and reports on a study of the main predictors affecting citizens’ trust in it. The theoretical framework used is based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT).

A survey study of 510 Jordanian young citizens, who had access to the internet and were smartphone users, investigated the influence of the identified factors on their trust in m-government. The hypotheses testing used multiple regression analysis.

Contrary to previous claims reported in relation to facilitating conditions, the following predictors: trust in government, word of mouth (WOM), social influence and facilitating conditions were found to be significant factors in predicting Jordanian citizens’ trust in m-government services.

This is one of few studies to investigate what influences trust in m-government by citizens in Jordan. The current research significantly contributes to the literature by incorporating factors from the UTAUT model with personal perception factors to elucidate m-government adoption. The integration of UTAUT with factors such as “WOM”, is a direction that can be followed in research on the adoption of and trust in e-government and m-government by citizens in any social community. This study clearly identities the relationship between m-government trust and the WOM construct, which is rarely discussed in this type of research context. Although the facilitating conditions construct is claimed to be non-significant in the presence of performance expectancy and effort expectancy, the current research shows the importance of including the facilitating conditions construct when considering the topic of m-government trust in Jordan. Finally, this paper provides a foundation for future empirical studies on the adoption of m-government.

Legislative action was historically the means by which U.S. states abolished capital punishment, but such action ceased for decades following the Supreme Court's 1976 Gregg decision that reaffirmed the constitutionality of the death penalty. Despite the fact that several legislatures have considered abolition bills in the modern era, only three states successfully enacted such legislation. It is my purpose in this study to analyze why states are currently struggling to pass abolition legislation and to determine which factors contribute to success. I conduct a comparative, qualitative case study of New Jersey, the first state to legislatively abolish since 1976, and Maryland, a similar state whose abolition effort recently failed. I analyze the content of legislators’ debates about the abolition bills in committee and on the legislature floor, as well as news coverage of the abolition efforts in each state's largest newspapers. I reach two primary conclusions. First, an abolition bill is more likely to be passed by Democrats than Republicans, but unified Democratic control of the government is not a sufficient condition for abolition. Second, arguments about the risk of wrongful executions and the deleterious collateral consequences of the death penalty process on the family members of murder victims are powerful sources of political support for abolition, especially where doubts about the deterrent effect of the death penalty are widespread. This study reaffirms the central importance of the innocence frame in the modern death penalty debate, and it presents the first scholarly analysis of the collateral consequences frame. These findings may help activists in the abolition movement more effectively frame their arguments to appeal to legislators.

To explore state employee union density, this paper discusses determinants of state sector union density and then empirically examines the linkages of the determinants and state union membership in the USA.

After operationalizing and measuring the indicators of the crucial determinants of state employee union density, this study conducts a cross-sectional analysis on state sector union density. The dependent variable used in this study is state employee union density in the USA. The independent variables used in this study are the presence of a liberal state government, the presence of collective bargaining laws, the size of a budget deficit, and an unemployment rate which could determine state sector union density.

This study finds that state union density is not determined by the size of budget deficits and the presence of liberal governors but by the presence of collective bargaining laws and liberal state legislatures and unemployment rates. Additionally, this study reveals that unified governments can make a difference in state employee union density. For instance, liberal states controlling both the state executive and legislative branches have a positive impact on state employee union density, while conservative states ruling both branches have a negative impact on state union density.

This paper analyzed pooled cross-sectional data on state employee union density in the US with regards to crucial legal, political, financial, and economic variables.

This paper aims to analyze the impact of the degree of local government decision-making competition on the optimal investment amount, investment location and investment failure of innovative investment enterprise under multiple risk appetite type of innovative investment enterprise. This paper also points out three regulation paths that central government could use to avoid the influence of local government decision-making competition on the validity of enterprise innovation investment (EII).

Based on analysis frame of government competition about unitary government states, this paper builds duopoly decision model to analyze influence of local government decision-making competition on EII. Considering information asymmetry and multiple risk appetite type of decision-maker, this paper analyzes influence of local government decision-making competition on location selection, the optimal investment amount, identification of investment failure and exit mechanism of EII according to different relationship between reference points of local government decision-making competition and EII.

The optimal investment amount of EII has positive correlation with risk appetite type of decision-maker, local government decision-making competition. Identification of investment failure and exit are divided into three phases. The boundary conditions are directly related to risk appetite type and amount of local government subsidy. Regional factor endowment and degree of preferential policy are main factors attracting enterprise investment. Local governments should analyze the interests of EII. There are three paths to avoid vicious competition among local governments: unified planning, revising of audit index, increasing penalties for failure of policies.

With rapid development of China's new urbanization process, urban economy has become an important carrier of economic development. Attracting foreign direct investment is an important measure to promote urban economic growth, and EII is the most important one. However new urbanization would lead to local government decision-making competition and then influence EII. Through analyzing influence of local government decision-making competition on EII, theory guidance could be provided to decision makers of innovation investment.

This study examines the effect of multidimensional constructs on citizen loyalty to e-government services. More specifically, it examines the effects of service quality, trust and satisfaction on loyalty to these services.

The data were collected via a questionnaire that was completed by 780 foundation-year students in government universities in Saudi Arabia. The students who participated in the study had used a unified system provided by the Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia for university admission. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling.

The key findings revealed that the factors service quality, trust in government, trust in e-government services and citizen satisfaction play a significant role in developing citizen loyalty to e-government services. Trust in government has the strongest direct effect on citizen loyalty to e-government services, and service quality has the strongest total effect on citizen loyalty. In contrast, citizen satisfaction has the least significant influence on citizen loyalty to e-government services.

This study proposes a new model for citizen loyalty to e-government services that combines the service quality model and trust theory. In addition, this study is among the first to categorise trust into three factors – trust in government, trust in e-government and disposition to trust – and integrate them into a model. Furthermore, the study reveals the roles of satisfaction and service quality in developing citizen loyalty. The findings of this study fill a gap in knowledge on citizen trust in, satisfaction with and loyalty to e-government services.

The issue of the reunification of North and South Korea attracted worldwide attention in June 2000, when the historic summit meeting between the two top Korean leaders was held in North Korea. Although recently the two Koreas have stepped up their efforts toward reconciliation, international scholars and researchers in Korean studies seem to agree that Korean reunification will be slow and difficult. For this reason, they are researching possible solutions to the critical problems involved, and thus there has been an upsurge of published materials on reunification. This annotated bibliography aims to serve as a guide to these materials. Although this bibliography is selective in that it is limited to literature published in English since 1996, it has wide content coverage and includes books, journals, government publications, special reports, research papers, and Websites. Given the complicated and dynamic situation in Korea, this bibliography will be of use to those who are concerned with Korean reunification.

The range of pressures which has impacted on local government in the 1980s has forced the emergence of dynamic and sophisticated forms of industrial relations at the workplace level. It is clear, however, that with conceptual tools forged to analyse developments in the private manufacturing sector, very few attempts have been made by academics, policy‐makers or commentators to discuss the structures and processes which have emerged. The character of the changes at authority level are considered using material from a survey of personnel officers in over a third of authorities in England and Wales and within the context of prevailing analytical and theoretical frameworks. It is argued that the distinctive development of the personnel function in local government has resulted in a managerial process which conforms to key features of the human resource management (HRM) model, in particular the devolution of personnel responsibilities to line managers and the integration of personnel concerns at the strategic level. However, other features of this model are less in evidence. The search for employee commitment and flexibility remains patchy and often appears as a practical response to labour market and competitive pressures. Furthermore, collectivist features of employee relations remain well entrenched with the continued encouragement of both union membership and involvement. This is not to deny change beyond the HRM model. Thus, it is clear that established joint machinery is becoming increasingly unable to deal with ongoing issues while the trade unions are gradually being forced into a consultative rather than a bargaining role.

This chapter examines the development of accounting thought and practices in China with the purpose of illustrating its relevance to current accounting policies and practices. The review indicates that changes in accounting in China did not usually occur completely and easily. Over the past three decades, while Chinese accounting has gradually moved toward the Anglo-American model, convergence has presented unique features in China. For example, the review suggests that the accounting reforms in China have been heavily government-driven and that uniform accounting systems still remain. Chinese regulators maintain a cautious attitude toward the application of fair value and professional judgment, which are essentially the center of the Anglo-American accounting system. Furthermore, Chinese accounting regulators have a different view of business combinations from the IASB and have developed alternative accounting methods for those transactions. China’s departure from IFRS reflects its politico-economic context and essentially challenges the IASB’s goal of achieving international accounting convergence. China’s approach to internationally acceptable practices is likely to have implications for the effectiveness of the imported ideas.