Dr. Fakhoury is an ICT project manager with responsibilities coordinating and managing multiple projects for government entities at UNDP and the Office of the Minister of State for Administrative Reform in Lebanon. She has handled projects dealing with quality management, document management, workflow, archiving systems, data centers, and information security for public and private bodies. Dr. Fakhoury has been a guest lecturer and master’s/DBA supervisor at several Universities, teaching courses that focus on ICT as well as customer relations (e-government, project management).
E-government refers to the use of information and communication technology to improve public
administration. The adoption of e-government systems by end users remains below expectations
and the efforts of many countries remain vain. Scholars have found that the low adoption and use
of e-government services and the lack of awareness by end users for public e-services are still
major barriers to successful e-government implementation. Among the critical actions suggested
by scholars, consumer education through training is priority one.
This thesis explores the potential effect of consumer education on behavioural intention to use egovernment
services during initial learning experience, this critical time period where end users
decide whether to adopt the service or not.
A literature review provides an advanced definition of both e-government and consumer
education and their outcomes and challenges. A structural model depicts the impact of consumer
education on behavioural intention to use e-government services during initial learning
experience. The experimental fieldwork is conducted in Lebanon on a sample of 262 citizens.
The survey gathers empirical evidence based on key factors of the Unified Theory of Acceptance
and the Use of Technology v2 (UTAUT2) and Trustworthiness.
The results from the research lead to several managerial recommendations in form of guidelines
to public entities and policy makers to use in future development and implementation of egovernment
services.
Keywords: consumer education, knowledge, behavioral intention to use, UTAUT2, egovernment,
trustworthiness, habit, Lebanon
