Factors Influencing Citizen Engagement with E-Governance Services Provided by Social Entrepreneurs

Shilpa D Korde
Assistant Professor, Rosary College of Commerce and Arts, Navelim Salcete, Goa, India; and is the corresponding author. E-mail: shilpakorde2023@gmail.com

S V Sukthankar
Associate Professor, Government College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Khandola, Marcela, Goa, India. E-mail: svsukh@yahoo.co.in

The study aims to evaluate the factors that influence citizens in availing e-governance services from social entrepreneurs operating Common Service Centers (CSCs) in the state of Goa, India. CSCs, managed by social entrepreneurs, also known as Village-Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs), serve as intermediaries between the government and citizens, facilitating the delivery of e-governance services. The research methodology employs factor analysis to identify the factors affecting citizen adoption. Data was collected from 120 respondents across the state. The findings of the study reveal that ease of obtaining assistance, usefulness of CSCs, social influence, reliability, physical facilities, and trust are the significant influencing factors for citizens in availing e-governance services from social entrepreneurs in Goa. These factors shed light on the critical aspects that shape citizens' engagement with e-governance services facilitated by social entrepreneurs at CSCs. The findings have practical implications for the government, social entrepreneurs, and policymakers in enhancing the effectiveness and adoption of e-governance services.

Introduction
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) play a vital role in delivering e-governance services (Estevez and Janowski, 2013). In particular, e-governance transforms the way of working and improves the government's interaction with citizens with the help of ICTs. ICT has also altered public administration by transforming business and policy processes and external interactions (Meijer and Bekkers, 2015). There are several benefits of providing services through ICT over traditional means of services, such as less paperwork, elimination of wastage of resources, increased transparency, and so on (Dwivedi et al., 2017). Despite these benefits, there are specific reasons for the failure of e-governance initiatives due to low computer literacy and lack of Internet access.

To overcome such imbalance, there is a need for a solution that will enable every citizen to adopt the e-governance services at large. In 2006, to improve the accessibility for the citizens of e-governance services, the Government of India, through the National e-Governance Plan, set up social enterprises known as Common Service Centers (CSCs) with high-speed broadband connectivity in about 2,50,000 villages covering all the states (Sharma and Mishra, 2017). These centers bridge the service delivery gap between the government and the citizens. The different features of CSCs are generation of revenue, environmental and social growth, resource facilitation to deprived communities and preference for social capital (Chopra and Rajan, 2016). A social entrepreneur acts as an intermediary helping citizens to deliver e-governance services. A focused study will likely provide insights of immense value in Goa and other states planning to use such CSCs to deliver e-governance services. Citizens can get various benefits from CSC, such as Aadhar Card Registration, Insurance services, Aadhaar Enrollment, Passport, e-Aadhaar letter download, Birth and Death Certificates, and so on. Accordingly, the present study identifies and evaluates the factors influencing citizens in availing e-governance services from social entrepreneurs in Goa.

Literature Review
Anne Vorre Hansen et al. (2022) investigated the significance of social entrepreneurs within the public sector to facilitate transformative networks for public sector innovation. Alryalat et al. (2015) explored the adoption of an e-government system called the Online PAN Card Registration System (OPCRS) in the context of India. It validates the extended proposed research model called the extended Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) with the variables, including perceived trust, perceived usefulness, and self-efficacy as antecedents of subjective norm and attitude to understand the impact of factors on the citizen's intention to adopt the system. The findings indicated that there is a significant relationship between all proposed hypotheses.

Choudhury and Ghosh (2015) studied CSCs in Tripura. It covered the level of awareness among rural people regarding e-governance, the services provided by CSCs, problems faced by rural people in availing or accessing services, and the socioeconomic status of users of CSCs. CSCs facilitate easy accessibility of various services near the residence of the people. CSCs play a significant role in rural development. Lack of human resources and power failure are the critical issues faced by CSCs.

Dwivedi et al. (2021) advocated that social media can be leveraged to highlight social entrepreneurs' efforts (VLEs) using various tools, such as artificial intelligence, mobile marketing, e-WOM, augmented reality, and digital content management. Ebad and Ryhan (2015) highlighted issues and challenges faced by a Service Center Agency (SCA) in the implementation of CSCs in selected zones of eight states in India. The main obstacles threatening the rollout of CSCs in the states on schedule are technical (Internet connectivity and electricity), administrative (bureaucracy and government support), awareness, financial, government to citizen service, and manpower. The level of capacity building on the part of Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs) was also poor. VLEs had doubts about the projects' future existence, viability, and profitability. Failure of the government to offer more and more G2C services as promised through CSCs on time resulted in setback of VLEs from the project and thus threatened CSCs' rollout in these states.

Kumar Sahoo and Patra (2018) revealed that research would provide valuable insights for governmental and non-governmental organizations in encouraging young individuals and women in rural areas to establish telecenters for delivering government services. The results serve as a compeling argument to motivate more local workers to pursue improved livelihood opportunities and foster successful electronic governance. Kaushik Datta and Anant Saxena (2013) studied the gap between e-governance and entrepreneurship in rural India. They tried to fill this gap by throwing light on the benefits derived from the CSC project and some of the major bottlenecks of the project. The study concluded with significant recommendations to overcome these bottlenecks to increase the impact of e-governance and entrepreneurship.

Prakash (2016) suggested that projects of e-governance in government organizations engaged in public service delivery are more effective in achieving e-governance outcomes. Mishra and Tapasvi (2021) evaluated the central role of social entrepreneurs in implementing public schemes by integrating the services. Infrastructure support, conducive infrastructure, functional space for social innovation and motivation are other essentials for sustainability and scalability. Olanrewaju Hossain et al. (2020) indicated the increase in use of social media by social entrepreneurs for marketing their services as well as for searching and networking with stakeholders. Uthaman and Vasanthagopal (2020) proved that common service centers provide various G2C and G2B services to India's rural populace. The main aim of this study was to see the link between Akshaya e-kendras' e-governance service quality and outcome variables such as perceived ease of use, perceived utility, satisfaction, and trust. The findings show these factors' mediating influence on recipients' behavioral intentions.

Voutinioti (2013), based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) constructs, concluded that intermediaries (VLEs) help to build trust in providing e-governance services and also found that effort expectancy was the most robust construct of adoption by the citizens along with faith, performance expectancy, and social influence. One important channel for disseminating e-governance services to the citizens is social entrepreneurs, known as VLEs. However, no empirical study has specifically investigated the factors responsible for enhancing the adoption of e-governance services, which is the context of this study.

Research Problem
The Government of India implemented CSCs as the mission mode project under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) in 2006 to deliver e-governance services effectively. Enhancing the adoption of these e-governance services on a largescale in most of the states of India is an empirical development to improve delivery of services. In Goa, there are around 217 centers headed by social entrepreneurs. However, lack of understanding among the citizens regarding the usage of CSCs is a significant issue. Therefore, to find the gaps and factors responsible for the same, empirical research efforts are required. Given the above observations, there is a need for studying the factors responsible for enhancing the adoption, especially in the state of Goa.

Research Question
What are the factors that influence citizens in availing e-governance services from social entrepreneurs?

Objective
To identify and evaluate the elements that impact citizens' utilization of e-governance services provided by social entrepreneurs.

Data and Methodology
The study is based on literature review and reveals prior research on e-governance service delivery through CSCs in rural areas. Primary data was collected through a survey questionnaire (see Appendix) from 120 respondents using simple random sampling during the period January 2023 to March 2023. After collecting survey data, factor analysis was carried out, where the items were measured using a 5-point Likert scale.

Results and Discussion
As shown in Table 1, 60% of the respondents are male. A large proportion of the respondents are in the age group of 26 to 35 years (30%). The educational qualification ranged from HSSC to professional, wherein 31.67% of respondents are graduates.

The factors used for analysis are ease of obtaining service, usefulness of CSC, social influence, reliability, physical facilities, and trust. Factor analysis is used to analyze the data. Significant factors were considered for the study, and 24 variables were used. These variables are compressed into six main factors revealing citizens' preference toward enhancing the adoption of e-governance services through CSCs. These factors are named as under:

Ease of Obtaining Service at CSC: Ease of getting service at CSC is defined as 'the degree of comfort with which e-governance services can be obtained through CSCs'. VLEs at the centers provide several functions, such as explaining the procedure to citizens, providing guidance, and filling up the forms. Ease of obtaining service has eigen value of 2.431 and explains 11.572% of the total variance.

Usefulness of CSC: Citizens may find the CSC system valid if it provides government service quickly and at reasonable prices. This system benefits users by reducing the price and the time to avail the service. 'Usefulness of CSC' is defined as "the degree to which an individual believes that the CSC will be applicable for availing e-governance services". Usefulness of CSC has eigen value of 2.408 and explains 11.462% of the total variance.

Social Influence: Social influence is defined as "the degree to which it is perceived by the user that others believe it essential for using CSC for obtaining e-governance services". Social influence has eigen value of 2.405 and explains 11.448% of the total variance.

Reliability: Aspects covered under the factor of reliability include timely delivery of service as promised, open during working hours, timely redressal of their queries, and so on. Reliability has eigen value of 2.284 and explains 10.870% of the total variance.

Physical Facilities: Users visiting the centers to avail services desire a decent space with specific amenities such as a pleasing environment, seating facility, drinking water, and so on. Parasuraman et al. (1988) define it as "physical facilities equipment and appearance of personnel at the CSC." Physical facilities has eigen value of 2.644 and explains 9.828% of the total variance.

Trust: It is the extent to which an individual is willing to place faith in another person's actions, anticipating a specific outcome, regardless of their ability to monitor or control the other person. Trust plays a significant role in the adoption of e-governance services. Trust has eigen value of 2.561 and explains 9.431% of the total variance.

Conclusion
Social entrepreneurs serve as pivotal catalysts for the effective implementation of e-governance services, directly engaging with citizens and driving their success. The primary purpose of the study was to identify and evaluate the elements that impact citizens' utilization of e-governance services provided by social entrepreneurs.

The study identified ease of obtaining assistance, usefulness of CSC, social influence, reliability, physical facilities, and trust for enhancing the adoption of e-governance services through CSCs in the state of Goa. These results have implications for decision-making for improving the effectiveness of CSC as an essential channel for delivering e-governance services. The Government of Goa should implement training programs for entrepreneurs to improve customer relationship management, awareness creation about their CSCs, website access, revenue generation and record maintaining.

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