Digital transformation of public services: a multi-level analysis of e-government, m-government, and smart government

This thesis examines the impact of digital transformation on public service by analyzing multi levels; e-government, m-government and smart government across three papers. The first paper examines the role of external rewards in e-government services adoption in Jordan, extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to include external rewards as an extrinsic motivator, using national survey data, the results revealed that external rewards significantly increase citizens’ likelihood of e-government adoption when moderated by demographics and digital skills. The second paper explores how the citizen sentiment toward the national m-government application in Jordan is affected by media announcements, mandatory adoption, and different stages of the app development, by analyzing over 10,000 user reviews through sentiment analysis, topic modeling, regression, and fsQCA, it shows that app improvements and positive media framing enhance the public sentiment, while mandatory adoption raises resistance. The third paper investigates why countries lag behind AI implementation despite their AI readiness, proposing an extended TOE-G framework that incorporates governance alongside technology, organization, and environment, using data from 77 countries, the results revealed that while technological and environmental factors drive AI implementation, excessive governance may negatively affect the progress. Collectively, these papers contribute to the literature on e-government, m-government, and smart government by offering multi-level insights for policymakers to improve the adoption of public services.