The readiness for m-government in a South African provincial government

Abstract

This study aims at determining the m-Readiness of a Province for m-Government from a context of its Provincial Government (PG), the underprivileged citizens of the region and the mobile fluency thereof. In answering the research question, i.e., “What is the extent of readiness of the government and that of the underprivileged citizens for introduction of m-Government within the region under study”, literature was reviewed and existing models synthesised, and from that, a conceptual model was presented which acted as a reference point. The research process used a quantitative method and utilised a stratified random sampling method in determining and adequately representing the populations under study, namely, underprivileged citizens and IT managers and specialists from the PG’s office. Descriptive statistics were adopted in analysing the collected data used in answering the research questions and findings presented. The findings show that the Province is m-Ready for m-Government services, from the studied contexts of the PG, underprivileged citizens and mobile fluency. The reference model, that is, the Provincial Mobile Readiness Measurement Model (PMRMM), was developed from a perspective of the Province under study, therefore, its theoretical generalizability to other Provinces has to be first studied before being implemented. Secondly, the study only looked at three segments of the government service delivery value chain, which are the Government-to-Citizen (G2C), Government-to-Employee (G2E) and Governmentto- Government (G2G). The contributions of the study are twofold, firstly as a practical decision-making guide regarding introduction of m-Government and secondly, it adds to the conceptual understanding of government readiness for introduction of government services via ICT mobile platforms.