Citizens' Acceptance and Readiness towards Adopting E-Participation Tools in Kingdom of Bahrain

Abstract

Technology has become an integral element in the life of communities. One of the major fields that Technology is playing a major role is the citizens’ participation through what is called E-Participation. E-Participation is the use of Technology to enhance participation between different stakeholders and governments. It increases transparency, enhances the communication between the government and stakeholders including citizens, and enables them to involve in policy making process. E-Participation by its real mean is now applied in Kingdom of Bahrain. Therefore, it is useful to measure the acceptance and readiness of citizens towards E-Participation tools. This research is to investigate the factors that affect citizens' acceptance and readiness to use EParticipation tools. Towards this aim, 250 questionnaires were collected from citizens in Kingdom of Bahrain at different ages over 18 years. The findings of this research revealed that there are significant factors that influence citizens’ readiness and acceptance of E-Participation tools including optimum, innovation, insecurity, and discomfort. This research provides the government of Kingdom of Bahrain insights on factors that are important to enhance the readiness and acceptance of their citizens towards using E-Participation tools