The Influence of Government Support and Awareness on M-Government Adoption in Rural Tanzania: The Mediating Role of Perceived Characteristics of Innovation

Abstract

Mobile government is considered to be the best solution in providing public services in developing countries. Tanzania, without exclusive has adopted m-government services to improve accessibility of public services particularly in rural areas. However, literature has shown that lack of awareness and inadequate government support limit the acceptance of m-government in rural areas. This implies that it is difficult for the government and rural citizens to realize the potential of m-government if the current situation persists. Furthermore, literature has revealed that no evidence of any empirical behavioral study has examined factors influencing rural farmers’ behavioral intention to adopt m-government services in Tanzania. Therefore, this study fills the existing gap by conducting an empirical behavioral study that examines factors which motivate rural farmers to adopt m-government services. The study extended Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) with government support and awareness to examine the rural farmers’ behavioral intention to adopt m-government services. The study employed stratification and multi-stage sampling techniques with simple random sampling to select units of interest. A survey was conducted by using Drop Off / Pick Up method to collect 407 valid and reliable responses. Structural equation modeling was employed to test and confirm the study’s hypotheses. The findings show that government support, relative advantage, ease-of-use, compatibility, result demonstrability, and visibility have direct and positive significant influence on rural farmers’ behavioral intention to adopt m-government services. Furthermore, the findings indicate that awareness has indirect and positive significant effect on rural farmers’ behavioral intention through relative advantage, ease-of-use, compatibility, and visibility. The study expands the existing scholars’ knowledge on adoption of m-government services in Tanzania and other developing countries. It provides useful implications for policy makers to increase the adoption of m-government in rural areas.