The influence of local government responsiveness and information quality on citizen acceptance of e-participation: An experimental study

Digital citizen participation is becoming increasingly important for improving government-citizen relationship, building active citizenship, and optimizing the efficiency of governments. Despite the potential, there are often far-reaching problems concerning the number and composition of participants, which often fall short of the expectations of local governments. Therefore, for e-participation to be successful, citizens must accept and use it. While numerous empirical studies have analyzed influencing factors such as the socio-demographic characteristics of citizens, the influence of the interaction between local governments and citizens within the procedures has been neglected. This article attempts to investigate the extent to which employee responsiveness and information quality influence citizens' acceptance of e-participation. Using an experimental design, the study confirms the influence of both factors.