Citizen‐to‐Citizen Interaction and Information Quality in E‐Government: The Role of Cognitive Social Capital

ABSTRACT Although citizen‐to‐citizen (C2C) interaction is increasingly embedded in e‐government use, the role of social interaction and its relationship with peer‐driven information flows remain largely underexplored. This study examines how online citizen‐to‐citizen social capital is associated with citizens’ perceived quality of e‐government‐related information shared within informal online peer networks. Drawing on survey data from welfare‐service users in secondary (Tier‐2 and Tier‐3) Indian cities, this study finds that structural and relational social capital are positively interrelated with cognitive social capital, but they are not directly associated with perceived information quality. Only cognitive social capital is significantly associated with a higher perceived quality of peer‐shared e‐government information. These results suggest that network connectedness and interpersonal trust may facilitate information flow without necessarily improving perceived information quality. Instead, shared understanding, communicative clarity, and interpretive alignment are more closely associated with citizens’ evaluations of the reliability, timeliness, and usefulness of government‐related information circulating through peer networks. The study contributes to digital government research by conceptualizing civic interpretive capacity as an explanatory lens for understanding how citizens evaluate peer‐shared e‐government information in contexts of uneven administrative communication.