Global comparative study on the relationship between user's traits and public e-service quality

The study in this chapter aims to understand the relationship between user intrinsic factors and perceived e-service quality, as well as consequent satisfaction. From an interdisciplinary perspective, five major and influential factors are generated, and related hypotheses are formed according to previous research. Two leading-edge cities in terms of e-service implementation, Taipei and Tokyo, are adopted to examine the hypotheses. Because of the limitation of sample size, a sophisticated yet accountable statistical methodology called Partial Least Square (PLS) is employed in this study. The results point toward five intrinsic factors being partially significant in the Taipei and Tokyo cases, respectively. While much of e-government or e-service research has focused on system or internal efficiency improvement, this study tries to raise another important topic regarding user traits, user perception of quality, and causality. Meanwhile, by integrating different kinds of theories and perspectives, namely sociology, management and informatics, a comprehensive blueprint can be fully discussed. The findings contribute to our knowledge of theoretical development in e-governance, service marketing, and policy marketing. In addition, the empirical results can be used as a general principal reference for other cities planning to implement e-services and can be used as specific evaluation criteria by which the two cities in the cases studies can further understand their users.