skip to main content
10.5555/1248460.1248488acmotherconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication Pagesdg-oConference Proceedingsconference-collections
Article

Channel choice determinants; an exploration of the factors that determine the choice of a service channel in citizen initiated contacts

Published: 20 May 2007 Publication History

Abstract

Citizens have various service channels at their disposal to interact with governmental agencies. In this paper we explore citizens' motives to choose a certain channel in a certain situation. We conducted a qualitative study to accumulate the most important behavioral determinants. Six groups of determinants were found; habit, channel characteristics, task characteristics, situational constraints, experiences and personal characteristics. People appear to generally follow two lines of decision making when choosing channels, the first is based on habits. When task complexity and ambiguity increase, people start reasoning and follow the second line; channel choice based on a thorough elaboration between task and channel characteristics.

References

[1]
Aarts, H. and Dijksterhuis, A. Habits as Knowledge Structures: Automaticity in Goal-Directed Behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78 (1). 53--63.
[2]
Aarts, H., Verplanken, B. and Knippenber, A. v. Predicting behavior from actions in the past: repeated decision making or a matter of habit? Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 28 (15). 1355--1374.
[3]
Adams, D. A., Nelson, R. P. and Todd, P. A. Perceived usefulness, ease of use, and usage of information technology: a replication. MIS Quarterly, 16 (2). 227--247.
[4]
Alba, J., Lynch, J., Weitz, B., Janiszewski, C., Lutz, R. and Wood, S. Interactive Home Shopping: Consumer, Retailer and Manufacturer Incentives to Participate in Electronic Marketplaces. Journal of Marketing, 61. 38--53.
[5]
Allen, T. J. Managing the Flow of Technology: Technology Transfer and the Dissemination of Technological Information within the R&D Organization. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1977.
[6]
Balasubramanian, S., Raghunathan, R. and Mahajan, V. Consumers in a multichannel environment: Product Utility, Process Utility and Channel Choice. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 19 (2). 12--30.
[7]
Barczak, G., Scholder-Ellen, P. and Pilling, B. K. Developing typologies of consumer use of technologically based banking services. Journal of Business Research, 38. 131--139.
[8]
Bateson, J. E. Self-service consumer: an exploratory study. Journal of Retailing, 61 (3). 49--77.
[9]
Berman, B. Marketing Channels. Wiley & Sons, New York, 1996.
[10]
Black, N. J., Lockett, A., Ennew, C., Winklhofer, H. and McKechnie, S. Modelling consumer choice of distribution channels: an illustration from financial services. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 20 (4). 161--173.
[11]
Borins, S. On the frontiers of electronic governance: a report on the United States and Canada. International review of administrative sciences, 68. 199--211.
[12]
Brown, J. S., Collins, A. and Duguird, D. Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning. Educational Researcher, 18 (1). 32--42.
[13]
Carlson, J. R. and Zmud, R. W. Channel Expansion Theory: A dynamic view of media and information richness perceptions. Academy of Management Best Papers Proceedings 1994. 280--284.
[14]
Choo, C. W. The Knowing Organization: How Organizations Use Information to construct Meaning, Create Knowledge, and Make Decisions. Oxford University Press, New York, 1998.
[15]
Choo, C. W., Detlor, B. and Turnbull, D. Web work. Information seeking and knowledge work on the World Wide Web. Kluwer, Dordrecht, 2000.
[16]
Daft, R. L. and Lengel, R. H. Organizational Information Requirements, Media Richness and Structural Design. Management Science, 32 (5). 554--571.
[17]
Davis, F. D. Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and User Acceptance of Information Technology. MIS Quarterly, 13 (3). 318.
[18]
Davis, F. D. A Technology Acceptance Model for Empirically Testing New End User Information Systems: Theory and Results, Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts, 1986.
[19]
Dennis, A. R. and Kinney, S. T. Testing Media Richness Theory in the New Media: The effects of Cues, Feedback, and Task Equivocality. Information Systems Research, 9 (3). 256--274.
[20]
Dervin, B. and Nilan, M. Information Needs and Uses. in Williams, M. E. ed. Annual review of information science and technology, Knowledge Industry Publications, White Plains, NY, 1986, 3--33.
[21]
Dijk, J. A. G. M., van The Deepening Divide, inequility in the information society. Thousand Oaks, London, 2005.
[22]
Ebbers, W., Pieterson, W. and Noordman, H. Rethinking Service and Channel Strategies after the Hype, in Makolm, J. and Orthofer eds. ETaxation State & Perspectives, Trauner Druck, Linz, 2007.
[23]
Ellis, D. A Behavioural Model for Information Retrieval System Design. Journal of Information Science, 15 (4/5). 237--247.
[24]
Fulk, J., Schmitz, J. and Steinfeld, C. W. A Social Influence model of technology use. in Fulk, J. and Steinfeld, C. W. eds. Organizations and Communication technology, Sage Publications, Newbury Park / London / New Delhi, 1990.
[25]
Gore, A. Businesslike Government National Performance Review, National Performance Review, Washington, DC, 1997.
[26]
Hirlinger, M. W. Citizen-Initiated Contacting of Loval Government Officials: A Multivariate Explanation. Journal of Politics, 54 (2). 553--564.
[27]
Jones, B. D., Greenberg, S. R., Kaufman, C. and Drew, J. Bureaucratic Response to Citizen-Initiated Contacts: Environmental Enforcement in Detroit. American Political Science Review, 71 (1). 148--165.
[28]
King, N. The Qualitative Research Interview, in Cassell, C. and Symon, G. eds. Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research. A Practical Guide, Sage Publications, London, 1994.
[29]
Krueger, R. A. Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research. Sage Publications, Newbury Park, 1990.
[30]
Lee, J. A Key to Marketing Financial Services: The Right Mix of Products, Services, Channels and Customers. Journal of Services Marketing, 16 (3). 238--258.
[31]
Legris, P., Ingham, J. and Collerette, P. Why do people use information technology? A critical review of the technology acceptance model. Information & Management, 40. 191--204.
[32]
Marchionini, G. Information Seeking in Electronic Environments, in Long, J. ed. Cambridge Series on Human-Computer Interaction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1995.
[33]
McQuail, D. With more hindsight: conceptual problems and some ways forward for media use research. Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 26 (4). 337--350.
[34]
Morrison, P. D. and Roberts, J. H. Matching Electronic Distribution Channels to Product Characteristics: The Role of Congruence in Consideration Set Formation. Journal of Business Research, 41. 223--229.
[35]
Patricio, L., Fisk, R. P. and Falcao e Cunha, J. Improving Satisfaction with Bank Service Offerings: Measuring the Contribution of each Delivery Channel. Managing Service Quality, 13 (6). 471--482.
[36]
Patton, M. Q. Qualitative evaluation and research methods. Sage Publications, Newbury Park, 1990.
[37]
Pieterson, W. and van Dijk, J. Governmental Service Channel Positioning. Gronlund, A., Scholl, H. J., Andersen, K. V. and Wimmer, M. A. eds. Communication Proceedings of the Fifth International EGOV Conference 2006, Trauner Druck, Krakow, Poland, 2006.
[38]
Reddick, C. G. Citizen-Initiated Contacts with Government Comparing Phones and Websites. Journal of E-Government, 2 (1). 27--53.
[39]
Reddick, C. G. Citizen Interaction with E-government: From the Streets to Servers. Government Information Quarterly, 22. 38--57.
[40]
Savolainen, R. and Kari, J. Placing the Internet in information source horizons. A study of information seeking by Internet users in the context of self-development. Library & Information Science Research, 26. 415--433.
[41]
Schellong, A. and Mans, D. Citizens preferences towards one-stop government The 2004 annual national conference on Digital Government research, ACM International Conference Proceeding Series, Seattle, WA, 2004.
[42]
Strauss, A. L. and Corbin, J. Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Methods and Procedures. Sage Publications, Newbury Park, 1990.
[43]
Swanson, E. B. Information Channel Disposition and Use. Decision Sciences, 18 (1). 131--145.
[44]
Szjana, B. Empirical Evaluation of the Revised Technology Acceptance Model. Management Science, 41 (1). 85--92.
[45]
Tauber, E. M. Why do people shop? Journal of Marketing, 36 (October). 46--59.
[46]
Thomas, J. C. Citizen-initiated Contacts with Governmental Agencies: A Test of Three Theories. American Journal of Political Science, 26 (3). 504--522.
[47]
Thomas, J. C. and Streib, G. The New Face of Government: Citizen-Initiated Contacts in the Era of E-Government. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 13 (1). 83--102.
[48]
Trevino, L. K., Webster, J. and Stein, E. W. Making Connections: Complementary Influences on Communication Media Choices, Attitudes, and Use. Organization Science, 11 (2). 163--182.
[49]
van Deursen, A. and Pieterson, W., The Internet as a service channel in the Public Sector, in ICA Conference, (Dresden, Germany, 2006).
[50]
Van Dijk, J., Hanenburg, M. and Pieterson, W. Gebruik van Nederlandse Elektronische Overheidsdiensten in 2006 (Use of Dutch Electronic Government Services in 2006), University of Twente, Enschede, 2006.
[51]
Venkatesh, V. and Davis, F. D. A Model of The Antecedents of Perceived Ease of Use: Development and Test. Decision Sciences, 27 (3). 451--481.
[52]
Webster, J. and Trevino, L. K. Rational and social theories as complementary explanations of communication media choices: two policy-capturing studies. Academy of Managament Journal, 38 (6). 1544--1572.
[53]
Zipf, G. K. Human behavior and the Principle of Least Effort: An Introduction to Human Ecology. Addison-Wesley, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1949.
[54]
Zuckerman, A. S. and West, D. M. The Political Bases of Citizen Contacting: A Cross-National Analysis. The American Political Science Review, 79 (1). 117--131.

Cited By

View all
  • (2018)Biological sex vs. psychological gender-roles in online channel choicesProceedings of the 4th Conference on Gender & IT10.1145/3196839.3196870(199-208)Online publication date: 14-May-2018
  • (2014)E-government intermediaries and the challenges of access and trustACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/255998521:2(1-22)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2014
  • (2014)Shared values/conflicting logicsProceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/2556288.2556971(3583-3592)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2014
  • Show More Cited By

Index Terms

  1. Channel choice determinants; an exploration of the factors that determine the choice of a service channel in citizen initiated contacts
    Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Information & Contributors

    Information

    Published In

    cover image ACM Other conferences
    dg.o '07: Proceedings of the 8th annual international conference on Digital government research: bridging disciplines & domains
    May 2007
    349 pages
    ISBN:1595935991

    Sponsors

    • CIMIC
    • Center for Statistical Ecology and Environmental Statistics
    • CISCO
    • Center for Technology in Government

    Publisher

    Digital Government Society of North America

    Publication History

    Published: 20 May 2007

    Check for updates

    Author Tags

    1. channel choice
    2. citizen initiated contacts
    3. e-government
    4. multi-channeling
    5. service channels

    Qualifiers

    • Article

    Conference

    dg.o '07
    Sponsor:
    dg.o '07: Digital government research
    May 20 - 23, 2007
    Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA

    Acceptance Rates

    Overall Acceptance Rate 150 of 271 submissions, 55%

    Contributors

    Other Metrics

    Bibliometrics & Citations

    Bibliometrics

    Article Metrics

    • Downloads (Last 12 months)1
    • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
    Reflects downloads up to 15 Feb 2025

    Other Metrics

    Citations

    Cited By

    View all
    • (2018)Biological sex vs. psychological gender-roles in online channel choicesProceedings of the 4th Conference on Gender & IT10.1145/3196839.3196870(199-208)Online publication date: 14-May-2018
    • (2014)E-government intermediaries and the challenges of access and trustACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/255998521:2(1-22)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2014
    • (2014)Shared values/conflicting logicsProceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/2556288.2556971(3583-3592)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2014
    • (2010)Citizens and Service ChannelsInternational Journal of Electronic Government Research10.4018/jegr.20100401036:2(37-53)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2010
    • (2010)Psychological traits and loyalty intentions towards e-Government servicesInternational Journal of Information Management: The Journal for Information Professionals10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2010.01.00730:5(457-464)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2010
    • (2009)Multi-channel marketingProceedings of the 10th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research: Social Networks: Making Connections between Citizens, Data and Government10.5555/1556176.1556199(104-112)Online publication date: 17-May-2009
    • (2008)Citizen behavior in a multi-channel environmentProceedings of the 2008 international conference on Digital government research10.5555/1367832.1367906(387-388)Online publication date: 18-May-2008

    View Options

    Login options

    View options

    PDF

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader

    Figures

    Tables

    Media

    Share

    Share

    Share this Publication link

    Share on social media