An International Survey of the Factors Influencing the Intention to Use Open Government

Governments worldwide engage in open government initiatives for making their data and related information available to the public. But the success of open government is contingent upon the public´s willingness to use and exploit these data sets. Governments need to have a clear understanding of the factors impacting users´ intentions to make use of their open government offerings. In this paper, we answer the following research question: What factors influence the intention to use open government services and offerings? We empirically analyze an online survey, which was administered in six countries in 2013 with over 6.000 valid responses. Our research model builds on TAM and UTAUT. The results of our analysis indicate that perceived advantage, perceived ease of use, geographical closeness of topic and political activity directly influence the intention to use open government. Trust of Internet and perceived risks appear to have no direct impact on open government usage.