The perceived advantages of e-participation and their impact on citizens’ willingness to engage

Mertes, Alexander; Fischer, Damaris; Brüesch, Caroline

Publication type:	Conference paper
Type of review:	Peer review (abstract)
Title:	The perceived advantages of e-participation and their impact on citizens’ willingness to engage
Authors:	Mertes, Alexander Fischer, Damaris Brüesch, Caroline
et. al:	No
Conference details:	EURAM 22nd Conference, Winterthur, Switzerland, 15-17 June 2022
Issue Date:	2022
Language:	English
Subjects:	Digitisation; E-participation; Logistic regression analysis; Non-digital participation
Subject (DDC):	350: Public administration
Abstract:	The aim of this study is to contribute to the growing literature on e-participation by analysing various cases of participation. More detailed, the goal is to gain further insight into the role of perceived advantages with regards to citizen willingness in terms of digital and non-digital participation. While there are several studies identifying advantages of e-participation compared to traditional, non-digital alternatives, there is little research into how the perception of these advantages is influencing citizen motivation to engage in e-participation. This study examines three participation initiative cases with different levels of citizen engagement. We use a logistic regression model to analyse our data. The findings reveal new insights for both research and practice. First, the results show that simplicity, efficiency, location independence, and cost reduction are generally considered to be advantages of e-participation. In comparison, data security and data protection are advantages of non-digital participation. However, only cost reduction and simplicity have a positive influence on citizens’ willingness to engage in all three cases. Additionally, when data security was perceived as an advantage of e-participation, this also leads to a higher likelihood of preferring digital over non-digital participation. This is true for the two cases with higher engagement levels. These findings differ from previous studies and raise questions regarding the impact that the engagement level has on the results. By studying this topic further, valuable insights for governments on how to use and promote e-participation initiatives can be gained.
URI:	https://digitalcollection.zhaw.ch/handle/11475/28238
Fulltext version:	Published version
License (according to publishing contract):	Licence according to publishing contract
Departement:	School of Management and Law
Organisational Unit:	Institute of Public Management (IVM)
Appears in collections:	Publikationen School of Management and Law

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Mertes, A., Fischer, D., & Brüesch, C. (2022). The perceived advantages of e-participation and their impact on citizens’ willingness to engage. EURAM 22nd Conference, Winterthur, Switzerland, 15-17 June 2022.

Mertes, A., Fischer, D. and Brüesch, C. (2022) ‘The perceived advantages of e-participation and their impact on citizens’ willingness to engage’, in EURAM 22nd Conference, Winterthur, Switzerland, 15-17 June 2022.

A. Mertes, D. Fischer, and C. Brüesch, “The perceived advantages of e-participation and their impact on citizens’ willingness to engage,” in EURAM 22nd Conference, Winterthur, Switzerland, 15-17 June 2022, 2022.

MERTES, Alexander, Damaris FISCHER und Caroline BRÜESCH, 2022. The perceived advantages of e-participation and their impact on citizens’ willingness to engage. In: EURAM 22nd Conference, Winterthur, Switzerland, 15-17 June 2022. Conference paper. 2022

Mertes, Alexander, Damaris Fischer, and Caroline Brüesch. 2022. “The Perceived Advantages of E-Participation and Their Impact on Citizens’ Willingness to Engage.” Conference paper. In EURAM 22nd Conference, Winterthur, Switzerland, 15-17 June 2022.

Mertes, Alexander, et al. “The Perceived Advantages of E-Participation and Their Impact on Citizens’ Willingness to Engage.” EURAM 22nd Conference, Winterthur, Switzerland, 15-17 June 2022, 2022.