Smith, Matthew
(2007)
Confianza a la Chilena: a comparative study of how e-services influence public sector institutional trustworthiness and trust.
PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract
New information and communication technologies bring the enticing
potential to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency of
government administration and services. One theorised outcome of egovernment that has received little empirical attention is its ability to build
citizens’ trust in government. This thesis contributes to this knowledge
through a comparative study of the impacts of two Chilean e-services on
citizens’ trust in the institutions of democratic government. This research
traces the causal processes from the influence of the e-services on the
trustworthiness of public sector institutions to how, for whom, and in what
circumstances the e-services directly affect citizens’ trust in those
institutions.
The research approach draws from social realist assumptions and, in
particular, the ontology offered by critical realism. This approach allows
for the development of a novel e-government and institutional trust
framework that integrates a wide range of trust theories from political
science, sociology, psychology, and information systems. Extending the
framework, the thesis proposes fifteen middle-range causal hypotheses
that link e-services to institutional trustworthiness and citizens’ trust in
those institutions. These hypotheses are then empirically grounded in casespecific hypotheses which are subsequently tested and refined through
both a within-case analysis and cross-case comparison.
Within limits, this study provides insight into the potentials and limits of
e-government to improve the trustworthiness of the public sector.
Furthermore, by adopting a street-level epistemological perspective of
citizens’ interpretations and explanations of e-service interactions, the
thesis contributes to the micro-level understanding of the interactions of eservices and citizens’ trust in public sector institutions. A central finding is
the importance of self-interested concerns and direct user benefits in
shaping perceptions and interpretations of the citizen-e-service interaction.
The findings also provide empirical insight into the theoretical and
practical importance of discerning between theories of how to build
trustworthy institutions and trust in those institutions.
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