earticle

영어

Wireless and mobile technologies, especially the use of emerging social media, have become ubiquitous parts of people’s lives. The development of social media persuaded various organizations including businesses and governments around the world to join these sites in an attempt to benefit from the new powerful way of communication and interaction and take advantage of the hidden influence provided by such tools. This phenomenon significantly impacts the way individuals share their content and influence one another. This online environment provides a new perspective for current social influence theories. For example, social media can be perceived as a platform that is easily accessible for anyone with Internet connection. It is the new medium through which individuals, businesses, organizations, governments, as well as civil society, engage and interact in this information age. As such, governments can reshape their relationship with their constituents, enhance public awareness, and increase the level of citizen engagement and participation. In the 21st century, the importance of adapting to a rapidly advancing world and leveraging changes to benefit governments is widespread. The government needs to be more open and transparent about its work, and these social networking sites can help evolve a participatory, innovative, and inclusive governing model, that is, the government cannot only spread awareness regarding its policies and plans but also engage in a two-way communication where it can receive instant citizen feedback and incorporate suggestions that are provided by common people for an appealing design and proper delivery of public services, thereby resulting in an effective adoption of services. The use of Web 2.0 tools is considered a new means of communication, not only in the political field but also on the government level, to influence civic engagement, co-produce public services, shape opinions and attitude, and influence “buy-in” to mobile government (m-Government) services. Governments usually adapt business-oriented communication solutions for their own necessities, and SNSs introduces a wide perspective where citizens can have a deep participation when the government uses an appropriate citizen relation management tool. These factors contribute to e-government in twofold, namely, (1) by understanding citizens’ needs through data processing and (2) by allowing direct interaction with citizens through immediate interaction or by including ads. In the field of e-government, as a way of the government to deliver information and services through the Internet or other digital means, SNSs can contribute to positive attitudes toward government 2.0 and general trust in the government. SNSs could be a complementary tool for e-government, where citizens not only receive information but also collaborate on its generation and influence one another’s opinion on its perceived value. This study proposes that the advent of the Internet and other related technologies has increased the role of opinion leadership, which is traditionally used to amplify social and political communications and actions through social influence mechanism. Online social influence could be classified as normative when seeking compliance, identification, or internalization or informational, which is relevant to the online environment. In the literature, social influence remarkably affects SM. However, the best way to explain the underlying processes, measure the effects, and maximize the impact of social influence is still unknown. Based on these, the present study aims to determine the critical underlying processes for the online social influence that stems from opinion leadership and leads to the adoption of m-Government. It also aims to propose a framework under the Moroccan context. The main processes considered include those that focus on enhancing the perceived value of potential users to positively affect their attitude. Closely analyzed, this global perceived value is multiform, and each form corresponds to the purpose of a separate social influence process that an opinion leader can emphasize. First, perceived usefulness could mediate the impact of social influence on adoption intention through persuasion and conformity, wherein the opinion leader could showcase the added performance obtained by the potential users in using preferred government services. Second, contextual perceived value mediates the effect of social impact through influence informational processing where the influencer emphasizes showcasing information on the convenience of any context-based services (e.g., locationbased services) on their wireless and mobile devices. Third, perceived ease of use, wherein an influencer could focus on persuasion and socialization processes to effortlessly convince potential users of target services. The proper and effective use of social media could be achieved by involving genuine online opinion leaders, such as government officials; celebrities; or even experts hired from other fields, including business or civil society, to engage in a two-way interactive platform for persuasion and discussions. This approach is likely to spread awareness among citizens about the overall perceived value of m- Government services and to enable government–target citizen interaction, which will eventually help improve the design and effective adoption of government services. The present article aims to depict how governments could inform and serve people while marketing its offerings and influencing the citizens’ engagement toward the adoption of m-Government services through social media. An attempt is made to study how the different governments worldwide are using the social media platform in their governing models to promote the adoption of m-Government services. A conceptual framework is proposed by extending the mobile service acceptance model based on the critical review findings. Finally, this study calls for further research on m-Government adoption, considering the role of influencer marketing. This study culminates by providing practical, theoretical, and policy implications of the findings.