The Role of Trust for Citizens’ Adoption of Public E-Services

Abstract

Digital services are ubiquitous in today’s world, marking it as the digital age. Public administrations are using information and communication technologies for decades now; however, public e-services are still not widely used by the intended users. Repeatedly, scholars highlight the importance of trust for the successful adoption of public e-services and much research has empirically investigated the role of trust for public e-service adoption. In face of the substantial amount of research, this chapter summarises the current debates surrounding this topic and provides empirical insights on the role of trust for public e-service use in Germany. The insights of both empirical studies, i.e. the literature review and the interviews, result in a generalised model of citizens’ trust in the context of e-government.