Barriers to Mobile Government Adoption: An Exploratory Case Study of an Information Platform for Refugees in Germany

Mobile government (m-government) is considered one of the most important trends in e-government research. Citizens increasingly use their smartphones to organize their affairs and governments strive to leverage that trend with mobile applications. Especially in the context of the refugee crisis in Germany, m-government is expected to add value to the integration process. It is widely anticipated that m-government provides benefits for refugees compared to traditional e-government because of the prevalence of smartphones among refugees. Despite the high expectations of politics and public administration, the adoption of m-government services remains low and the expected benefits are often not being realized. To identify barriers and to develop measures to increase adoption, we conducted an exploratory case study on an m-government project for refugees in Germany. First, we reviewed literature, highlighting the necessity of differing between barriers of m- and e-government adoption. Second, we evaluated the adoption behavior of refugees of a particular mobile information platform. After introducing the application to randomly selected participants, we conducted interviews about their usage behavior one month later. We confirmed some of the barriers from our literature review and, in addition, identified new barriers. The study contributes to research on e-government non-adoption by highlighting differences and similarities between e-government and m-government non-adoption as well as identifying new barriers.     «

Mobile government (m-government) is considered one of the most important trends in e-government research. Citizens increasingly use their smartphones to organize their affairs and governments strive to leverage that trend with mobile applications. Especially in the context of the refugee crisis in Germany, m-government is expected to add value to the integration process. It is widely anticipated that m-government provides benefits for refugees compared to traditional e-government because of the...     »