Expectations that run high: Dutch Citizens on E-government

The Dutch government wants to improve its maturity in e-government. Therefore, it is important to identify the opinion of the e-government most important target group: the citizens themselves. In a repeated survey among Dutch citizens in 2001(N=700) and 2004 (N=1200), respondents were extensively questioned about the electronic products and services of governmental organizations. The aims are: 1) describing the level of and changes in expectations of Dutch citizens on e-government in 2001 and 2004 and 2) explaining the variations in e-government expectation between citizens. Although both surveys differ in their research design and respondent composition, they provide the opportunity to measure the actual expectations on e-government. From multivariate analysis it can be concluded that e-government expectation of citizens is related to ICT skills on the one hand, and political attitude on the other. In addition, analyses show that these factors drive e-government expectations independent of background characteristics such as age, gender and education. This implies that public agencies deal with e-government expectations that, indeed, run high and will increase further in the future.