Perceived risk, trust, religion and adoption of e-services: case of e-banking and e-ticketing in Lebanon

Abstract

E-services, growing in the industrialized countries, are not really ready to start in Lebanon. In fact, based on non official sources, online sales represent only 10% of the Lebanese merchants offering this kind of services. This leads us to ask:
What is the Lebanese customer regarding the e-services? What are the reasons behind the e-service’s delay in Lebanon? Is this delay link to equipment’s problems? Is it a habit issue? Is it a culture issue? Does the religion constitute a brake? What is the role of trust in the choice of the distribution channel? In fact, maybe the e-service’s not yet integrated into the Lebanese customer’s habits and manners for who trust, contact and interaction are a must in commercial transactions.
The success of online services depends on the company ability to persuade the customer to adopt it. However, the customer adoption is a global matter and one off the hardest issue in developing countries. Researches shows that the fact of promoting access and creating terms of use don’t guarantee e-service’s adoption (Dwivedi, Weerakkody, & Williams, 2009; Heeks, 1999; Jaeger & Thompson, 2003; Moon, 2002; Odedra-Straub, 2003; UNPAN, 2005). Despite the financial incentives and media campaigns to encourage customer to go online for service transactions, most of them in developing countries choose the traditional face to face service (UNDESA, 2008).
Little systematic research was conducted to understand the determinants of online service’s adoption by developed and developing countries’ citizens despite that the TIC adoption at work and at home was largely studied in developed countries.
This thesis will present the result of a study made in 2011 on the e-ticketing and e-banking adoption by Lebanese citizens. It will examine the factors influencing the potential success of adopting e-services offered by Lebanese companies. We will develop an integrated model of the user’s intention to adopt or reject the e-ticketing and e-banking (ITA e-Serv Model) which was based on the user’s intention to adopt or reject the public e-service (e-Gov ITA Model) (Harfouche A. and Robbin A., 2011) developed by adopting MATH on public e-services in Lebanon. This ITA e-Serv Model captures the influence of external and internal factors (facilitators and inhibitors) on the adoption or rejection of e-banking and e-ticketing during the first stage of the adoption process. The ITA e-Serv Model emphasizes the association between perceived outcomes, social psychological characteristics, social influences, contextual factors and user evaluation in the first stage of adoption process.

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