Institutional Drivers of Internet Voting Adoption in Ghana: A Qualitative Exploratory Studies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13052/nbjict1902-097X.2020.003Keywords:
Internet voting, institutional factors, e-government, coercive forces, GhanaAbstract
Internet voting system adoption in elections can bring enormous benefits to an electoral process. Though few countries have adopted it for their legally binding elections, others have discontinued its use because of perceived vulnerabilities. But it has been argued that the benefits the internet voting system provide outweigh the perceived vulnerabilities. The main purpose of this study is to examine the drivers of the internet voting system from the organizational context. The study is purely qualitative using semi-structured interviews. The interview participants were top management of EC staff, political parties’ executives and experts who were purposively selected, and thematic analysis was used to extract patterns from the data collected. The main themes that emerged from the thematic analysis include pressure from political parties, pressure from the government, legal framework, financial readiness of EC, EC top management support, convenience, accuracy, and increase voter turnouts. The discussion of the findings and the implication of the results were discussed in the study.
References
Achieng, M., and Ruhode, E. (2013). The adoption and challenges of electronic voting technologies within the South African context. International Journal of Managing Information Technology, 5(4), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.5121/ijmit.2013.5401
Adeshina, S. A., and Ojo, A. (2017). Factors for e-voting adoption – analysis of general elections in Nigeria. Government Information Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2017.09.006
Agbesi, S. (2019). Examining voters intention to use internet voting system: A case of Ghana. International Journal of Electronic Governance. https://doi.org/10.1504/ijeg.2019.10019044
Atuobi, S. (2008). Election-related violence in Africa. Conflict Trends, 1(January 2008), 10–15.
Bochsler, D. (2011). Can the internet increase political participation? An analysis of remote electronic voting’s effect on turnout. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1456827
Carter, L. (2008). E-government diffusion: A comparison of adoption constructs. Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, 2(3), 147–161. https://doi.org/10.1108/17506160810902167
Carter, L., and Bélanger, F. (2012). Internet voting and political participation: An empirical comparison of technological and political factors. Data Base for Advances in Information Systems. https://doi.org/10.1145/2351848.2351851
Carter, L., and Campbell, R. (2011a). The impact of trust and relative advantage on internet voting diffusion. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research. https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-18762011000300004
Carter, L., and Campbell, R. (2011b). The impact of trust and relative advantage on internet voting diffusion. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research, 6(3), 28–42. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/915869617?accountid=8144
Choi, S. O., and Kim, B. C. (2012). Voter intention to use e-voting technologies: Security, technology acceptance, election type, and political ideology. Journal of Information Technology and Politics, 9(4), 433–452. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2012.710042
Clarke, V., and Braun, V. (2017). Thematic analysis. Journal of Positive Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2016.1262613
Commission, E. (1992). Establishment of Electoral Commission. 45. Retrieved from https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/code9-binaries/files/ELECTORAL_LAWS_EC.pdf
Creswell, J. W. (2007). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed method aproaches. SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781849208956
Damanpour, F., and Schneider, M. (2006). Phases of the adoption of innovation in organizations: Effects of environment, organization and top managers. British Journal of Management. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2006.00498.x
DiMaggio, P. J., and Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095101
Elbahnasawy, N. G. (2014). E-government, internet adoption, and corruption: An empirical investigation. World Development, 57, 114–126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2013.12.005
Frimpong-Manso, S. (n.d.). E-government initiatives in Ghana. Retrieved from https://iipgh.org/e-government-initiatives-in-ghana/
Gibbs, J. L., and Kraemer, K. L. (2004). A cross-country investigation of the determinants of scope of e-commerce use: An institutional approach. Electronic Markets. https://doi.org/10.1080/10196780410001675077
Gordon, T. F. (2002). E-government – Introduction. Retrieved from http://www.ercim.eu/publication/Ercim_News/enw48/intro.html
Hameed, M. A., Counsell, S., and Swift, S. (2012a). A conceptual model for the process of IT innovation adoption in organizations. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management – JET-M, Vol. 29, pp. 358–390. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jengtecman.2012.03.007
Hameed, M. A., Counsell, S., and Swift, S. (2012b). A meta-analysis of relationships between organizational characteristics and IT innovation adoption in organizations. Information and Management, Vol. 49, pp. 218–232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2012.05.002
Henderson, D., Sheetz, S. D., and Trinkle, B. S. (2011). Understanding the intention to adopt XBRL: An environmental perspective. Journal of Emerging Technologies in Accounting. https://doi.org/10.2308/jeta-10251
Henry, S. (2003). Can remote Internet voting increase turnout? Aslib Proceedings. https://doi.org/10.1108/00012530310486557
Herold, D. M., Jayaraman, N., and Narayanaswamy, C. R. (2006). What is the relationship between organizational slack and innovation? Journal of Managerial Issues.
Hsiao, T.-C., Wu, Z.-Y., Liu, C.-H., and Chung, Y.-F. (2017). Electronic voting systems for defending free will and resisting bribery and coercion based on ring anonymous signcryption scheme. Advances in Mechanical Engineering, 9(1). https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1687814016687194
Jeon, B. N., Han, K. S., and Lee, M. J. (2006). Determining factors for the adoption of e-business: The case of SMEs in Korea. Applied Economics. https://doi.org/10.1080/00036840500427262
Kolachalam, S. (2009). An overview of. Globalization and Health, 145(Iconelt 2017), 13–14.
Kuyo, R. O., Muiruri, L., and Njuguna, S. (2018). Organizational factors influencing the adoption of the district health information system 2 in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya. International Journal of Medical Research & Health Sciences.
Lean, O. K., Zailani, S., Ramayah, T., and Fernando, Y. (2009). International Journal of Information Management Factors influencing intention to use e-government services among citizens in Malaysia. International Journal of Information Management. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2009.03.012
Lin, H. F. (2011). An empirical investigation of mobile banking adoption: The effect of innovation attributes and knowledge-based trust. International Journal of Information Management. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2010.07.006
Oostveen, A.-M., and Van Den Besselaar, P. (2004). Internet voting technologies and civic participation: The users’ perspective. Javnost – The Public. https://doi.org/10.1080/13183222.2004.11008847
Park, S., and Rivest, R. L. (2017). Towards secure quadratic voting. Public Choice, 172(1–2), 151–175. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11127-017-0407-2
Plano Clark, V. L., and Creswell, J. W. (2015). Understanding research: A consumer’s guide, (2nd Edition). In Journal of Emergency Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2014.09.004
Rogers, E. M. (1983). Diffusion of innovations – third edition. In The Free Press, A Division of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. https://doi.org/citeulike-article-id:126680
Sabherwal, R., Jeyaraj, A., and Chowa, C. (2006). Information system success: Individual and organizational determinants. Management Science. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1060.0583
Sál, K. (2015). Remote internet voting and increase of voter turnout: Happy coincidence or fact? The case of Estonia. Masaryk University Journal of Law and Technology. https://doi.org/10.5817/MUJLT2015-2-2
Saldana, J. (2009). The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Los Angeles: Sage Publications Ltd.
Schaupp, L. C., and Carter, L. (2010). The impact of trust, risk and optimism bias on e-file adoption. Information Systems Frontiers, 12(3), 299–309. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10796-008-9138-8
Scott, W. R. (2014). W. Richard SCOTT (1995), Institutions and organizations. Ideas, interests and identities. M@n@gement. https://doi.org/10.3917/mana.172.0136
Shakiba, N. M., Doostari, M. A., and Mohammadpourfard, M. (2017). ESIV: an end-to-end secure internet voting system. Electronic Commerce Research, 17(3), 463–494. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-016-9230-y
Sherer, S. A., Meyerhoefer, C. D., and Peng, L. (2016). Applying institutional theory to the adoption of electronic health records in the U.S. Information and Management. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2016.01.002
Shi, W., Shambare, N., and Wang, J. (2008). The adoption of internet banking: An institutional theory perspective. Journal of Financial Services Marketing. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.fsm.4760081
Teo, H. H., Wei, K. K., and Benbasat, I. (2003). Predicting intention to adopt interorganizational linkages: An institutional perspective. MIS Quarterly: Management Information Systems. https://doi.org/10.2307/30036518
Tung, L. L., and Rieck, O. (2005). Adoption of electronic government services among business organizations in Singapore. Journal of Strategic Information Systems. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsis.2005.06.001
Warkentin, M., Sharma, S., Gefen, D., Rose, G. M., and Pavlou, P. (2018). Social identity and trust in internet-based voting adoption. Government Information Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2018.03.007
Wiseman, R. (2017). $$$ (Internet voting). Journal of Japan Society for Fuzzy Theory and Intelligent Informatics, 29(3), 100–100. https://doi.org/10.3156/jsoft.29.3_100_1
Zhao, F., José Scavarda, A., and Waxin, M.-F. (2012). Key issues and challenges in e-government development. Information Technology & People, 25(4), 395. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09593841211278794
Zheng, D. (2010). Chinese e-government systems adoption: From institutional theory. Proceedings of the International Conference on E-Business and E-Government, ICEE 2010. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICEE.2010.164
Zheng, D., Chen, J., Huang, L., and Zhang, C. (2013). E-government adoption in public administration organizations: Integrating institutional theory perspective and resource-based view. European Journal of Information Systems, 22(2), 221–234. https://doi.org/10.1057/ejis.2012.28
