analyzing the usage of electronic communication via e-mails among employees of the state of johor,...

7/29/2019 analyzing the usage of electronic communication via e-mails among employees of the State of Johor, Malaysia

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Preface

Since almost two decades, public administration has become a centre of

attraction, affected and motivated by the changing society that moves towards

modernization that demands governments to add more technological and

organization sophistication (Gil-Garcia and Moyano, 2007) to provide public

services and improving managerial effectiveness (Vassilakis et.al., 2007).b This has

resulted in among others, the introduction of `electronic government (e-govt) where

government invest a huge amount of money in modernizing their services through

the use of information and communication technologies which affects the public

sector in providing such services to the public (Montagna, 2005; Gil-Garcia and

Moyano, 2007; Vassilakis, et.al., 2007; Hin and Subramaniam, 2008).

A smooth transition from a conventional method to `E-govt needs not only a

modern telecommunication network but also an IT literate employee. Productivity

improvement through manpower maximization and optimization has become an

important subjects in public service to response to the general perception that

government servants are generally lackadaisical in terms of response times (Hin and

Subramaniam, 2008). Citizen for example, expect through e-govt, services offered


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by most of government departments and agencies can be done through the web, 24

hours a day, seven days a week.

The Malaysian government as well as other governments worldwide hope

that the nature of government services and daily tasks will change through IT.

Although the use of IT application is becoming more important in government

departments, its transformation is suspected to be slow (Montagna, 2005) and not all

government employees is seen to make full use of the technologies provided to them.

This has led to the underutilization of computer and its related technologies in the

public sector. According to Montagna (2005), many governments have not beenready to take the advantage of the internet potentiality or the government itself may

have managed to do so but too slow in action due to their structure, management

style and type of leadership. This has raised the question whether government itself

are not prepared to adapt to the transformation. Hence, there is a need for a

comprehensive administrative planning and management approach to integrate ICT

application in a public service environment. However, literature in understanding

ICT acceptance in the Malaysian public service environment is rare compared to the

same in the private and business organization.

Among the established and widely used ICT applications in many

organizations includes electronic mail (e-mail), voice mail (v-mail), group decision

support systems, video conferencing, audiotext and also computer bulletin boards

(Fang, 1998). Electronic mail (e-mail) for instance, have been widely introduced and

used in different environment to cater for different needs such as to allow web-based

learning in the educational environment (Strenski, 1995; Krishnamurthi, 1998 ; Fang

(1998); Aiken, et.al., (2003); Spennemann and Atkinson (2003) and Lightfoot,

2006), delivering information and training manuals to workers in manufacturing

firms (McGaughey, 1999); promoting an effective internal communication in non-

profit organization (Hewitt,2006) and corporate organizations (Mohammed

Noorman, et.al., (2008) and also in setting up a new pattern of communication in

government organizations (Meijer, 2008).


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The main reasons to introduce electronic communication especially the use of

e-mail in government are to eliminate paper-based work which in turn will help

government to save cost of paper, gain greater accessibility and greater efficiency in

delivering services to the public. Whatever the purpose to introduce electronic

communication is, its implementation and success in any organizations depends on

many factors including organizational, technological and individual users

(Mohammed Noorman, et.al., 2007)

This study look into how existing e-mail communications is being utilized in

the Johor State Government by its personnel. The use of e-mail in the JohorElectronic Government (JEG) settings have been introduced since 1999 as a way to

promote effective and fast information exchange between the state government

employees throughout the state. Its usage is considered to be more important

nowadays because the state government are aggressively promoting the `Iskandar

Malaysia growth region to get as much investors to accelerate the state economy.

1.2 Problem Definition

The underutilization of computer and its related technology in public service

administration has not drawn so much attention. Because employees seem to accept

or reject technologies provided to them, organizations fails to achieve the benefits

from such investment. This phenomenon has contradict the principal effort made by

the government when introducing e-govt initiatives.

E-government aims to simplify government processes and improve the

interaction between citizens and state organizations through the use of electronic

communications (Kaliontzoglou et al., 2008). Studies by Gasco (2008) reveals that

reluctance to change is a common and natural phenomenon when introducing

information and communication technologies into the public sector. Gasco (2008)

found that there exists reluctant in sharing information and lack of cooperation


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among departments in the public sector due to problems related to attitude. Hence,

collaboration among different departments must be enhanced through attitude

changes.

Predictably, the success of any EG lies in the quality of its human resources.

There is a need for public service employees to be IT literate through continuous

training to keep them abreast with new work processes and technologies. Parrado

(2008) identified three sets of skills that relates to EG : Information technology

skills (IT), Information management skills (IM) and Information society skills (IS).

According to Parrado, there is a need to identify different group or communities ofpublic servant so that what ICT skills needed to specific group can be identified and

plan can be made to improve ICT skills in public agencies. As mention in the earlier

part, among diffused information and communication technology in organization is

the use of electronic mail (e-mail).

In the case of Johor State Government, The introduction of e-mails as a

communication tools has started way back in 1999 to reduce paper usage and speed-

up communication, information and data exchange especially between officers of

different district throughout the state. However, its usage among state government

employees has been said to be not encouraging. Despite such claim, there is yet a

systematic study that can prove its truth. Therefore this study is conducted to offer

an in-depth study direct from the respondents which are affected by the introduction

of e-mail and working full-time with the Johor State Government.

In realizing that the usage of e-mail should be given serious attention by all

employees, the state government issued an official circular to remind and informed

the relevant guidelines. The Johor State Government Circular No.2/2001 emphasize

that e-mail must be use actively in daily work to communicate and performed tasks

such as calling for meetings, intra and inter-department queries, official invitations

and writing memos. Officers were asked to open e-mails as soon as they reach office

and remain it open to immediately respond to incoming mails. However, this is still

an ongoing challenging initiative. Sending of conventional administration letters to


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call for meetings, official functions as well as applying for official claim is still

practiced and will remain. Initial observation through communicating with many

state government officers reveals few issues related to the acceptance of e-mails as a

communicating tool within the JEG framework but nothing is conclusive. In short,

there may be problems faced by the Johor State Government is relation to the

acceptance of IT tools by its users. Thus this study is considered timely and

appropriate in indentifying factors related to ICT acceptance especially in a public

service culture and environment.

1.3 Purpose of Study

The purpose of this study is to look into how technology is being accepted in

a public service environment by analyzing the usage of electronic communication via

e-mails among employees of the State of Johor, Malaysia.

This study will also identify how the aspects of `perceived ease of use

(PEOU) and `perceived usefulness (PU) by using the `Technology Acceptance

Model (TAM) among Johor State government officers affects the use of electronic

mails as a major means to communicate within the JEG framework.

1.4 Study Objectives

The objectives of this study are as follows :

1.4.1 To determine what the level of acceptance among Johor State government

officers in using electronic mails as a preferred means of communication.

1.4.2 To analyze and rank factors that affects the use of electronic mails among

Johor State government officers.


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1.4.3 To analyze factors that could be associated with acceptance or rejection of

the usage of e-mails among state government officers.

1.4 Study Questions

The primary objective of this study is to identify and analyze the factors that

is associated with the use of e-mails among Johor State Government employees. The

provision of e-mail connection among Johor State officers is to enable effectivecommunication through speeding up public service response times in exchanging

data and information. Hence, this study aims at answering the following research

questions:

i) What is the intensity of the usage of e-mails among the Johor State

Government officers?

ii) What are the factors that are associated with the acceptance and lead to

utilization of IT applications such as e-mail in public service settings?

1.5 Scope of the Study

The introductions of E-govt have transformed the way public services do

work. One of them is the implementation of e-mail system where each State

Government employee was given access to e-mail accounts to communicate and

work efficiently.

In this study, data will be gathered directly from a total of 441 Johor State

Government officers working in various departments and agencies throughout the

State of Johor, Malaysia. These officers were chosen because they are the decision


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maker and officers in charge of daily routine at their respective departments and

agencies. Each of these officers has been allocated to one official e-mail address

domain in the `Johor State Intranet e-govt infrastructures.

This study cover factors that are associated to the e-mail usage among Johor

State Government officers to use e-mail as their preferred communication medium.

Three (3) main categories of factors that will be observed in this study include : i)

Organizational factors, ii) Technological factors and iii) Individual factors.

1.6 Significance of Study

The significance of this study is based on the findings that the Technology

Acceptance Model (TAM) developed by Davis (1989) has gain much attention in

technology acceptance research in the private sector organization but lack in the

public service environment. Given the global E-government phenomenon throughout

the globe, there is a need to understand whether TAM is applicable in a public

service especially in a e-govt settings. This study is expected to provide an insight

information and analysis from the Johor State Government employees which may

represent the public sector environment.

By exploring the usage patterns, belief and attitude of a public service

employees, this study hopes to explain on the factors that may influence future use of

e-mail as a preferred communication medium in a e-govt setting. This study will also

help the Johor State Government as the major stakeholder to identify the strengths

and weaknesses of current operating communication practice so that a

comprehensive policy formulation can be made for future technology strategy.


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1.7 Limitation of Study

This study will only cover Johor State Government officers. Hence, the data,

information and findings will be directly related to their outcomes. This study does

not covers employees from clerical and administration group which is also given an

e-mail account by the government for the same reason and purpose.

As the main purpose of this study concentrate on the use of e-mails, it does not

covers the acceptance and usage of other computer applications used in daily office

tasks and specific applications used in the JEG framework which has 12 othercomputer applications.

This study also specifically targeted the Johor State Government officers as a

group of respondents for its sample. Hence, any possible findings of this study may

not indicates the actual or same situation in any e-govt environment in any state

government administration in Malaysia and elsewhere.

1.8 Summary

The purpose of this study is to look into how existing e-mail communications is

being utilized in the Johor State Government by its personnel. The study questions

mentioned in this chapter will try to answer the objectives of this study, that is: i) to

determine the level of acceptance among Johor State Government officers in using e-

mail as a preferred communication, ii) to analyze and rank factors that affects its

usage and iii) to analyze factors that could be associated to its acceptance or

rejection.

The following chapter will discuss literatures from past studies and researches

in relation to the use of e-mails in different organizations as well as issues

surrounding its usage.


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CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

Technological innovations in ICT technologies has resulted in the emergence

of computer mediated communications (CMC) technologies such as electronic mail,

voice mail, video conferencing and computer bulletin boards. These new method has

become prevalent communication channels that transform the ways individuals work

(Fang,1998). Among widely diffused CMC technology is electronic mail

communications or e-mails.

This chapter will review some of the relevant IS literature on the usage of e-

mails as an official communication among peers and also its acceptance in formal

and informal organizations. It also contained literatures on the importance of e-mail

as an effective and efficient ways of communications in many organizations in

general and in the context of public sector in particular. The advantages and

disadvantages on the use of e-mail communication is also been discussed based on

past studies and research.

Since `Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) will be adopted in this study,

this chapter will also provide a review of the TAM model with the hope that it will


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direct to a better understanding the concept of technology acceptance and the

framework that will be proposed at the end of this chapter.

2.2 Electronic Mail Communications

Gluck (1994) defined e-mail as the combination of a message transport

portion whose task is to send and deliver messages passed to it by some other front-

end application. Krishnamurthi, (1998) defined e-mail as a collection of computerprograms that facilitate the exchange of electronic documents via a computer.

E-mail is an electronic communication tool that predates the internet and was

used initially for intra-corporate communications via mainframes and later by private

dial-up networks (Lightfoot, 2006). Nowadays, the use of electronic mail as a

communication channels has been diffused in our society due to the increasing

availability of internet access and free e-mail account offered by many websites. The

advancement in communication technology has offered high-speed internet access

through broadband connectivity and hotspots that allows internet based

communication to become more preferable.

The study of e-mails as part of CMCT has developed many empirical study

on the matter. Scholars have written in many literatures and journals on its use,

characteristics and evaluation in different fields.

Literatures on e-mail usage as a communication tools in different field has

been researched by many scholars such as in the educational environment (Strenski,

1995; Krishnamurthi, 1998 ; Fang (1998); Aiken, et.al., (2003); Spennemann and

Atkinson (2003) and Lightfoot, 2006), manufacturing firms (McGaughey, 1999);

non-profit organization (Hewitt,2006), corporate organizations (Mohammed

Noorman, et.al., (2008) and government organizations (Meijer, 2008).


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Krishnamurthi (1998) surveyed universitys student attitudes towards e-mail

and their usage pattern to understand its acceptance in various conditions such as

computer experience, system user-friendliness, communication responsiveness and

comfortablility in a college curriculum. The researcher found that computer

experience, system user-friendliness and perceiving e-mail as a useful tools

positively influence the use of e-mail among these students. Aiken, et.al., (2003)

found that e-mail is being extensively use by college student with 66% of them have

at least two e-mail address. They also check their e-mail at least once a day (72%)

and 42% socially communicate each other online. Spennemann and Atkinson (2003)

also found positive use of e-mails between students and lecturers. Both called this asa `asynchronous communication where extensive use of e-mails has led it to

diffused intra and inter-community. Lightfoot, (2006) investigate e-mail as a medium

for internet-based education on college undergraduates found that e-mail

communication is preferred by students who are more comfortable with technology

compared to face-to-face verbal communication.

The work of Fang (1998) established a model to explain e-mail system usage

and choice. McGaughey(1999) found that e-mail usage helps delivering education

and training to individual workers and groups in manufacturing firms. As a results, it

contributes to the firm agility to compete in the global market.

The work of Montagna (2005) suggest that internet advantages and its

potentialities has not been grab enough by many governments due to its own

structure, management styles and type of leadership.

The work of Mohamad Noorman, et.al., (2008) proved that the use of e-mails

or forum room as a communication tools is very effective and efficient in an office

environment organization. Selecting four corporate organizations operating in

Malaysia as a case study, they found that employees in an office environment

organization communicates not only between subordinates and superiors but also

with outsiders and e-mails communications helps message to reach the addressee in

a right and efficient manner (Mohammed Noorman, et.al., (2008).


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2.2.1 E-mail advantages :

There are numbers of e-mail advantages discussed in many literatures. E-mail

communication not only allows information sharing among peoples and

organizations, it also allows different electronic formats to be sent and received

efficiently (McGaughey, 1999). E-mail breaks down the barriers and time compared

to face-to-face communication (Lightfoot, 2006) and enabled for a web based,

distance learning in an education environment which allows student to communicate

with instructor and peers at time convenient to them (Spennemann and Atkinson,

2003; Lightfoot, 2006). Hence, e-mail enabled a timely communication in anenvironment where face-to-face communication is not easily done.

Kierkegaard (2005) found that electronic communication is becoming more

vital in the workplace as it is a cheap and instantaneous electronic communications,

improves productivity and communications, lower transaction costs and increases

employee efficiency.

Information in the e-mail can easily forward either to a single recipient or a

large group of recipient in the nailing list. It can also being attached to other

messages and kept forever on a disc or tape.

2.2.2 E-mail disadvantages

Although e-mail enabled quick information transfer, not all information is

useful to the receiver. There are cases where employees caught in a deep pressure to

attend so many messages daily and feel bullied by the e-mail system due to incorrect

or unsuccessful processing of information (Parker, 1999; Stevens and McElhill,

2000). Spamming or mass unwanted e-mail has become an unwelcoming problem.

In a recent study involving college students, Aiken, et.al., (2003) found that they

receive 119 to 268 spam message per month and 80% of American are disturbed by


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spamming and agreed the activities to be outlawed. Managing spam is also costly to

organization as it takes the time to do other things.

There are also cases of misinterpreted and misunderstood of e-mail messages

by the receiver (Parker, 1999). Literatures in reviewing e-mail usage found that

spontaneous and careless attitude when writting e-mails as a permanent nature in this

type of communication (Lightfoot, 2006) that led to the problems mentioned by

Parker (1999).

Because e-mail text can easily forwarded, attached to other messages andkept forever on a disc or tape, issues regarding what type of information is being

pushed by this medium is getting much attention especially when it involves

sensitive and private information. A PC left unattended but active in many

organizations may poses danger not only to the owner/user but also to the

organization they worked with. Gluck (1994) identifies three weak points in the e-

mail infrastructure: i) Its hard to identify positively the message sender, ii)

impossibility to recall messages delivered and iii) message integrity assurance. Since

security concerned were also being negotiated at all levels of the infrastructures from

user access, user ID, physical networks and system administrator, technologies to

protect e-mail is an essential application in an organization (Gluck,1994).

The study on advantages and disadvantages of e-mail as well as the users PU

and PEOU is important to enable organizations make a proper planning on its future

communication channels. For example, the work of Spennemann and Atkinson

(2003) found that students respond differently towards using and accessing e-mails in

the same environment. On a survey conducted for five years for internal student and

three years for external student in an Australian universitys, Spennemann and

Atkinson (2003) investigate the uptake and confidence in sending e-mails among

management student in the university. They found that women have more access to

e-mail and increasingly become frequent users of the technology. They also found

that rural external students has the least usage of e-mails due to their infrastructure


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disadvantages although previous studies in e-mails suggests that distance and

technology availability are the main factor for e-mail usage.

The work of Mohamad Noorman, et.al., (2008) proved that the use of e-mails

or forum room as a communication tools is very effective and efficient in an office

environment organization. Selecting four corporate organizations operating in

Malaysia as a case study, they found that employees in an office environment

organization communicates not only between subordinates and superiors but also

with outsiders and e-mails communications helps message to reach the addressee in

a right and efficient manner (Mohammed Noorman, et.al., (2008).

2.2.3 Issues on e-mails and its challenges

Organization invest considerable amount of money to develop and operate

electronic communications with the hope that it will contribute to its agility

(McGaughey, 1999). It is therefore the role of top management support is important.

However, top management commitment has not always the case in e-mail. Stevens

and McElhill (2000) found that the purchase of e-mail is not a business-led strategy

in many organizations they studied but merely an IT department own initiatives. As a

result, companies install e-mail but then leave it to the employees to decide and in

many cases it is cultural and individual factors affects its usage in that organization.

Stevens and McElhill (2000) also found that e-mail had flatten organization

hierarchies and affects the role of middle managers.

The advancement in ICT enabled us to do multi-tasking job such as interact

via e-mails while engaging in our daily tasks. The benefits from e-mail also comes

with ongoing issues related to the privacy of user e-mails, confidentiality from the

communication and electronic monitoring and intercepting from the employers has

been extensively discussed in many literatures in computer network security and


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computer laws (Gluck,1994 ; Saxby, 1995 ; Parker, 1999 ; Prysby and Prysby, 2003

and Kierkegaard, 2005)

Employers feel they have the right of whats going on in the office.

Employee believes that their e-mail messages should be private although they are

using the companys domain address for personal messages within working hours.

Companies have to negotiate the use and abuse of this communication medium in its

organization. The abuse of e-mail by employee had a significant risk to the company

as there are increasing cases of defamation and libel suits due to the irresponsible use

of e-mails (Parker, 1999).

Based on the above literature, it can be concluded that the usage of a

computer applications such as e-mail has its relation to the aspects of human

behaviour. The effectiveness and intensity of e-mail usage is related to behavioral

factor of its user particularly those related to the acceptance of its usage. With this

regards, a model known as the `Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is applicable

and will be adopted in this study.

The following section will discussed about TAM and its applicability in

various researches and studies that relates to the acceptance of a particular IS

technology in various fields.

2.3 Technology Acceptance Model

The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was developed by Fred Davis

and Richard Bagozzi (Davis et. al., 1989 ; Bagozzi et al., 1992) to explain how users

accept and use a particular technology. The formulation of TAM is based on The

Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) developed by Fishbein and Azjen (1975).

According to the theory, the acceptance of any particular technology is based on the

perception of the technology that the person will use. Two independent constructs in


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TAM are `Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) and `Perceived Usefulness (PU). Davis

validated that these two constructs (PEOU) and (PU) are main factors that determine

the usage or intention to use (IU) of technology by individuals. Figure 2.3 below

shows TAM model based on Davis et al., (1989) :

Figure 2.3 : The original TAM based on Davis et.al. (1989)

Source : Davis et.al. (1989), pp.985

Davis defined Perceive ease of use (PEOU) as the degree to which a person

believes that using a particular system would be free from effort and Perceive

Usefulness (PU) as the degree to which a person believes that using a particular

system would enhance his or her job performance.

2.3.1 The Extension of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM2)

An extension model of TAM or TAM2 has been introduced by Venkatesh

and Davis (2000) to include `Subjective Norms (SN) as an additional determinant of

user acceptance as shown in Figure 2.3.1. The construct of SN in the extension

model are image, job relevance, output quality and results demonstrability.

ExternalVariable

Perceived

Usefulness

Perceived

Ease-of-use

Attitude Intention

to use

Actual

use


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The original TAM

Figure 2.3.1 : Extensions of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM2)

Source : Venkatesh and Davis (2000), pp.197

In reviewing the relationships among variables in TAM, Yuanquan, et.al.,

(2008) believes that the `Attitude Towards Using (AT) is the connection between

PEOU, PU and `Behavior Intention (BI). AT and BI or U have a strong significant

relationship. They also found that TAM is a flexible model as the use of external

variables in TAM depends on the type of research. For example, study by Park, et.al.,

(2006) found that individual users and organizational users had different sets of

variables that affected acceptance. In a study to understand users and organizational

characteristics towards accepting a computer technology, they found that for

individual users, acceptance on technology is influenced by subjective norms such as

social group action (friends, family members and colleagues) and also mass media

reports and expert opinions. A personal innovativeness and self-efficacy in an

individual user also depicts positive characters towards technology acceptance.

Whereas, for organizational users, they found that the acceptance of technology is

greater when the organizations is challenged by uncertainty environments. Park,

et.al., (2006) also found that psychographic variables like level of education and job

Subjective Norm

Image

Job relevance

Output quality

Result

demonstrability

Perceived

usefulnesss

Perceived

ease of use

Intention

to use

Usage

behavior

The Original TAM


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security plays an important factors in an organizational users compared to individual

users who sees trust and privacy, readiness and innovativeness as an important

factors in acceptance of a computer technology.

Demographic factors such as age, education, income and race has also being

tested using TAM to explain how attitudes determine technology acceptance. Porter

and Donthu (2006) used these factors as an external variable to study the use of

internet by American individuals from different demographic background. By adding

perceived access barriers as an additional belief variable in TAM, both found that

different demographic factors act differently towards belief about an internettechnology in this case and hence affect the attitude towards using the technology.

Their study demonstrate how perceive access barriers influence consumer attitude

that explained why older, less educated, minority and lower income Americans have

lower internet usage rates.

User acceptance can be described as a product of user behaviour in relation to

the available technology and a given environment and to achieve user acceptance, the

development of the perceptions (PEOU/PU) need to be dealt with (Roggenkamp).

The use of TAM as a basis of research models in academic studies can be

found in many literature. The TAM understandability and simplicity has make it

among widely used model in IS literature (King and He, 2006).

Mohamed Zain, et.al., (2005) used TAM to study whether determinants of PU

and PEOU in IT usage influenced organizational agility. Based on a survey made to

329 managers and executives of a manufacturing firm in Malaysia, they proved that

technology usage had the strongest direct effect on organizational agility. McFarland

and Hamilton (2006) uses TAM to examine the influence of contextual variables on

end-user IT acceptance behaviours among end-users in mid to large profit

organizations with at least 25 to 100 internal IS staffs. They found that system usage

and computer efficacy are strongly affected by those contextual variables (computer


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anxiety, prior experience, others use, organizational support, task structure, system

quality).

The use of TAM together with other information theories can also be found in

many literatures. Yi. et al., (2006) use an integrative approach that combined TAM,

TPB and IDT to create a unified model to test contributing factors that lead to

technology acceptance by skilled individual professionals. Using 222 physicians in

the U.S as their research sample, they found out that perceived usefulness is the most

significant determinant of intention to accept a technology.

In a study by Premkumar and Bhattacherjee, (2008), the basic TAM is used

together with the `Expectation-Disconformation Theory (EDT) to form an integrated

model to explain user acceptance and continuance usage of computer-based tutorial

(CBT) among 175 university undergraduate students enrolled in IS course. The use

of both models is to compare the relative ability of the two theories in explaining IT

continuance usage (Premkumar and Bhattacherjee, 2008).

An integrated model of TAM (Davis, 1989) and IDT (Rogers, 1995) has been

used by Zhang, et.al., (2008) to understand and predict IT adoption and use among

Chinese senior managers in mainland China. They found that the integrated model to

be useful in interpreting IT adoption.

From its first development in 1989, the technology acceptance model has

attracted numbers of studies related to IT acceptance and users intention towards IT

usage in organizations. A meta-analysis of the TAM by King and He (2006)

involving 88 TAM empirical studies published in 22 journals reveals that the TAM

measures are highly reliable and can be used in a variety of contexts and is a

powerful and robust predictive model.


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2.4 E-mail in Government Organization

E-mail communication is an effective way to enable timely communication

especially when it involves text attachments and where communications between two

or more users are restricted by distance. Although traditional communication

channels such as telephone calls, facsimile transmission and exchanging letters still

had been widely used by many government departments, communication through e-

mail is accepted as an alternative channel.

Although the use of e-mail is believe to be less formal compared to a face toface communication, its usage in bureaucratic organizations such as government

departments and agencies is found to be different. A recent research made by Meijer

(2008) in three government agencies reveals an important insight into how

employees in government organizations interact and use e-mail. It also looked into

the changes in civil servant working environment when e-mail became part of their

communication media. According to Meijer (2008), the interrelation between the use

of e-mail and characteristics of a bureaucratic organizations can be simplified by the

following framework, shown in figure 2.4.

According to Meijer (2008), when civil servant adapt e-mail into their

communication pattern (Arrow A), these communication pattern are influenced by

the introduction of the new medium (Arrow B). Civil servant will have more

autonomy in terms of managing their work and information including contact

networks. At the same time, bureaucratic organization influences these

communication patterns through rules and regulations stipulating how to

communicate in various situations (Arrow c). These influences limits the autonomy

enjoyed by the civil servants as they are bound to a certain degree on how to conduct

their work. Arrow D indicates that bureaucratic will exists when civil servant act in

this directions.


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D C

B A

Figure 2.4: Interrelation between use of e-mail and characteristics of bureaucratic

organization.

Source: Meijer (2008), pp431.

According to Meijer (2008), it was concluded that using email in the

government agencies does not change them into post-bureaucratic organisations.

What happen is, government organisations that use email with emphasis given on

the interplay between bureaucracy and technological properties, transform

themselves into a late bureaucracy organisations. Meijer (2008) found that using

emails in government agencies do not reproduce bureaucracy but introduce new

ways of coordination among them. The new coordination uses email and its three

affordance to facilitate its functions that is; i) asynchronicity, ii) instant capability to

check on memory and iii) communications between one person to many people with

managers monitoring and intervene whenever necessary. This had formalised

communications that were before considered informal. The managers in government

organization and other employees will be kept informed and thus the organisations

Characteristics of

Bureaucratic Organization

Communication Patterns

of Civil Servant

Use of e-mail

DC

B

A


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network are kept together. At the end, the use of e-mails makes the government

organizations flexible and accountable.

2.5 Research Model

Based on IT acceptance research in many literatures, the basic concept in user

acceptance of a technology can be explained by following the `PerceptionIntention

Usage (P-I-U) lens in portraying IT acceptance phenomenon (Schwarz and Chin,2007). For a better understanding, the following figure 2.5(a) shows the basic

concept of IT acceptance and use based on Schwarz and Chin (2007):

Figure 2.5(a) : Basic concept of IT acceptance and use based on Schwarz

and Chin (2007)

Figure 2.5(a): Basic concepts of IT acceptance.

Source: Schwarz and Chin (2007), pp.232

Based on the theories and concept reviewed above, a model is developed to

better understand the actual factors towards PU and PEOU in influencing the

acceptance of e-mail in a public service, e-govt settings.

Developing a model or a framework are useful because it allows us to

organize and integrate various elements of a problem in a simple and consistent way

and as a result, it assures the attainment of the pursued outcomes (Montagna, 2005).

Hence, this framework is being proposed in this study to guide readers to understand

the basic elements of this study in an easier way.

Perception or

reaction to use IT

Intention

to use IT

Actual use

of IT


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TAM Category of E-mail usage :

Influencing factors Frequency /

Intensity

Figure 2.5(b): Proposed model for e-mail acceptance in e-govt settings.

In this model, organizational, technological and individual user

characteristics is believed to be the influencing factors that affects the use of e-mail

by users in a e-govt settings. The organizational factor includes top management

support, technological includes technical user support and intranet services and

quality. The third influencing factor; the individual user characteristic involves

users computer self-efficacy. These influencing factors interact with the two TAM

beliefs; the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use and impact the usage

frequency and intensity of e-mail in a e-govt organization.

E-mail usage frequency and intensity will be determined through average

official e-mail (e-mail related to work) sent and retrieved by the users in pursuing

their daily work in a day. In this study, e-mail usage frequency and intensity will be

observed through the number of e-mails sent and retrieved by the Johor State

Government officers. E-mail usage frequency and intensity can also being observed

from State Government offices that have branches throughout the State. For example

Organizational

Technological

Individual(User

Characteristics)

PU

PEOU

High

Low


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e-mail usage frequency and intensity between District Offices, District Land Offices,

District Religious Offices and between Offices of Local Government can be

observed through how frequent they sent and share monthly and yearly reports

through e-mail to their respective headquarters offices.

2.6 Construct of the Model

The construct of the model is based on the TAM2 developed by Vanketeshand Davis (2000). The determinants in this model (top management support,

technical user support, intranet services and quality, computer self-efficacy and user

involvement) is based on the work of Mohamed Zain, et.al., (2005) and Mohamad

Noorman, et.al., (2008) as these determinants are considered justify in many

organization.

2.6.1 Organizational Factors

2.6.1.1 Top management support.

The use of IT applications in any organizations requires a strong support and

backing from their top management. Researchers agreed that top management

support is needed in diffusion and implementation of e-mail (Romm and Pliskin,

1999; Stevens and McElhill, 2000). In their research on e-mail usage in business

organizations, Stevens and McElhill (2000) suggests that the success of e-mail

depends on a top-down direction. It is the top management responsibilities to decide

how the system should work and succeed through an implementation of a policy.

Spennemann and Atkinson (2003) found that the extensively increasing usage

of e-mail in a college university is attributed by the universitys administration and

lecturing staff preferable to be contacted by e-mail rather than face-to-face


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communication. Mohamad Noorman, et.al., (2008) defined top management support

as `the degree to which top management understands the importance of the IS

function and the extent to which it is involved in IS activities. A high degree of

managerial support for IS/IT implementation will not only demonstrate commitment

and continuous support for the project but also develop conducive implementation

environment by providing necessary resources such as time, space, equipment and

people.

The top management support is important as it will bring benefits to the

organization. The top management has the responsibility to encourage conduciveculture and shape IT utilization behaviour and provide sufficient fund and

manpower. The work of Mohamed Zain,et.al., (2005) and Mohamad Noorman, et.al.,

(2008) proved that top management support and commitment in using IT in any

organization is essential as it will help the employees of that organization to generate

timely information to make better decisions or decision support and sharing of

knowledge.

2.6.2 Technological Factors

2.6.2.1 Technical User Support

In any organizations that deals with IT/IS application, scheduled maintenance

and continuous upgrades of such applications, software and hardware is essential to

make sure that it can be accessible and useable at all times. Any employees will

definitely expect that their technical problems in using IT applications to be

immediately attended by someone responsible to do it. A higher utilization of IT can

be expected when these problems can be solved promptly and they can resume work

without any delay.


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2.6.2.2 Intranet

Intranet is defined as `a private TCP/IP network that usually supports the

same protocols and services as the public internet including e-mails, news, chat

rooms and web pages (Muller, 2002). Mohamad Norman, et.al., (2007) study the

intranet effectiveness from three groups of variables, namely intranet effective usage,

intranet service quality and its impact on user. They found that better understanding

of intranet success will promote understanding towards organizational success since

intranet effectiveness has direct and indirect impact on organizational effectiveness.

2.6.3 Individual Factors

2.6.3.1Computer self-efficacy

Computer self-efficacy has been identified as a factors in individual users

characteristics in accepting a computer technology and its acceptance is influenced

by technology characteristics such as PU and PEOU (Park, et.al., 2006).

To understand computer self-efficacy, ones must first know what is meant by

self-efficacy. According to the user self-efficacy perspective, individual acceptance

or rejection of communication media depends on the ease of use and usefulness of

the users perception of these media for communication task performance (Bandura,

1982 ; Fang, 1998). MacFarland and Hamilton (2006) emphasized three critical

characteristics of self-efficacy as follows:

i) Self-efficacy is ones belief in his or her capability to produce an

outcome rather than assessment regarding the impact of the outcome.

ii) Self-efficacys focus is on overall results rather than component level

skills.


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iii) Self-efficacy is a judgement of `what one can do in the future rather than

an assessment of `what one has done in the past.

Hence, McFarland and Hamilton (2006) defined computer-efficacy as ones

belief that he or she is capable of using a computer to complete tasks difficulty or

consequences. According to them, `if a person is confident using one application to

complete a particular task, he or she will be confident using any application to

complete any task.

2.7 Summary.

The review of literatures in e-mails usage shows that e-mail will continue to

have a great impact in our daily lives. As such, the concepts and theories pertinent to

e-mail usage and particularly computer mediated communication technology will

continue to evolve.

The literature discussed in this chapter proved that TAM is a validated

tool in the information system study. TAM has been widely accepted as a robust

and reliable model to explain and predict User acceptance of technology due to its

validity, generality and ease of applicability (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000).

Literatures in IS validate that TAM is the most powerful and influential IT

acceptance model (MacFarland and Hamilton, 2006).


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CHAPTER 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction

The purpose of this study is to look into how communication technology such

as e-mail being accepted by employees of a government organization. In a modern

public administration, the management and construction of an e-mail is believed to

be an essential element in providing fast and efficient services intra and inter-

organization. This study attempts to explain the factors into which public service

employees use e-mails as a preferred communicating tools in a government

framework.

This chapter presents the proposed process of conducting this study which is

divided into four topics including research design, sampling design, data collection

and data analysis procedures.

3.2 Research Design

This study will adopt the `Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) developed

by Davis et.al., (1989) for the purpose of identifying factors that lead to the usage of


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e-mail by Johor State Government officers. Since the study of TAM is believed to

have relations on human behaviour, a survey research method will be used.

According to Wysocki (2001) a survey research is best used for topics where the

researcher ask questions and learns about attitudes and behaviours reported by the

respondents. Hence, it helps in understanding a particular social issue. The use of

survey questionnaire is also efficient in the sense that it enabled data to be collected

from a large number of people via cheap medium such as sending through mails

(Wycocki, 2001).

A survey questionnaire will be prepared to accommodate the objective of thisstudy as stipulated in Chapter 1, i.e: i) to determine what are the level of acceptance

among Johor State Government officers, ii) To analyze and rank factors that affects

the use of e-mails among them and iii) to analyze factors that leads or rejects such

behaviour.

3.3 Sampling Method

This study focuses on understanding the factors that will lead the use of e-

mail as a preferred communication medium in a government organization. The Johor

state government is chosen because e-mail has been introduced in the government

administration since 1999. The Johor intranet facilities known as `Johor StateNet is

to facilitate the state government internal communication between employees from

different departments and agencies and also between state government employees

and citizen outside the organization. Such application of ICT in government settings

to provide efficient services to the citizens is in line with the concept of e-

government as proposed by many scholars such as Torres, et.al., (2005), Montagna

(2005) and Galcia and Moyano (2007) as the Johor state government uses ICT in

government settings to provide efficient services to the citizens.


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As mentioned earlier, this study covers all 441 Johor State Government

officers in the State of Johor, Malaysia. The Johor State Government staff with

officer rank will be the population of this study. In all, the State of Johor has a total

of 10,728 personnel working at time of study. Out of this, 3,594 employees have

been allocated with an official e-mail domain address and 441 of them are ranked

officers (Head of Departments or Agencies including Head of Units/Sections in a

department or agencies).

Table 3.3 shows the total number of the Johor State Government employees

and number of employee equipped with state government official e-mail domain.These officers were also chosen because they are the state governments personnel

that performed professional and managerial role in running Johor State Governments

administrative functions. It is expected that all respondents will complete the

questionnaire and return their feedbacks.

Table 3.3: Total number of Johor State Government employees with

e-mail as at July, 2008

Service Group Total personnel Personnel with

official

e-mail domain

Public Service Higher

Ranked Management08 06

Management and

Professionals512 435

Administration and

Clerical5675 3029

Support Staff 4533 130

TOTAL 10728 3594

(Source: Science, Technology and ICT Unit, Johor State Secretary Office)


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As this study is aimed at recognizing factors that influence the usage of a

particular ICT application (in this study is e-mails), the whole population of the study

will focus on 441 Johor State Government officers from various department

throughout the state. These officers have been allocated one computer and one e-mail

domain address each in the `Johor StateNet for official use. The desktop computers

were placed at the office where the officers were assigned duty. These officers were

chosen because they play a key role in Johor public service administration as they are

hold key positions in various government departments throughout the state.

3.4 Data Acquisition

In general, both primary and secondary data will be used in this study.

Primary data will be gathered through returned questionnaire from the study

population, that is the Johor State Government officers while secondary data will be

sourced from readings of related literatures and various reports published internally

by the Johor State Secretary office.

The respondents in this study will be all the 441 officers from the Johor Civil

Service that has an email account. A total of 441 sets of questionnaires will be

prepared and distributed to all the subject population in this study. The questionnaire

in this study will be electronically-mailed via the `Johor State Intranet facilities to

the subject population using their e-mails domain address in the intranet. As a

contingency plan, conventional methods (where questionnaire will be mailed by post

to the respondents) will be employed should there be no response from them via e-

mails after a one (1) month grace period.

The 441 sets of questionnaire is expected to be e-mailed to the respondents

via `Johor StateNet in the month of November 2008 after it is be ing approved by

project supervisor and universitys examiners.


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3.4.1 Primary Data

The primary data of this study will be sourced from the returned

questionnaire. This will be the study tool that has the first-hand information of the

topic being studied. Since questionnaire will be sent direct to the respondents, it is

being assumed that the answers given will be honest and free from any form of

biasness such as the influence of a third party.

3.4.2 Secondary Data

In preparing this project proposal, secondary data were gathered from related

literature published in established journals via Sultanah Zanariah Library e-database

facilities. Among journals referred in this study includes selected studies and articles

from `Management Science, `MIS Quarterly, `Information and Management and

`Public Sector Technology and Management journals. Sources from Johor State

Government official information includes `Johor State ICT Coordination Monthly

Reports, `Johor Information Infrastructure Operation Reports, `Johor State ICT

Blueprint Report and Johor State Government Circulars.

Reviewing literatures and official reports from these sources has been the

basis in preparing the background, problem definition, literature reviews and

questionnaire formulation of this study.

3.5 Research Instrument

A written questionnaire will be used to gather data and other relevant

information regarding the use of e-mail among Johor State Government officers in a


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JEG framework. The questionnaire will be prepared in two different medium as

mentioned earlier: i) An electronic survey questionnaire sent through e-mails, and ii)

Conventional paper-based questionnaire which will be sent to the officers via normal

mail.

3.5.1 Questionnaire Formulation

The questionnaire sheets that will be used in this study is a combination ofopen-ended question and a close-ended/multiple choice questions. An open-ended

question allows respondents to formulate his or her own responses while the close

ended/multiple choice questions provides the respondents with a fixed set of answers

to choose from.

The questionnaire in this study will adapt several questions from previous

work by various scholars. The items questioned for `perceived usefulness and

`perceived ease of use will be adapted from Davis (1989). These items have been

replicated in a similar manner with added items and minimal alteration by Lai and Li

(2005); Mao and Palvia (2008) and Premkumar and Bhattacherje (2008) to suits the

situation of respondents in different study background. Thus, the validity of the

questions are believed to be good.

A five point `Likert Scale will also be used in the questionnaire. The purpose

of using the likert scale in this study is because it can be used to measure attitudes

and other factors that relates to social behaviour as in the case of this study. Table

3.5.1 below indicates the ratings of each value of the Likert Scale that will be used in

this study.


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Table 3.5.1: Five points Likert Scale ratings

Likert Scale Value Ratings

1 Strongly agree

2 Agree

3 Moderate

4 Disagree

5 Strongly disagree

In sections of the questionnaire where the five point Likert Scale were used,

respondents will be asked to choose from a scale which represents their agreement or

disagreement to each statement presented to them.

3.5.2 Organizations of Questionnaire

The Questionnaire will be divided into five sections as shown in Table

3.5.2(a) below. There will be a total of 45 different types of questions to answer the

objectives of this study. Please refer to Appendix `A for the proposed questionnaire.

Questions in section I are mainly related to basic demographic information of

each respondent in the population. This will be open-ended questions where

respondents will have to give their own answer based on the questions asked. Section

II of the questionnaire will consist of questions that will help to assess the behaviour

of Johor State Government officers in using computer. Closed ended/multiple-item

questions will be asked to provide data on computer usage behaviour.

Questions in section III (a), (b) and (c) are related to the organizational

factors, technological factors and individual factors that affect the use of e-mail in

Johor Electronic Government. This part uses five point `Likert Scale where


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respondents will have to choose one value to indicate their degree of agreement or

disagreement to each statement given to them. A value of 5 indicates a strong

agreement with the statement and a value of 1 indicates a strong disagreement with

the statement.

Questions in section IV is designed to analyze respondents attitude towards

using e-mail in their daily work. Section V of the questionnaire is designed to

provide opportunities for the respondents to make comments or provide their views

on any other issues which may be useful and relevant to the study

Table 3.5.2(a): Contents of Questionnaire

Table 3.5.2(b) below shows list of proposed questions that will be asked to

the respondents of this study. As mentioned in previous parts of this chapter, some of

these questions are adapted from past studies. However, most of the questions are

self construct to adapt the situation in the Johor State Government settings.

Contents of

Questionnaire

Item No. Of

Questions

Type of

Questions

Section I Demographic Background 6 Open ended

Section II Computer use behaviour 12 Multiple choice

Section III(a) Organizational factor 8 Likert Scale

Section III(b) Technological Factor 6 Likert Scale

Section III(c) Individual Factor 8 Likert Scale

Section IV Attitude towards using 4 Likert Scale

Section V Comments 1 Open ended

Total No. Of

Questions

45


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Table 3.5.2(b): Lists of all the items asked in the questionnaire

Question No. Items/Questions asked

Section I Demographic Background

1 Age

2 Gender

3 Length of service with the Johor State Government

4 Name of department currently working

5 Number of staff working in your office

6 Number of staff directly reporting to you

Section II Computer Usage Behaviour

7 Do you have personal computer at home8 Do you have personal e-mail address

9 For how many years have you been using computers

10 On an average working day, how much time do you spend using

computer

11 On average, how frequently do you use computers during working

day

12 According to your job requirements, please indicate each task you

use to perform your job

13 What are the most office automation used in your daily work

14 How often do you access to your e-mail in your work

15 Are e-mail critical in your daily work

16 On the average, how many e-mails sent/received by you per day

17 How many e-mails related to work sent/received by you per day

18 How many e-mails not related to work sent/received by you per day

Section III(a) Organizational Factors

19 My superior encouraged using e-mail to communicate

20 My superior use e-mail to communicate in daily work

21 E-mail enhances communication with my superior

22 E-mail were used regularly to communicate with superiors

23 My organization accept e-mail as an official documentation24 My organizations e-mail policy and guidelines are clearly defined

and understood.

25 You actually dont know your organizations e-mail policy and

guidelines.

26 Official training in e-mail use and policy is provided by your

organization

Section III(b) Technological Factors

27 There are only minimum occurrences of e-mail network-down

28 Technical support is adequately provided to help users

29 Mailbox capacity is adequate for daily official use


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3.6 Data Analysis

This study has a relatively large population of 441 respondents. Due to the

large population and inline with the types of questions that will be asked, this study

will adapt a `quantitative analysis. In this study, two types of quantitative methods

will be employed; i) Descriptive Statistics and ii) Correlation analysis.

To facilitate the storage and organization of data, the final data will be input

and analyze using `Statistical Package for Social Science considered by many to be

easy and user friendly. The system is believes to enable faster data processing and

reduced errors. The systems also allows for doing various statistical analyses.

30 E-mail additional features are useful in performing daily tasks

31 Minimum effort and time are needed to retrieve e-mails and

attachments

32 E-mail record keeping is properly managed and monitored byorganization

Section III(c) Individual Factors (Officers Perceived Ease of Use)

33 My interaction with e-mail is clear and understandable

34 Interacting with e-mail does not require a lot of effort

35 I find the e-mail given to me to be easy to use

36 I find it easy to get e-mail to do the work I want to do

Individual factors (Officers Perceived Usefulness)

37 Using e-mail improves my performance in my job

38 Using e-mail in my job increases my productivity

39 Using e-mail enhances my effectiveness in my job

40 I find e-mail to be useful in my job

Section IV Officers attitude towards using E-mail

41 E-mail can de-personalized communication

42 E-mail is being used for personal matters as well as official duty

43 There are more advantages than disadvantages to e-mail in a

government setting

44 We should go back to paper/verbal messages and ditch e-mail

Section V Comments by respondents

Please use this space for any comments you wish to make


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3.6.1 Descriptive Statistics

According to Salkind (2006) descriptive statistics is used to describe the

general characteristics of a set or distribution of scores which can be relates to the

measurement of central tendency. The central tendency displayed data in the form of

mean, median and mode.

3.6.1.1 The Mean

The mean is the sum of a set of scores divided by the number of scores. In

order to get the mean value of a population sampling, the following equation need to

be calculated:

Where; X = Mean value of the group of scores or the mean

= Total scores

n = Size of the sample

Equation 3.6.1.1: Mean Calculation

Source: Salkind (2006), pp 153.

For example, Table 3.6.1.1(a)below shows an example on how the `mean is

calculated. Here assumption is made that a total of 200 respondents reply the

questionnaire and the findings for question no. 35 (I find the e-mail given to me is

easy to use) are as follows:


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Table 3.6.1.1 (a): Example of Mean Calculation

Agreement Level Score

(a)

Frequency

(n)

Percentage

(%)

Result (X)

(a*n)

Strongly agree 5 160 80 800

Agree 4 15 7.5 60

Moderate 3 20 10 60

Disagree 2 5 2.5 10

Strongly Disagree 1 0 0 0

Total 200 100 930

= 4.65

From this example, the value of the mean is 4.65, which is between 4 and 5.

The desired output for this study is categorized into three outcomes; high agreement,

medium agreement and low agreement. The calculation of mean scale and range is

shown as:

Total number of respondents: 200

Range = highest mean valuelowest mean value

= 51

= 4

Since our desired outcome is divided into three categories, the intervals can

be obtained by dividing the range to the number of outcomes. Thereby, the intervals

are as follows:

Intervals: 4 / 3 = 1.333

Table 3.6.1.1 (b) below shows the interpretation of the rating scale of mean

that will be adopted in this study. The mean range from 1.00 to 2.33 will beconsidered as a low agreement and 3.67 to 5.00 is treated as high.


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Table 3.6.1.1 (b): The mean rating scale

Mean Mean Rating Scale

5.003.67 High

3.662.34 Medium

2.331.00 Low

In this study, questionnaires in Section I, II, III and IV will be computed to

test each mean rating scales.

3.6.2 Relationships between Variables

In this study, the usage of e-mail (will be known as variable x) among Johor

State Government are believes to be affected by factors such as organizational,technological and individual (will be known as variable y1, y2 and y3 respectively).

These variables (x, y1,y2 and y3) will be tested using `Pearson Correlation

Coefficient to analyze each of these variables relationships to the usage of e-mail

among these respondents. Question No.14 of the questionnaire shown in `Appendix

A will be chosen as it directly relates to the usage of e-mail in respondents daily

work. In order to test its relationships, each answers in this question will be given a

value to indicate its weightage. Table 3.6.2 below shows an example of question

No.14 in `Appendix A with its weightage value.


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Table 3.6.2: Question No.14 with weightage value

Question No.14: How often do you access to your e-mail in your work?

No. Answer Weightage value

i Several times a day 5

ii Once each day 4

iii Several times a week 3

iv Once a week 2

v Dont access to e-mail at all 1

In this study, `Pearson Correlation Coefficient will be used to explain the

relationship between the variable x and y1, y2 and y3. Since there are four (4)

variables in this study, it is expected that more than one correlation coefficient will

be computed. The next part of this chapter shows the formula to compute `Pearson

Correlation Coefficient.

3.6.3 Pearson Correlation Coefficient

According to Salkind (2006), the most frequently used measure of

relationships is the `Pearson product moment correlation. It is also known as

Pearsons `ror `which represents a correlation between the variables x and y.

The value of Pearson correlation ranges between -1.00 and +1.00. It can also

take on any value between those two. A correlation of +1 indicates high positive

linear relationship between variables and -1 indicate the opposite relationship.


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The Pearson Correlation Coefficient can be compute through this calculation :

()()[() ()][() ()]

Where = the correlation coefficient between x and y

= the summation sign

n = the size of the sample

x = the individuals score on x variable

y = the individuals score on y variable

xy = the product of each x score times its

corresponding y score

= the individual x score, squared

= the individual y score, squared

Equation 3.6.3: The Pearson Correlation Coefficient

Source: Salkind (2006), pp 195.

3.6.3.1 Interpretation of the Co-efficiency of Pearsons Correlation

The Pearson Correlation Co-efficient reflects the degree of relationship

between variables. Table 3.6.2.1 below shows the interpretation of the co-efficiency

of Pearsons correlation adopted in this study:


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Table 3.6.2.1 : Interpretation of the co-efficiency of Pearsons Correlation

Co-efficiency magnitude of Pearsons r Interpretation

0.81.0 Very high correlation

0.60.8 High correlation

0.40.6 Moderate

0.20.4 Low correlation

0.00.2 Very low correlation

In this study, the Pearsons correlation analysis is applied to analyze the

relationships between the variables in the research model.

3.7 Summary

The proposed methodology in this chapter will be adopted to achieve the

aims and objectives of this study. Data gathered from respondents will be computed

using `Statistical Package for Social Science software which enables faster data

processing. Results from this method will be analyzed to reach into a conclusion of

this study.


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APPENDIX A

UNIVERSITY TECHNOLOGY OF MALAYSIA

FACULTY OF MANAGEMENT AND

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL

QUESTIONNAIRE on

THE USE OF ELECTRONIC MAIL AS A COMMUNICATION TOOL

AMONG JOHOR STATE GOVERNMENT OFFICERS IN THE JOHOR

ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT SETTINGS

The purpose of this study is tolook into how existing e-mail communications is

being utilized in the Johor State Government by its personnel.


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1. The response to this questionnaires will be kept strictly confidential. No names of any

department or individual will be mentioned in the report.

2. There are no correct or incorrect answers to the items included in this survey. Although some

items may appear similar to others, they express differences that are important to this study.

Please response to all questions as honestly and as accurate as possible.

3. Most of the question may be answered by placing tick in the place provided. Please read each

question carefully and select the answer that best fit your case.

Your cooperation in completing this questionnaire is greatly appreciated.

analyzing the usage of electronic communication via e-mails among employees of the state of johor,...

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