*3.1. Background*

Most researchers, administrators and users of electronic public services agree that the adoption and use of the services depends, to a grea<sup>t</sup> extent, on the benefits that are perceived by the citizens. To foment the use of electronic public services by citizens, public administrations need to know the key aspects that encourage their adoption. Given that the online delivery of public services is based on the use of technology, the variables and models of technological utilisation have acquired a fundamental role beyond the factors traditionally employed in the previous literature.

Al-Adawi, Yousafzai and Pallister [38] produced a model that follows the TAM and explains intention to use e-Government websites by postulating four direct determinants: perceived usefulness, perceived ease-of-use, trust, and perceived risk. The TAM o ffers a promising theoretical foundation for examining the factors contributing to the acceptance of new technologies; it has been successfully applied in customer behaviour, technology take-up, system use and in a variety of studies human behaviour.

As previously mentioned, at the end of the 1980s, Bagozzi and Warshaw [30] created a secure and stable technology model for predicting user acceptance of a range of new technologies. In 1986, in his doctoral thesis, Fred Davis [18,39] defined a technology acceptance model (TAM) that explains the process of acceptance of information technology at an individual level. It is in line with the tradition of previous research into information systems [40–42] that aimed to identify the attributes that lead to the success of information systems in business, taking user satisfaction as its measure.

The TAM is based on the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) [43] and its methodology of expected values. The authors of the model had already used the TRA in their research. Bagozzi [44] used it in a work on blood donation, Warshaw and Davis [45] in a number of studies and Warshaw [46] in research on brand selection. The TAM permits evaluation measurements of the quality of information technology systems and their adjustment to the requirements of the tasks that are to be executed; it is used to predict the level of acceptance and use of new technologies. The model (Figure 2) assumes that attitudes toward the use of an information system are based on two antecedent variables: (i) Perceived usefulness (PU) and (ii) perceived ease-of-use (PEOU).

**Figure 2.** Basic TAM model [18].

This is similar to Bandura's [47] concept of self-efficacy. Perceived usefulness is defined as "the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance" [18]. The items employed by Davis [18] as indicators of perceived usefulness are directed at determining people's evaluations of the consequences that the use of an information system may have on their productivity at work.

Another of the fundamental constructs of the TAM is the perceived ease-of-use of a technology, which is based on the self-efficacy of Bandura [47], defined by Davis [18] as "the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free from effort". The items that measure this concept are: flexibility; ease-of-use; control; and the simplicity of becoming an expert in its use.

In the TAM, a direct link is made between beliefs (perceived usefulness) and intentions. This is a significant difference with respect to the Theory of Reasoned Action [43], where beliefs only have an impact on attitudes.

In 1992, DeLone and McLean [19] established an Information System Success Model, based on research on communications carried out by Shannon and Weaver [48]. They specified two quality dimensions: System quality, that measures technological success, and, Information quality, that measures semantic success (the content). The model was founded on an analysis of the literature from 1980 to 1990, consisting of around 100 publications. The original model was applied and its results published in more than 300 papers, guaranteeing the applicability of the model.

In 2003, they updated this model to include three dimensions of quality that affect use and user satisfaction: Information quality, system quality and service quality that measure the quality of service delivery. In the updated model, Intention to use refers to attitude; use refers to behaviour (Figure 3).

**Figure 3.** The DeLone and McLean model [31].

The two models were utilised for the development of a new approach for the evaluation of e-Cognocracy: the Theoretical EF3-framework.

The Theoretical EF3-Framework

Considering the evaluation of enterprise behaviour [11], the EF3-approach contemplates the following ideas:


The theoretical EF3-framework for the integration of e ffectiveness, e fficacy and e fficiency can be seen as an extension of the TAM and DeLone and McLean approaches: The perceptions and behaviour of citizens are used to evaluate the processes of citizen participation and the adoption of technology.

The EF3-framework (Figure 4) was designed for the identification of the relevant aspects required for evaluating e-Cognocracy, but it can also be employed in the evaluation of any e-participation model.

**Figure 4.** Theoretical EF3-framework for the Evaluation of e-Cognocracy (source: the authors).

In the theoretical EF3-framework: *e*ffi*ciency* is "the operational improvement of the current democratic system"; *e*ffi*cacy* is the capacity of the current democratic system to "defend the interests of the citizens through their representatives"; and, *e*ff*ectiveness* is "the conjoint creation of a better society".

The relevant aspects determining e fficiency are based on the three constructs contemplated by the DeLone and McLean model [31]: the IT application (system quality), the information that is obtained (information quality) and the human resources support (service quality).

Four constructs are considered for the evaluation of e fficacy: information, communication, decision and expectations. Information is a unidirectional flow of interaction (usually from the administration to the citizens); communication is understood as two-way interaction: debate and discussion. In addition to the bi-directional flow of information; decision includes the production of a co-decision between the administration and citizens, and expectations refer to the identification of the characteristics that participation experiences should have in the future.

Effectiveness is studied through the analysis of two scenarios as latent intermediate variables: the current situation and the future situation (ideal), and an endogenous variable that captures the impact of e-Cognocracy (the creation of a better society).

The following section of this work presents the application of the theoretical EF3-framework through a survey implemented in the real-life experience of Cadrete (e-Cognocracy) using SEM or the covariance structure analysis approach [49–52].

#### *3.2. Relevant Aspects: The Estimated Structural Model*

The identification of relevant aspects for the EF3 evaluation of e-Cognocracy, using structural equation models, was by means of a survey undertaken after the implementation of the project in Cadrete.

#### 3.2.1. Case Study

In April 2010, the Cadrete Municipal Council, in collaboration with the University of Zaragoza, undertook a citizen participation project aimed at giving the residents of the municipality a voice in public decision making. The project was financed by the Government of Aragon and organised by the Zaragoza Multicriteria Decision Making Group. The issue in question was the design of cultural and sporting policies. There were two main objectives: (i) That decisions on the budget assigned to the aforementioned policies would be conjointly made by the politicians and the citizenry; and (ii) that citizens would be encouraged to involve themselves in the debate and take part in the decision making process and the arguments that supported the decisions would be publicly disseminated.

Participation was encouraged by the incorporation of a new group of actors: the neighbourhood associations. There were therefore three groups of actors that were given di fferent weightings: (i) The politicians, with a weighting of 40%; (ii) the citizens, of 44%; and (iii) the local associations, of 16%.

The participants were local residents (on the electoral register) of over 18 years of age (politicians, citizens and representatives of the local associations). There were two voting options: with National Identity Card or with username and password. As was the case with Mamaqui and Moreno-Jiménez [35], the analytic hierarchy process [53,54] was used as a methodological support and the Internet as the communication support.

The census of actors that fulfilled the requirements necessary to participate and the weights awarded to each group are shown in Table 1. The voters could determine what proportion of economic and financial resources should be allocated to each of the four segments of the population considered: children (0–14 years old), the young (15–29 years old), adults (30–64 years old) and the elderly (over 65 years old).


**Table 1.** Voters and Weightings.

\* Over 18s with the right to vote in 2008 (data from the Aragon Statistics Institute) (source: the authors).

A hierarchy with two criteria (Cultural and Sports) and six sub-criteria was constructed (Figure 5). Within the criterion associated with cultural aspects, three sub-criteria could be selected: Education, Leisure and Identity. Within the sports criterion, the selection sub-criteria were: Entertainment, Physical Development and Social Relations.

**Figure 5.** Hierarchy of the Cadrete experience (source: the authors)

#### 3.2.2. Phases of the Process

Following the structure of the e-Cognocracy democracy model [11,12,23–26], the process of participation was:


In order to evaluate the experience, at the end of the elicitation process (on the same day and at the same location), the participants were asked to complete a questionnaire (see Appendix A) comprising 51 questions grouped into seven sections: (i) The System of Citizen Participation; (ii) The Creation of a Better Society; (iii) Motivation; (iv) Evaluation of the Technology Support and Applications; (v) Evaluation of the Information; (vi) Evaluation of the Support Personnel; and (vii) Overall Evaluation. The information from the questionnaire was used to analyse the effectiveness of e-Cognocracy.
