Statistical Year Book

Big TAM in Oman: Exploring the promise of on-line banking, its adoption by customers and the challenges of banking in Oman

M-government (MG), as a subset of E-government (EG), has expedited the dynamic nature of EG and also created certain channels which either are not available or would be problematic for EG. This has resulted in offering more dynamic and versatile methods for citizens to access certain government services. The objective of the current study is to address and posit the factors which can contribute to an understanding of citizen intention to adopt MG services. A model was used to capture citizen behavior in MG service adoption, and the results from this model are contrasted with adoption behavior for EG from a similar study. To that end, we have developed and validated a model entitled “citizen adoption behavior of MG” (CAB-MG).

Examining Adoption Behavior of Mobile Government

The mobile-Government (mGov) service system is conducted through an open network, and it is virtual. This service mode and pattern change inevitably necessitates a behavioral change in citizen attitudes and intentions. Nevertheless, this new pattern of service delivery through mGov has hardly been systematically investigated by any researchers. The objective of this current research is twofold. First, we attempt to reveal the sources of beliefs for developing intention toward the mGov (ITM) system. Then, as the second objective, we investigate cultural influence as the reason for a difference in consumer attitudes and intentions toward mGov. In this regard, the empirical study was conducted in Bangladesh and the USA, which have potential differences in the cultural traits listed by Hofstede. From our statistical analysis, we have identified the sources of beliefs for both Bangladeshi and USA consumers. We observed clear differences in sources of beliefs and their influence on attitudes leading to intention, which demonstrates support for our second objective which was designed to verify the cultural impacts on belief-attitude relations. We understand that these different sources of beliefs influence cognitive, affective, and connative attitudes toward mGov in different ways.

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Service delivery through mobile-government (mGov): Driving factors and cultural impacts

This study develops a new research model to understand and predict the key determinants influencing the adoption of mobile payment services in a Middle Eastern country, Oman. The research model was tested using a hybrid structural equation modeling (SEM) and neural network (NN) modeling. The findings suggest valuable insights into the mobile payment service providers in the development of an appropriate and effective strategy to raise the number of new consumers in Oman.

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A Hybrid SEM-Neural Network Model for Predicting Determinants of Mobile Payment Services

Introduction Mobile devices are now becoming part of our daily and business life. At the end of year 2001, approximately 14% of the world population--850 Million people--were mobile phone users. This growth has been spectacular especially in Europe after the telecom industry de-regulation and adoption of Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications (Sadeh, 2002). Now, mobile phones are no longer used only for voice communication but are a convenient way of connecting to the Internet and are used for transferring data, exchanging e-mails, and doing small scale business transactions (Sadeh, 2002). Mobile phone penetration is well above the home PCs usage in Europe and it seems that the trend will continue (Varshney, 2000). Mobile or wireless devices are widely used not only by developed countries but also commonly used by many other developing nations of the world and Oman is not an exception. Mobiles technologies with the introduction of internet enabled mobile phones, PDA's, WiFi and wireless networks have offered their users to enjoy all the benefits of telephones, information accessing, text messaging such as SMS (Clark, 2001; Donegan, 2000; May, 2001). A recent estimate indicated that over half of the Omani populations have mobile devices, while the mobile infrastructure in Oman is currently covering 95% of the country (Ministry of National Economy, 2007). The volume of penetration of mobile devices in the country is paving the path for more offering of m-government services accessible from anywhere and at any time. This lead to mobile government activities reaching a larger base in a more convenient manner. Thus, several organizations in Oman have started to utilize this to open mobile channels with their clients. Muscat Municipality developed an m-parking system which enables motorists to pay parking fees via SMS. In addition, higher secondary school students can now retrieve their end of semester grades (via SMS) by messaging their student seat numbers to a phone number designated by ministry of education. Many other organizations are now sending bulk SMS messages to citizens to inform them about different activities. Despite its early stage, m-government seems to have a substantial influence on the current m-government services initiatives in Oman, which are further needed to be explored. Purpose of the study: In this paper, an attempt is made to review the current m-government services initiatives in Oman and to understand the key factors to its adoption and diffusion. Background to the Study The Sultanate of Oman is a developing country, which is located on the south east of the Arabian Peninsula. Oman occupies an area of 309,500 square kilometers (Ministry of Information--Oman, 2008b). It shares borders with United Arab Emirates to the north-west, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the west, the Republic of Yemen to the south and the Arabian Sea lies eastwards. Oman is divided into five regions i.e. Ad-Dakhliyah, Adh-Dhahirah, Al-Batinah, Al-Wusta and Ash-Sharqiyah and four governorates i.e. Al Buraymi, Dhofar, Musandam and Muscat. The total adult literacy in Oman is 81% which is very high in the region and per capita income reaching to US$ 9070. Oman's real renaissance began with the accession of His Majesty; Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said to the throne on 23 July 1970 (Ministry of Information--Oman, 2008a). Oman's government system is monarchy (Ministry of Information--Oman, 2008a). According to the latest estimates (Ministry of National Economy--Oman, 2007), in 2006 Oman had a population of 2.677 million people. However, nearly 693,000 residents, 25.9 per cent of the population, were expatriates. Oman's currency is the Rial (OMR) which is about USA $2.60 per unit. The country's main revenue comes from oil and natural gas. According to the Ministry of National Economy--Oman (April 2008), Oman's 2006 GDP reached OMR 13,737 million (provisional), compared to OMR 104 million in 1970. …

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M-Government Services Initiatives in Oman

The World Wide Web Course Tool (WebCT), Blackboard and Moodle are used for teaching and learning in higher education institutions around the globe. This study investigated the impact of WebCT on students learning taking a course “Introduction to Computers in Business” offered at the College of Commerce and Economics, Sultan Qaboos University in the Sultanate of Oman. The finding showed that though the students have little exposure of WebCT at the beginning of the course but towards the end they have appreciated the importance and the use of WebCT as it is easily accessible from any Internet enabled location at any time. In addition it helps them in better understanding and learning the course material.

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Impact of WebCT on learning: Oman experience

Mobile technology has evolved quite rapidly over the past few years. Many experts argue that the future computer technology rests in mobile or wireless computing. As the number of mobile phone users is increasing worldwide, different organizations are offering their services using these mobile devices Oman is a developing country that strives to adapt M-services. The emerging mobile technology is impacting and becoming the main element that moves Oman forward and helps in its national development process. Internet penetration in most developing countries like Oman is still low as opposed to mobile dissemination. Despite the government plans and strategies to enhance internet diffusion, Internet subscribers comprise about 2.5% of the general population of Oman. In contrast, the number of mobile phones holders increased substantially since the launch of these services in 1996. Prepaid mobile services and SMS were introduced in 2001 and both are currently popular with subscribers. Such fine appeal influenced many government organizations to go mobile with their services. This paper reviews the current m-government initiatives in Oman and the feedback of the users on the SMS-Parking Service, introduced recently by a joint venture of the Muscat Municipality and the Oman Mobile company offering mobile services to its citizens. This study shows that in spite of all these initiatives still the users of mobile are cautiously adapting to M-services as reported on SMS-Parking System.

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Mobile Services in Oman: A Feedback on SMS-Parking Service

M-services (Mobile services) and commerce are growing rapidly with the explosive growth of mobile devices, technologies and networks. Hence, many enterprises use them to grow revenue, reduce costs, maintain their competitive edge and achieve high performance. This advancement in mobile technologies has also influenced many government organizations to go mobile with their services and Oman is not an exception. Oman has just started to utilize mobile channels to offer Mservices to its citizens and clients. Although there were many services introduced, but it was hard to find evidence of any study conducted to determine their successes or failures. This study is an attempt to explore adoption issues of these services. This study used a survey questionnaire to collect data on users accessing the M-services, users’ attitudes and the users’ preferences to use these services. The results indicated that little over 50% of the users had positive attitudes towards the M-services and similar number of users indicated their preference to use them. This finding is in accordance to the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which states that the attitudes determine the intention to use which lead to the actual usage of the system. There were many users having negative attitudes toward these services. This study also explored some possible reasons which might be contributing towards the users’ negative attitudes are the lack of users’ awareness of these services; their usefulness; mobile technology literacy, publicity and marketing, which are needed to be addressed by the service providers for a greater success of the M-service adoption in Oman.

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M-services Adoption in Oman Using Technology Acceptance Modeling Approach

This study investigated the students attitudes toward the use of World Wide Web Course Tools (WebCT) and its influence on learning taking a course Introduction to Computers in Business offered at the College of Commerce and Economics in Sultan Qaboos University in Oman. Sultan Qaboos University is a co-educational institution where in most computer classes the male and female students are equally distributed. Omani society is a segregated society where male and female students have some how different life style and have different attitudes towards learning Information Technology. This research is exploring the difference if any of their attitudes toward WebCT, where WebCT was introduced in their “Introduction to Computers in Business” course as a supplementary learning tool. The finding showed that though male students have little more exposure of WebCT at the beginning of the course than the females, but towards the end of the course the male and female students have appreciated almost equally the importance and the use of WebCT as it is easily accessible from any Internet enabled location and at any time in addition it helps them in better understanding and learning the course material.

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Syed Jafar Naqvi

Papers

M-Government Services Initiatives in Oman

Impact of WebCT on learning: Oman experience

Mobile Services in Oman: A Feedback on SMS-Parking Service

M-services Adoption in Oman Using Technology Acceptance Modeling Approach

Attitudes toward WebCT and Learning: An Omani Perspective