How M-government Services Build Relative Trust? The Mediating Roles of Value Creation and Risk Perception

Abstract

Mobile government (m-government) has been proposed as a means to rebuild public trust in government. However, there is limited discussion regarding how m-government shapes trust in the existing literature. Thus, our study aims to examine the impact of m-government services on various types of trust by using the concept of relative trust. Additionally, we investigate how public value creation, private value acquisition, and risk perception mediate the relationship between m-government use and citizens’ relative trust in government. To test our hypotheses, this study collected data from a telephone survey of 2,875 public service users in China. The findings reveal that the use of m-government services is positively associated with citizens’ relative trust in institutions but negatively associated with their relative trust in grassroots civil servants. Furthermore, perceived public and private values mediate the relationship between m-government services and citizens’ relative trust in institutions versus grassroots civil servants, with private value playing a more significant mediating role. This study provides evidence on the role of m-government services in shaping various types of citizens’ relative trust in government, including institutional trust and relational trust.

Keywords:

• relative trust
• m-government service
• public value
• private value
• privacy risk

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the constructive comments from the Editor and the three anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hong Mei

Hong Mei is a PhD candidate at the Center for Chinese Public Administration Research, School of Government, Sun Yat-sen University. Her research interests lie in digital governance and digital public-private partnerships.

Yueping Zheng

Yueping Zheng is an associated professor at the Center for Chinese Public Administration Research, School of Government, Sun Yat-sen University. He is interested in digital governance, digital public-private partnership, mobile government, and online platform regulation.