72
convenience, cost, communication, time, participation in decision making, and personalisation.
5.4.1 Convenience
The convenience of m-government allows citizens to report problemsaspirations anywhere and anytime.
Due to the fact that Indonesia’s geographic characteristics offer access gap particularly in rural areas Harijadi Satriya 2000, this benefit is indeed in
accordance with what is expected from m-government as a new channel of e- government in Indonesia. This is also justified by several researchers Khuschu
Kuscu 2003; Sharma Gupta 2004; Casalo et al. 2007 saying that the main objective of m-government is to enable citizens to access public information and services
whenever and wherever they might be. It can facilitate more e-government adoption through the convenient accessibility and availability offered by its mobile value Nava
Dávila 2005; Khuschu et al. 2007.
5.4.2 Cost
According to citizens, there is cost reductions resulted from using m-government service, both via SMS or mobile application, to connect with public officials and
governmental activities. Cost saving is indeed benefit expected by LAPOR team to increase LAPOR adoption and to improve their participation in controlling government
development programs and public services with consideration of those in rural areas. Besides the cost savings caused by cheaper mobile phone’s price compare to other
electronic device, for example computer, cost saving is also resulted from minimised
SMS ’ rate due to internal SMS gateway provision which generates 87.5 cost saving
per SMS compare to rate from content provider. There are also other cost savings since, for example, citizens no longer need to go directly to government or make a phone call
whose rate is higher than SMS’ or even internet’s rates. This benefit is also justified by some researchers mentioned in section 2.2.2 and deemed as one of most significant
benefit Gilbert et al. 2004.
5.4.3 Communication
Communication benefit has the third highest score, particularly for providing efficient communication channel to government. It is beneficial particularly for those in rural
73
areas who find it difficult to communicate with government. This efficiency might be related to cost and time saving benefitted from the adoption of m-government. Referring
to m-government success assessment, it can be assumed that the communication benefit probably also related to the good system quality, particularly because m-government
system is easy and friendly to use so citizens find it efficient to communicate with government. This result is also supported by Kushchu et al. 2007 that m-government
can facilitate andor improve government-citizens relationship.
5.4.4 Time
The findings also show that there is citizens’ perceived benefit in terms of time. Even though there might be no considerable benefit in term of quicker response time, m-
government still provides time saving when interacting with government and enables citizens to avoid direct dealing with public officials, particularly for those in rural areas
where access to government is quite difficult. It is also confirmed by several researchers Sharma Gupta 2004; Kushchu et al. 2007 who suggest that m-government allows
smooth transactions without face-to-face interaction so the time needed could be reduced. Time savings and interaction avoidance are considered two of most compelling
benefit of e-government, and so m-government Gilbert et al. 2004.
5.4.5 Participation in Decision Making