Chapter 1.docx

CHAPTER ONE Introduction

This book is titled on “Union Digital Centers (UDCs) in Bangladesh: Service Quality, Satisfaction and Citizen Participation”. There are few studies have conducted in this topic in Bangladesh to empirically apprise the service quality, satisfaction and use intention of Union Digital Center. The aim of this study is to measure the service quality based on satisfaction by adopting citizen participation as a moderator. Theoretically this study used D&M IS success model. In the context of Bangladesh, the existing study are mostly qualitative and the relationship between service quality, satisfaction and intention to use UDC has not been tested. This research adopted the D&M IS model to measure and tested the service quality on the based on satisfaction and use intention. A structured questionnaire method was conducted and date collected from 499 respondents all over the country in Bangladesh. The data was analyzed by using the technique of Partial Least Square (PLS), this a statistical method that are based on Structure Equation Modeling (SEM). The result of this study showed the information quality, system quality and service quality (p<0.05) of UDC effects citizen satisfaction effectively where the moderator of citizen participation also significant. This paper constructs based on a model and empirical data to verify the moderating effects of citizen participation. To ensure the improvement of service quality of UDC all of the dimensions of service quality should be modify, develop the administrative system and citizen should be encouraging to participate in the all aspects of services.

Union Information and Service Centers (USICs) renamed as Union Digital Centers (UDCs) In the modern world, Information and communication technologies are accepted as a powerful tool for socio-economic development. As a part of many digital initiatives Bangladesh started implementing Union Information and Service centers (USICs) from 2010 for brining public services to the door-step of grassroots and establishing transparency and accountability to them. The USICs were renamed as Union Digital Centers (UDCs) in 2014. Through public-private-

partnership UDCs were expanded in 4554 unions around the country as a one stop service center. According to an estimate (2016), UDCs delivered 45 million services to rural people during 20132015 (TIB, 2017). Union digital Center is a strong and important initiative to implement Digital Bangladesh vision2021. UDC is the last tier of local government and the only media to connect millions of people with public service access, which is situated in Union Parishad (UP) level. Union Digital Center is operated by a male and a female entrepreneur on the basis of Public Private Partnership (PPP) in which various digital equipment is invested. Remote and rural people can get various online services at their doorsteps through the equipment. It makes operations hassle free by ensuring service providers and users to save time and cost. Operating under the Public- Private-PeoplesPartnership (PPPP) modality, these centers are run by local entrepreneurs, hosted by Ups and supported by the central administration. Thus UDC plays an important role to reach the vision of Digital Bangladesh in reality. Good local governance is the key to ensuring sustainable local development. The recent United Nations High-Level panel(UNHLP) has pointed out that local government is the vital bridge between government services and people (UNHLP,2013), and numerous studies showed that peoples direct participation in local government is key to effective local government. The constitutions of Bangladesh envision exactly this approach, and recent reform mandates guarantee participatory democracy at the local level administration. Bangladesh is a country with a large number of population and about 66 percent of its total populations live in the rural areas (World Bank Group, 2016). According to administrative map of Bangladesh the country is divided into a division (8) district (64) Upazila (489) and Union (4554). The Union Parishad (UP) is the lowest tier of the present structure of local government system in Bangladesh. The Government of Bangladesh has identified the use of ICT as the key drive to attain progress in every sphere of human life including social, political, and economic following the slogan of

Digital Bangladesh i.e. the most specifying agenda at the manifesto of ruling AL political party. Each UP is connected to government web portal since starting of the UDC (previously known Union Information and Service Center-USIC) in 2010 under the direct supervision of Prime Minister Office(PMO). The UP has its own in situational shape and UDCs have been working with the regular working process of Ups. In this process, the UP has introduced outsourcing systems, with the deployment of two entrepreneurs (one male and one female) at UDC. For improving the quality of the common people as well as advancement of the country there is no alternative to providing e-services timely to the people of all segments of society in an equal manner. Kim and Lee (2012:819) have proposed that e-participant’s satisfaction with the quality of government responsiveness can be positively related to e-participation individual development through e-participation. The government has declared the "Vision 2021" in the election manifesto, which targets establishment of a resourceful and modern country by 2021 through effective use of information and communication technology as named a “Digital Bangladesh”. Digital Bangladesh is not only meaning of using of computers but also it means the modern philosophy of the effective and useful use of technology in terms of implementing the promises in education, health, job placement. Poverty reduction etc. Under the grand Digital Bangladesh vision, ICT policy 2009 and 6th Five Year Plan (FYP) of Bangladesh have prioritized expanding the access to ICT facilities and provision of digital services to cover the greater segments of populations of the country (Mings et ai., 2011). Currently, in Bangladesh, there are more than 120 million mobile phone users and 99 percent geographic coverage of wireless network connectivity which all show the extent of digital transformation in the country (Chowdhury, 2015). The government of Bangladesh has taken a number of notable initiative collaborating with private and non-profit organizations in the arena of information and communication technology. The mechanism of government service provision is becoming more responsive to the needs of citizens utilizing digital platform and

modern communication facilities (Zaman & Rokonuzzaman, 2015). For example, the setting up of Union Digital Center in all union level since November 2010 is such an initiative that has created wider access for rural people to get the internet and digital services that were unavailable to them. Currently, there are 4554 UDCs running in every Union Parishads throughout the country, which is providing access to more than sixty types of services to the general people in the Union level of Bangladesh. Key services among these include" land registration, life insurance, government forms, public examinations results, apply online university admission form, birth registration, agriculture information, health care services" along with computer training and other internet services (Bangladesh Shongbad Shongstha, 2014). Now the question is, how does service quality measure in the process of construction and operation of Union Digital Centers? How do we know the public are satisfied or not? What’s the role of citizen participation in these issues? These are all issues that need to be understood and resolved.

Existing Issue Bangladesh is a small country with vast unexplored resources in South Asia. Through Bangladesh is a small country but it has huge populations, most of them are live in rural areas. The people who lives in rural areas, they need proper communication system and advance knowledge about e-services to make them a productive human resource. To develop the rural people, the government has introduced Union Digital Center's (UDC) which provide information including health, education, agriculture, law, human rights, environment, industry and commerce, birth registration at free of cost. If the goal of Union digital Center (UDC) is fulfilled, then the e-service in rural areas as well as at national level will be improved. Most of the people of the rural area are uneducated.

Education is one of the major facts for providing and receiving e-service timely in an efficient way. The current literacy rate of Bangladesh is 61 percent (The Daily Star, 2015) and most of the illiterate and poor people live in the rural area. These huge number of the population need a proper communication system and advanced knowledge about e-service to make them productive human resource and change their living standard which is an important component for development and growth (Saleheen, 2015). Information dissemination through UDC is supposed to enhance transparency in the working of Up. In UDC entrepreneur can play a vital role by providing important information to the rural people. Thus a pertinent question is: to what extent the entrepreneurs of UDC are capable to provide necessary assistance to rural people. Sheth and Sharma (2007) identify some challenges that make hindrance in e-governance. These are: firstly, Low penetration of ICT especially in the developing countries: secondly, fraud on the internet space which is estimated around 2.8 billion USD: thirdly, privacy due to the emergence of various types of spyware and security holes and lastly, intrusive characteristics of service (e.g. mobile phone-based) as customers may not like to be contacted with the service providers at any time and at any place (cited in Saleheen, 2015:23). Following the perspective described above, a study on the service delivery system of UDC deserves special attention for exploring the new dimension of ICT use in rural Bangladesh. One of the election pledges of the present government is to build a Digital Bangladesh. Equal opportunities should be made available for all to get any types of services from any public offices. The citizen also should have the liberty to express his /her opinion, then the government will be able to know that the citizens are satisfied or not by their services through UDC. For ensuring democratic local governance, it is necessary to include all types of people in decisionmaking process and ensure their active participation. ‘Quality services in e-participation programs can allow participants to make suggestions, to locate policy and community information, to ask government employee about policy and community issues, and to view other participants ` (cited

in Kim and Lee, 2012). This way e-participants may have a greater monitoring role over the public administration that refers mass people's ownership and empowerment to public issues. This study will mainly analysis the service quality, satisfaction and intention to use of Union Digital Center (UDC) by a citizen in the rural area in Bangladesh. Rationale Bangladesh is a third world developing country with the huge population in the world. Most of them are uneducated, poor and lives in rural area. Sometimes they cannot get government services and information properly and in due time. By the financial help of UNDP, present government already established Union Digital Center (UDC) in 4554 unions that are the lowest unit of Local government system in Bangladesh so that rural people can be benefited. This research is done to investigate how Union digital Center (UDC) promotes their services to the citizen in the rural area in Bangladesh and also measures e-service, satisfaction, and acceptance of UDC by people. Furthermore, considering the issue from the development perspective it has been finding out the functions of UDC are to promote e-governance framework for rural people. Moreover, by revealing the findings obtained through the present study, the government will be generally acknowledged to be aware of the services in rural areas. In this case, Union Digital Center (UDC) plays a vital role for the rural people by providing various e-services at the lowest cost. The grassroots people can easily get the all sorts of offline and online government and commercial services through Union Digital Center (UDC). Successful implementation of UDC can play an important role to implement e-government in Bangladesh. Few people pay attention to use the citizen participation in the relationship between the service quality and citizen satisfaction, especially on the basis of empirical research in the context of Bangladesh. The contribution of this paper is, till now no directly empirical study on service quality

of UDC has been conducted in Bangladesh. The existing research on public service centers focuses more on theoretical discussions. Quantitative research is relatively few. In quantitative research, scholars generally construct and test empirical models by referring to the theories and methods of other related disciplines, and at the same time, judging the problems according to the research results and give some suggestions. The main purpose of Union Digital Service (UDC) is to give service to the rural people in the easiest way. The research has emphasized on the interaction between the rural people and the government by providing e-service delivery. It has also given the importance on the satisfaction of citizen by using the UDC. Thus it is possible to give better e-governance service to the rural people by the government through UDC. Here, it is mentioned that the research focuses to find out the rural citizen satisfaction by providing quality of service delivery through Union Digital Center. It will show whether the citizens of the rural area are getting more benefit after starting UDC then the previous service delivery and their satisfaction level. The core objective of the study is to explore the state of e-services delivery through UDC. Some of objectives of the study are as follows: 

To verify the impact of information quality, system quality, service quality on citizen satisfaction



To explore and test the role of citizen participation on the path of information, system and service quality and also impact of citizen satisfaction



To know the intention to use of UDC by a citizen in the rural area; and,



To know the effectiveness of the UDC in public e-service delivery.

The core research question that is to be addressed in this research is ‘Are the common people satisfied after using Union Digital Center (UDC) at Union Parishad level?' In order to attain the above general research objectives, the following specific research questions have been raised:



How efficiently/effectively the services are provided by UDC to the citizens?



How to measure the quality of service of Union Digital Center?



How to know whether the citizens are satisfied or not?



What is the role of citizen participation at UDC?

Methods Every research is conducted in a definite way. Methodology means to process or way. Research methodology is such process by which research objectives are acquired. It denotes the detailed framework of the unit of analysis for collecting data, gathering techniques, sampling focus and interpretation strategy and analysis plan. There are two types of research method, one is quantitative research and another is qualitative research. Quantitative research is based on the measurement of quantity or amount of data. On the other hand, qualitative research converses with the qualitative phenomenon. Qualitative research is important to discover the under-lying motives of human behaviors (Kothari, 1985:4). Generally, research methodology is a process to collect data and different information for achieving the research objectives. It primarily focuses on the methods, tools, and techniques of data collection. It may include interviews, surveys, research publication and research technique. The instruments for gathering data also fall within the definition of the methodology of a research (Aminuzzaman: 1991). The purpose of this study is to find out the effectiveness of UDC in minimizing gap for e-service delivery between govt. and citizens. This study incorporates both of the qualitative and quantitative research approaches which focus on asking questions. A total of ten UPs of ten different UPZs of ten different districts (Kushtia, Dhaka, Hobigonj, Jhenaidah, Noakhali, Pirojpur, Jessore, Rangpur, Sherpur and Pabna) will be selected as the study area around eight divisions in Bangladesh. Ten UPZs are Khoksa, Nakla, Jessore Sadar,

Ishwardi, Rangpur Sadar, Nabigonj, Begumgonj, Pirojpur Sadar, Savar, and Kotchandpur. The researcher will select these ten UPs purposively because researcher's personal network will be helpful in obtaining information from the respondents in these areas. In order to draw some inferences on the findings, it is necessary to analyze the collected data quantitatively. So, a combination of qualitative and quantitative approach is applied here to achieve the objectives of this study. Content Analysis includes collecting data from all relevant books, documents, articles, journals, published and unpublished research works and online articles that are found to be available. The semi-structured questionnaire survey method is conducted in this research for the purpose of collecting primary data about the Service Quality, Satisfaction and intention to use Union digital Center in Bangladesh: The moderating effect of Citizen Participation. It is one of the effective methods of collecting primary data. In this research author used mainly questionnaire survey method and also follow the Content analysis. Intention to use and satisfaction of UDC is mainly measured by collecting information from the citizens through questionnaire method. The data are collected for this study from both primary and secondary sources. Secondary data are gathered from the existing literature such as books, newspaper reports, previous research works, seminar papers, reports etc. Primary data are collected through interview and questionnaire survey. The citizen/beneficiaries are brought under the interview method for drawing primary information. These personnel were brought under the convenience sampling for the purpose of the structured questionnaire survey.

The study had followed convenience sampling. Convenience sampling is also known as nonprobability or opportunity sample in which sample is drawn without any underlying probabilitybased selection method. In this sampling, technique samples are selected from that part of the population because of their convenient accessibility and proximity to the researcher. Basically, a convenience sample is used when either a complete enumeration of survey population or scientific choosing of the sample is not possible (Price, 2013). Some may argue that why is not probability-based random sampling used? To use random sampling, the researcher needs a well-defined population, determine sample size on the basis of population, listing the population, assign numbers to the population, then find random numbers, and select sample. But in Bangladesh, there is no such government or another source of data that contains details information on managerial employment by sectors. Indeed, I am not in a position to determine population and estimate samples. Again why is not systematic random sampling? In systematic sampling researcher also need a list of the population and have to follow the same procedure as it is in random sampling. At last, researcher will take the first sample randomly and then choose rest of the sample in regular interval. So random sampling is not possible in the study of Service Quality, Satisfaction and intention to use Union digital Center in Bangladesh: The moderating effect of Citizen Participation. Therefore, researcher used convenience sampling. In this study researcher used own networks to reach probable respondents. When a respondent is located and agreed to participate in the survey through any of these networks, researcher either visited respondent's place or used email to take his/her survey. A lot of samples was collected by visiting the ten Unions throughout the country. To make samples representative, a substantial portion of samples were collected from different administrative Upazila of Bangladesh. A total 499 (four hundred and ninety-nine) respondents have been selected from the beneficiaries of Union Digital Center. The composition of the respondents is as follows:

Table 1.1: Distribution of the Sample N0.

Name of the Occupation

Number of the Respondents

1

Teacher

60

2

Farmer

53

3

Private Employee

54

4

Businessman

55

5

Housewife

60

6

Student

54

7

Retired

53

8

No job

52

9

Others

58

Total

499

A great deal of cautiousness has been followed in choosing the occupation from the public, private and another sector as the validity of this study largely depends on reasonably proper identification of the occupation from the public, private and other citizens. To measures the latent constructs in this study hypothesis a structured questionnaire survey method was used. There was three part of that questionnaire, Part A, Part B and Part C. Demographical information contains Part A which helps to establish the analyze the descriptive characteristics of the respondents/ sample. In this part respondents were asked their basic

information such as gender, age, educational qualification, occupation, income etc. The second part of the questionnaire developed that are related with the research model where used 5-point Likert scale (1) very disagree to (5) very agree. And the Part-C also developed by the researcher that are relating with Part B for the discussion of this study were also used 5-point Likert scale (1) very poor to (5) very good. A face-to-face strategy was used to collect data. Total 550 questionnaires were distributed and 515 were returned where 16 was incomplete questionnaires. After excluded the 16 questionnaires 499 questionnaire was used for this analysis. Partial Least Square (PLS) method which is a statistical analysis that are based on structural equation modeling(SEM) was used to measure the validity and also test the relationship among all of the hypothesis that are based on D&M IS model. In this research, different types of data collection procedure for this research were conducted to collect the primary and secondary data. The primary data were collected by using structured questionnaire from key respondents and asking the set of questions. The secondary data was gathered through content analysis from the research articles, text books, and dailies while documents survey scheme from the various webpage. The Collected data were analyzed, sorted, summarized, calculated edited, formatted, tabulated and classified according to the objective of the research. The collected data were also processed systematically in different research approaches according to the predetermined variables like age, education, occupation, income etc. which were classified on the basis of the qualitative approach. The data are collected from both primary and secondary sources. After processing, the collected data were then analyzed and interpreted by using some statistical tools and techniques. Moreover, the collected data were categorized, tabulated, analyzed using SMART PLS software. It has also been used MS-Word, MS- Excel and SPSS for the purpose of analyzing the data.

For the purpose, the role of UDC regarding e-service delivery, the following scale is constructed: Table 3: Five-point scale for measuring the effectiveness of UDC and satisfaction of citizens. Scale

Service quality, continuous motivation

Satisfaction

5

very agree

Very good

4

Agree

Good

3

Medium

Moderate

2

Disagree

Poor

1

very disagree

Very poor

As with all research, there are some limitations to this study. The limitations are as followings; The report is focused on only 10(ten) Unions of 10 Upazila of 10 district under 8 divisions in Bangladesh. Due to budget, time and resource constraints, it was not possible to cover all the district in Bangladesh. A total 499 respondents were interviewed which are not a large number. Again I think a sample size of this study is not sufficient enough to generalize the findings. As a new researcher, it creates difficulties to conduct a research work due to lack of skill, knowledge, and experience. This happened for personal lacking, time limitations, and some other relevant causes. We also faced some problems due to the shortage of necessary and relevant books, journals and written documents in various libraries and educational institutions regarding the issue. Most of the respondents did not want to answer the whole questions because they were busy in their professional and routine work. Chapter One mainly focuses on the introductory part, statement of the problem, research objectives, and research questions. The rationale, scope and limitations also included. Chapter

Two focuses on the overview of existing literature that sets the theoretical framework for this research model and research objectives. This chapter also focuses detailed information regarding service quality, satisfaction and citizen participation and some important operational definitions. Chapter Three focuses the detailed about Union Digital Center in Bangladesh. Chapter Four focuses on theoretical model, research model and hypothesis, this chapter also includes the research methodology that helps to achieve the objectives of this study. Chapter Five find out the result by using statistical software and described the details of the findings and also its implications. Chapter Six focuses on recommendation and conclusion of this study.