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Trust and transformational government: A proposed framework for research

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 Government Information Quarterly 28 (2011) 137–147

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Government Information Quarterly

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s e v i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / g o v i n f

Trust and transformational government: A proposed framework for research

Frank Bannister a,⁎, Regina Connolly b
a
Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
b
Dublin City University, Ireland

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Available online 29 March 2011 This paper examines the concepts of trust and transformational government, both of which have been the
subject of increasing attention in recent times. It explores what trust and transformation mean, or could mean,
Keywords: for government, governance and public administration and whether transformational government is just a
Government feel-good phrase or a genuinely new departure. As part of this, the question of what precisely is being, or could
e-Government be, transformed is examined. The results of this examination suggest that the expectation that technology-
Trust
enabled change has the ability to increase citizen trust, thereby transforming government may be too high,
Transformation
Public administration
but that more research is needed. A framework for such research is proposed.
© 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction found. Consequently, when politicians, public servants, and scholars

The expressions ‘trust’, ‘transformational government’, ‘transforma-
tive e-Government’, ‘reinventing government’, ‘innovative government’,
and ‘citizen centric government’ are often used in close proximity, by
both politicians and academics. In 2006, the UK government embarked
on a major initiative to deliver “transformational government” (HM
Government, 2007). The role of transformational government in creating
trust in government is increasingly discussed by other government
bodies as well. For example, the theme of the 2007 UN 7th Global Forum
on Reinventing Government was “Building Trust in Government”,1 while
the International Council for Technology in Government Administration
conference held in Ireland in October 2007 chose “The creation of trust
through transformational government” as its conference theme. It is also
the subject of a growing body of academic research (Weerakkody,
Janssen, & Dwivedi, 2009).
e-Government literature, has emphasized, unsurprisingly, trust in
e-Government specifically rather than government in general (e.g.
Tolbert & Mossberger, 2006; Dutton, Guerra, Zizzo, & Peltu, 2005;
Carter & Bélanger, 2005; Welch, Hinnant, & Moon, 2005; Warkentin,
Gefen, Pavlou, & Rose, 2002). Research here has mainly been
concerned with understanding how trust in technology-enabled
government services can be developed. Away from the world of ICT,
researchers in the broader public administration literature (e.g. Van
de Walle & Bouckaert, 2003a; Bouckaert & van de Walle, 2003) argue
that the restoration of citizen trust in traditional government is at the
core of public sector modernization. In the context of government, a
number of different conceptualizations and definitions of trust can be
⁎ Corresponding author. Fax: +353 1 6770711.
E-mail addresses: Frank.Bannister@tcd.ie (F. Bannister), Regina.Connolly@dcu.ie
(R. Connolly).
1
http://www.unpan.org/globalforum7-workshops.asp.
talk of using e-Government transformation to create trust, it raises
questions of semantics and achievability.
The rest of this article is structured as follows. First, the question of
what is, or might be, meant by ‘transformation’ is examined. Secondly,
the concept of ‘trust’, including the impact of trust on interpersonal,
organizational, and societal relationships and behaviors, and the
degree to which ICT affects these relationships and behaviors, are
discussed. Thirdly, the concept of trust in public administration and
governance is explored. Next, synthesizing these, the question of the
potential impact of ICT-driven transformation on different types of
trust in government will be assessed in the light of research to date.
Finally, a framework for further research will be proposed.
2. Transformation
The idea of using ICT to transform government is not new. Over the
years, there have been many proponents of the hypothesis that ICT
would transform the way government is organized, if not the whole
process of governance. The dream is summarized succinctly by
Bellamy and Taylor (1998): “…at the heart…. lies the simple, but
hugely potent claim that liberating the power of new technology will
drive down the costs of public services and, at the same time, help to
rebuild relationships with government and their citizens” (p. 64). The
history of this idea was examined by Kraemer and King in 2006.
Surveying almost 30 years of U.S. literature, they came to the rather
blunt conclusion that, for all of the hyperbole about ICT-driven
government reform, little has actually changed. If anything, ICT has
tended to be used to reinforce existing power structures and
relationships.
Notwithstanding this discouraging assessment, the dream remains
a powerful one. To take but one example, Blackstone, Boganno,
and Hakim (2005) claim that e-Government is “. a technological

0740-624X/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.giq.2010.06.010
138 F. Bannister, R. Connolly / Government Information Quarterly 28 (2011) 137–147
innovation and move from an inefficient and mainly unaccountable
bureaucracy to a new entrepreneurial culture” (cited in Rocheleau,
2007, p. 586).
In the past few years, this type of change has come to be referred to
as transformational government (t-Government). T-Government
would seem to be a mixture of e-Government, business process re-
engineering and business scope re-definition. As with trust, there are
definitional problems, albeit of a lesser order, with the word
‘transformation’. Transformation is a malleable concept and, as will
be argued, this causes difficulties when the term is used by both
politicians and by researchers.
2.1. Types of transformation
When discussing transformational government, there would not
appear to be any consensus on what transformation means. West
(2004) summarizes the problem of definition “…it is difficult to
determine how much innovation and over how long a period of time
is required before something can be considered a ‘complete change in
character, condition’, the classic definition of transformation” (p. 15).
Without actually using the word ‘transformation’, Dunleavy, Margetts,
Bastow, and Tinkler (2005) express a similar idea:
We set out the case that a range of connected and information
technology-centered changes will be critical for the current and next
wave of changes… The overall movement incorporating the new
shifts is towards Digital Era Governance (DEG)… DEG offers a
perhaps unique opportunity to create self-sustaining change (p. 467).
Scholl (2005), drawing on Smith (1982), addresses this problem
by considering two different levels of change using the words
morphostatis and morphogenizes to indicate first and second orders
of change. While such a binary categorization of change provides a
useful framework for discussion, in practice, transformation is a
continuum; in general there is no clear point as which something
ceases to be a minor change and becomes a radical one.
One important meaning of transformation interprets it as the final
or highest stage of a stage model of e-Government development.
There are several versions of this model. Coursey and Norris (2008)
reference the following five versions, which are all broadly similar:
Baum and Di Maio (2000); Layne and Lee (2001); Bonham, Seifert,
and Thorson (2001); Andersen and Henriksen (2006). Typically, such
models are comprised of four to six developmental stages that include
billboard or presence; download; interaction; transaction; and
culminate in either joined up government or transformation. For
example Bonham et al. (2001) define the final transformational stage
as using technology to “transform how government functions are
conceived, organized and executed” (p. 6). Bonham et al. are vague on
the specifics of this other than to suggest this transformation will be
akin to some sort of advanced form of customer relationship
management. This problem – what might be called ‘conceptual
generality’ – is quite common in the literature. Transformation is
expressed terms of desirable qualities rather than concrete changes in
processes and structures. A good example is Janssen and Shu (2008)
who define transformational government as government that is
transparent, accountable, efficient, and agile. For a government that is
currently opaque, secretive, inefficient and inflexible this would
indeed represent a transformation, but few, if any, real governments
are starting from such a low base. This begs the question, are these
qualities absolute or relative? For example, is increased agility
transformation or is transformation only completed when agility is
also achieved and in that case, how is agility to be defined? Agility has
a whole host of potential meanings and interpretations across the
spectrum of government. All of these qualities are good, but it is not
clear what makes them transformational government. Is a govern-
ment that is more efficient more transformational?
There have been some studies of transformation. One such was
undertaken by Torres, Pina, and Royo (2005). According to Torres et
al., the key to transformation is “… political and managerial
determination…” (p. 544) and in the absence of either of these,
progress is likely to stall. Their research confirms the intuitive findings
of Heintze and Bretschneider (2000) that ICT in the public arena
merely improves efficiencies, but does not lead to meaningful
organizational change or to increased democratic participation. A
more optimistic view emergence from a study of local government in
the U.S. by Ho (2002) who defines transformation in terms of the way
such governments operate. This involved moving from a classic
bureaucracy with departmentalization, standardization, and a focus
on cost efficiency to a networked, (externally) collaborative and
customer service-oriented view. Ho argues that many U.S. local
administrations have made, or are in the process of making, this
transition. In contrast, Moon and Norris (2005) argue that the key
driver of e-Government change is management innovativeness and
that e-Government outcomes will be more positive if they are
promoted “strategically and resourcefully” (p. 49). Moon and Norris
consider eight outcomes of e-Government, most of which relate to
efficiency in terms of lower costs or increased revenue. None of these
eight outcomes refer to increased public trust.
In summary, the transformation literature (if one can call it such)
is one that envisages some sort of technologically enabled order of
magnitude improvement (not just change) in government, but the
concept of transformational government is problematic as there is no
consensus on what it means. There is limited discussion within the
literature about the practicalities of actual transformation of real
people and real organizations. A variety of ideas are discussed
including participatory democracy, greater transparency, networked
government, entrepreneurial government, decentralization, agility,
the elimination of bureaucracy and so forth, but there is no single
vision, no deep discussion of the wider requirements, no implications
considered and no forward thinking on the desirability of this type of
change. Finally, transformation may be change of process, change of
structure, change of lines of authority, change of locus, change of
power, and so on. In any given context, change in one or more of these
areas may be relevant or irrelevant to trust. The fact that transforma-
tion and transformational government are such fluid concepts is a
problem here in so far as the claim that transformational government
will create trust and begs the questions of how much transformation
and of what type? Testing this proposition requires a clear
specification of the nature of the transformation envisaged and the
type of trust to be engendered. Before considering the first of these
questions, the problem of defining trust is first addressed.
3. The general concept of trust
Trust is a subject that has long been of interest in a variety of fields
of human endeavor. While this has resulted in a rich vein of
scholarship on trust, it has also led to a diversity of conceptualizations.
This section presents an overview of the trust literature and discusses
some of the definitional problems with, and debates about, the trust
construct.
3.1. Some problems of definition and scope
It has been contended that the most pervasive cultural character-
istic influencing a nation's prosperity and ability to compete is the
level of trust or cooperative behavior as based upon shared norms
(Fukuyama, 1995). In the context of public administration and e-
Government, trust is a complex concept that presents researchers
with a number of challenges. As noted above, one challenge is that
there is a great deal of literature on trust, looking at the construct from
angles as diverse as anthropology and computer science. Consequent-
ly in any discussion of trust, it is important to be clear on which
 F. Bannister, R. Connolly Government Information Quarterly 28 (2011) 137–147
definition is being used. Another challenge is that there are many
types of trust relationships, ranging from trust between individuals
through trust between organizations and even between machines. As
a consequence, the concept of trust can have many different shades of
meaning. As with transformation, in any discussion of trust and e-
Government, is therefore essential to have a clear understanding of
what meaning of the word ‘trust’ is being employed. However the
problem is slightly different. Transformation is primarily a problem of
definition and degree; it is not a complicated construct. Trust, on the
other hand, is a complicated construct with many interpretations.
In the world of relationships, a simple definition of trust is that it is
the willingness of a party to expose itself to the possibility of being
exploited by another party. This is easy to relate to when considering,
say, buying something on e-Bay. It is a less useful definition when
talking about government. When people say that they do not trust the
government, they are not necessarily expressing a concern about
personal risk; it is more likely that they are judging the competence of
the government to do something right or to do the right thing. A
citizen may, for example, say that he does not trust the government to
manage the health services or control the budget deficit. That is a
rather different thing from the same citizen saying he does not trust
the government not to disclose his personal financial information or
health records to third parties or subject him to arbitrary arrest.
Furthermore, different trust questions arise in different branches and
levels of government. Therefore, in the expression ‘trust in govern-
ment’ government might mean government in general or a specific
government agency such as a regulatory body, a ministry or a
municipal authority, but it could also mean politicians or public
servants or institutions. Consequently, if a citizen is asked: ‘Do you
trust the government?’ there are numerous ways that he or she might
choose to interpret the question.
What is of greatest interest to governments themselves, both
politicians and public servants, are the factors and mechanisms that
lead citizens to trust their government and public administrations and
consequently to engage in trusting behavior. Are these mechanisms
the same for developing trust between individuals as they are for
developing the trust that an individual has in the state? As will be
seen, different literatures have subtly different perspectives on this
question and there is some disagreement. The antecedents of trust are
also affected by whether power or risk in a transaction is symmetric or
asymmetric. In the former case, trust generally needs to be mutual.
But for a citizen dealing with government, the situation is never
symmetric, so the nature of the trust required by citizen and
government will be different.
3.2. Conceptualizing trust
Over the past 50 years, there has been enormous academic interest
in trust. Amongst those who have studied this topic (with sample
references) are sociologists (Gambetta, 1988), psychologists
(Deutsch, 1962), organizational behavior scientists (Kramer, 1999),
economists (Zucker, 1986), anthropologists (Ekeh, 1974), and
political scientists (Barber, 1983). It is viewed as the foundation for
social order (Lewicki, McAllister, & Bies, 1998) and has been shown to
influence both interpersonal and interorganizational relationships
(Zaheer, McEvily, & Perrone, 1998). Within the field of Information
Systems (IS) interest in trust has naturally extended to virtual and
electronically intermediated environments (e.g. Cyr, Bonanni, Bowes,
& Ilsever, 2005; Pavlou & Gefen, 2004; Sillence, Briggs, & Fishwick,
2004; Briggs, Simpson, & De Angeli, 2004; Gefen, Karahanna, & Straub,
2003). The latter field includes several explorations of technology
acceptance from Davis' initial concept of the Technology Acceptance
Model (TAM) (Davis, 1989) through its various refinements, alter-
natives and successors (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003).
Within the world of commercial on-line systems, there is a growing
139
body of trust research including Cheung and Lee (2000) and Connolly
and Bannister (2007a, 2007b).
No matter what definition of trust one is using, of critical interest
are the antecedents to trust, i.e. those factors that lead to trust beliefs
and trusting behaviors. There has been extensive research into the
antecedents of trust (e.g. Lippert & Swiercz, 2005; Wang & Emurian,
2005; Briggs et al., 2004; Gefen et al., 2003; Shankar, Urban, & Sultan,
2002). The intensity of this research is unsurprising given the great
significance of this to various parties, not least vendors. However,
there is no agreement in the literature as to the characteristics that
influence the generation of a trust response. Researchers who consider
trust to be a dependent variable suggest that a perception of
trustworthiness results from the perception of a number of character-
istics (Lee & Turban, 2001; Covello, 1992; Barber, 1983). Many attempts
have been made to identify these characteristics (e.g. Butler, 1991;
Peters, Covello, & McCallum, 1997; Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995).
While there may not be complete agreement, common themes do
emerge. In general, the research literature suggests that the following
are the key antecedents to trusting behavior.
3.3. Situational factors affecting general trust
While these are the factors on which there is the widest agreement,
three additional groups of factors are claimed to affect a trust response.
The first of these go under the collective name of situational factors.
These include social mores and structural protections. To take the latter
example, one is more likely to trust somebody if there is recourse to the
law or to an arbitrator. Such so-called institutional factors encourage
formation of trust beliefs and trusting behavior (Bigley & Pearce, 1998;
Hagen & Choe, 1998; Sitkin & Pablo, 1992). The literature suggests that
institutional factors can encourage risk taking and consequent trusting
behavior as the less familiarity and similarity that exists between the
participants in an online exchange, the higher the need for institutional
structures (Luhmann, 1979). As Borys and Jemison (1989) note, trust
formation is initially based on contractual assurances, and subsequently
evolves towards socially accepted norms and rules of conduct. It is
therefore understandable why trust researchers such as Zucker (1986)
stress the need for institutional arrangements, social structures,
processes, and norms, which have been termed the “guardians of
trust” (Shapiro, 1987, p. 635). Pavlou and Gefen (2004) have shown that
the perceived effectiveness of institutional mechanisms engenders
trust, not only in a few reputable sellers, but also in the entire
community of sellers, which contributes to an effective online
marketplace. The positive aspects of governance mechanisms in
mitigating risk and consequently engendering a positive trust response
cannot be ignored. However, it must be noted that highly structured
controls can in fact remove the need for trust and thus may inhibit
development of a successful trust relationship (Macaulay, 1963).
Consequently, such governance mechanisms have the potential to
destroy what they set out to create. In fact, to a prospective trustor, the
presence of highly structured controls may even have negative
connotations, suggesting a complete absence of trust.
A second general factor is propensity to trust. Here there is the
question of the extent to which willingness to trust is a personality
trait. This concept is much debated and there is no consensus about it
in the literature. While some researchers suggest that propensity to
trust is developed in childhood as a result of positive early experiences
(Bowlby, 1982; Rotter, 1967, 1980; Erikson, 1968), organizational
psychologists tend to regard this idea with caution, suggesting instead
that situational factors play a dominant role in trust behavior (Wicks,
Berman, & Jones, 1999; Mishra, 1996; Burt & Knez, 1995). These
positions have different implications. If propensity to trust is dominated
by personality factors formed in early childhood, then the ability of
governments to create trust by creating a trust-engendering environ-
ment is going to be limited. However if trust is situational, then there
may be much that governments can do to create citizen trust.
140 F. Bannister, R. Connolly / Government Information Quarterly 28 (2011) 137–147
Finally there is perceived risk. As risk is a difficult concept to
quantify in social situations, perceived risk is often considered more
meaningful to measure. The need to trust is a direct consequence of
the perceived risk in a given situation (Verhagen & Tan, 2006;
Grabner-Krauter & Kaluscha, 2003; Hardin, 2001; Snijders & Keren,
1999; Mayer et al., 1995). Risk involves both uncertainty (Lewis &
Weigert, 1985) and vulnerability (Barney & Hansen, 1994). The
individual's awareness of risk will be influenced by multiple factors
such as the perceived level of risk, the potential benefits and penalties
as well as their correlating perceived importance (Coleman, 1990). In
a commercial context, the primary risk in a transaction is normally
that of financial loss. However, in a government context, perceived
risk may vary considerably and range from the government imposing
additional taxes to state abuse of power, for example, by arbitrary
arrest and detention.
When it comes to trusting other people in a technology-mediated
context, the lack of face-to-face interaction that normally allows
participants to gauge credibility is a further obstacle to trust-
generation that must be overcome. Thus, researchers (e.g. Cassell &
Bickmore, 2000; Friedman, Kahn, & Howe, 2000; Schneiderman,
2000) stress the importance of value-sensitive design, that is the need
to ensure that signals of trustworthiness are embedded in the
technology interface, specifically procedures that mimic human
interaction and conversational behavior which they argue can lead
users to judge the online interface as more reliable, competent, and
knowledgeable, and consequently lead users to trust the technology
more. This view is supported by the work of Nicolaou and McKnight
(2006) who show that information cues available to a user during an
initial exchange session can help build trusting beliefs and mitigate
perceived exchange risk. These cues can include privacy protections
and it is particularly important that the providers of websites, whether
in the public or private sector, understand what counts as important
from the perspective of the systems' users, if the user's perception of risk
is to be (Friedman et al., 2000). E-Commerce researchers such as
Shankar et al. (2002) note that studies of online trust across
international contexts such as Cheskin Research (2000) have shown
significant differences between online consumers in different countries
in terms of their confidence in the ability of their governments to control
identity and other forms of risk associated with online shopping.
In summary, in the field of personal trust, there is continuing
debate and an absence of consensus on important points. We next
consider trust in government.
3.4. Trust in government
As has already been noted, citizen trust in government is a
different concept from interpersonal trust and consequently its
antecedents are likely to differ. In part, this reflects a difference
between the world-view and interests of political and administrative
science and other fields, including information systems. While the
idea of trust in government has some overlap with the more general
conceptualization of trust set out in the preceding section, there are
fundamental differences in both definition and means of measure-
ment. For example, a report, published in New Zealand, defined trust
in government as “the level of confidence citizens have in their
government (both politicians and public officials) to ‘do the right
thing’, to act appropriately and honestly on behalf of the public”
(Barnes & Gill, 2000, p. 4). While this is not inconsistent with Bélanger
and Carter's (2008) definition of trust of government as “…one's
perceptions regarding the integrity and ability of the agency providing
the service” (p. 167), it is subtly different. Other researchers such as
Blind (2007) and Van de Walle and Bouckaert (2003b) put forward
quite different conceptualizations of trust in government, the latter
describing it as the “… congruence between citizens' preference and
the perceived actual functioning of government” (p. 337).
Like the general trust literature, the literature on trust in
government is eclectic in the sense that there are many papers
considering many different aspects. A common theme in several
contributions is what creates (or destroys) such trust. Some
academics and many non academic commentators consider that
trust in government is in long term decline in the U.S. and in several
European countries (Scharpf, 1999; Nye, 1997; Bovens & Wille, 2008).
Job (2005) lists a whole series of commentators who claim that there
is a decline in political trust. This decline is particularly well
documented in the U.S., where in 1958, 75% of U.S. citizens trusted
the government to ‘do what is right’, a figure which fell to 40% by the
early twenty-first century, having hit a low of 21% in 1994 (The
Council for Excellence in Government (USA), 2005). It should be
noted that the graph of trust in the U.S. government rises and falls
over this period. Therefore, the decline is by no means monotonic and
there is no reason why trust in government should not rise again
given favorable conditions.
The belief that trust in government is in long term decline is
disputed by other scholars. Cook and Gronke (2005) have critiqued
the ways in which trust is measured in the U.S. and argue that trust in
government measurements are unduly affected by recent events and
consequently tend to be unduly negative. Moreover, it is difficult to
assess levels of citizen trust as the results of surveys are frequently not
reflected in citizen's behavior (O'Neill, 2002). Data from Eurobarom-
eter suggests that there has been a decline in trust in the European
Union itself, but evidence from individual countries, such as Malta,
indicates that this is not a universal trend (European Commission,
2005). There are many available reports on trust in Europe. No
consistent picture emerges from these. In fact, research by the Public
Management Institute in the University of Leuven shows that while
confidence in the civil service has declined in some countries, in other
countries, it has increased (Van de Walle, Van Roosbroek, & Bouckaert,
2008). In Belgium, a country which has been hit by a number of major
crises in public confidence resulting from policing and political
scandals in recent decades, confidence in the government has risen
and fallen with each crisis, but there is no obvious long term decline in
trust (Instituud Voor Den Overheid, 2003). The raises the question:
are Belgium and Malta out of line, or is trust determined, as Job (2005)
and Cook and Gronke (2005) suggest, as much by short term factors
such as political scandals, as by long term structural factors including
e-Government or technology?
3.5. Factors affecting trust in government
According to Zucker (1986) trust in government emerges from
three factors:
1. Characteristics of the individual (i.e. his or her social–cultural
background);
2. Professional standards and public statements of ethical standards
(institutional trust); and
3. Experience (process trust).
These can be partially mapped back to general trust concepts.
Zucker's “characteristics of the individual” is similar to propensity to
trust. Professional standards are an aspect of situational factors that
Nye (1997) classifies as social, economic, and political. Braithwaite (in
Braithwaite & Levi, 1998) contends that the conditions for trusting
government and its agents are expressions of shared social values.
Social trust is grounded in the citizen's personal circumstances
including his or her economic position and social class and context.
Institutionally based trust is faith in the entity, faith that the entity is
benevolent and has integrity.
Process trust emerges from continual satisfactory experiences.
Thomas (1998) uses these ideas to suggest ways in which trust can be
created by government. Institutions can engender trust through
adoption of ethical and professional standards and through what
 F. Bannister, R. Connolly Government Information Quarterly 28 (2011) 137–147
might loosely be called good behavior though in an electronic
environment. The concept of trust is complicated by the added
dimension of trust in the medium as well as the government. Hudson
(2006) suggests that the picture is more complicated. Using Euro-
barometer data, Hudson shows that the antecedents of trust include
many factors other than innate propensity to trust or government
performance. For example, people's trust in government varies with
their economic circumstances, education and household income. Age is
also a factor, with trust in institutions declining in mid-life and rising as
people get older.
Franklin, van der Eijk, and Marsh (1995) argue that trust may be
influenced as much by the transient popularity of the government in
power as by broader concerns about institutions, and that the more
popular the government, the more people trust not only it, but the state.
On the other hand, Hetherington (1998) suggests that the opposite
applies, i.e. that trust influences the degree of support for the
government rather than the other way round. So, adding to the
conceptual difficulties surrounding trust in government, there is no
consensus regarding causality. Kampen, Van De Walle, and Bouckaert
(2006) suggest that trust is lost more easily than it is gained; to use their
own colorful phrase, “trust comes on foot and goes away on horseback”
(p. 387). Christensen and Laegreid (2005) argue that trust in
government depends on several factors including trust in institutions
and democracy and well as service satisfaction and a number of
demographic variables such as age and education. Gershtenson and
Plane (2007) propose that trust should be considered under the
following four headings: trust in outcome, trust in process, trust in
central government, and trust in state or local government.
In summary, trust in government, its antecedents, causality, how it
should be measured, and the question of how governments can
influence it, has been and continues to be the subject of much ongoing
theoretical debate and some empirical research. Whether or not trust
in government is in long term decline as some believe, or merely
fluctuates as others have argued, the desire to increase trust in
government remains a continuing feature of the political landscape. It
is not therefore surprising that with the growth of e-Government, the
question of whether technology can increase trust in government is of
interest.
3.6. Trust and e-Government
As noted in the introduction, there is also a literature that considers
trust and e-Government. Some of this literature is only concerned with
trust in e-Government per se as opposed to the broader concept of trust
in government generally. An example of this school of thought is
Warkentin et al. (2002) who propose a complicated model of trust in
e-Government incorporating elements of standard trust models and
the TAM. No formal test of their model has been published at the time
of writing.
Carter and Bélanger (2005) suggest a somewhat simpler adoption
model than that of Warkentin et al. (2002), but one which also based
on the technology acceptance model and Rogers (1995) diffusion of
innovation theory. Their research suggests that increased trust in
government generally leads to increased use of e-Government
facilities. On the other hand, a recent study by Goldfinch, Gauld, and
Herbison (2009) in Australia suggests the opposite, i.e. that those who
trust government less tend to make greater use of e-Government. This
raises yet another problem of causality.
Of greatest interest to governments is not just that trust
in government will lead to more e-Government take-up, but that
e-Government take-up will lead to greater trust in government. To
date, there has been limited research into this hypothesis. An
analysis of the impact of e-Government on trust was undertaken by
Tolbert and Mossberger (2006) based on data from a Pew survey.2
2
For information about Pew, see http://people-press.org/.
141
Using a definition of trust broadly along the lines of trust in the
government to ‘do things right’, they examined the impact of e-
Government on trust at federal, state, and local levels in the U.S. Trust
was considered from two perspectives: process-based trust and
institutional-based trust. Their results show that while citizens
perceive improvements in responsiveness, transparency, efficiency
and so on, as a result of e-Government initiatives, this does not
translate into trust except in local government. Tolbert and
Mossberger conclude that they can: “… say with confidence that e-
Government leads to positive attitudes amongst current users, but
would that be true if the e-Government users were a more diverse
group?” (p. 366).
A partial answer is provided by the work of Parent, Vandebeek, and
Gemino (2005) in Canada. Using quite a small survey (182 responses)
and a convenience sample, they conclude that using the Internet to do
business with the government had a positive impact on trust. The
quality of the interaction was not highly significant. Their research
suggested that those who already have high levels of trust in the
government tend to have these reinforced by e-Government interac-
tion. However, the impact on people who have low levels of trust (and
political efficacy) is insignificant. As with other studies, the underlying
nature of the sample frames suggests that these findings be regarded as
tentative at best. Both studies by Welch et al. (2005) and Parent et al.
(2005) have shown that those who tend to trust the government tend to
use government websites and vice versa. Welch et al. (2005)
acknowledge that they cannot address the causality of this relationship.
While, therefore, the findings are interesting, they say nothing concrete
about the likely effect of better e-Government on that section of the
citizenry who do not trust the government. If it is true that people who
are naturally inclined to trust the state tend to use e-Government and
vice versa, then more and better e-Government is unlikely to achieve
much except further satisfy this subgroup.
4. A framework for trust and transformation research
What emerges from the above discussion is a complicated picture
illustrated in Fig. 1.
Trust in government can be divided into two broad categories:
• General trust in the competence of the government to manage the
state, and
• Specific trust in the government not to abuse its power.
The first category – general trust in the competence of the
government to manage the state – can in turn be further categorized
as:
• Trust in the politicians, and
• Trust in the machinery of the state, i.e. the civil service, government
Questions of trust may be asked about the competence of the state
in general (to say run the health services) or its ability to deliver
T
Politicians T T
Process e-Process
:
Agency :
General Level State : :
Competence : Process
:
T
Agency
Trust in
Government T
T
Non Abuse
of Power
T = Trust Point
Fig. 1. Trust points.
142 F. Bannister, R. Connolly / Government Information Quarterly 28 (2011) 137–147
specific services (such as company registration). Questions of trust can
be asked about government in general or about a specific level of
government (federal, state, and local) or agency within a particular
level and about any process or service that agency undertakes and
provides or even, in the extreme, the local office of that agency or street
level bureaucrats in that office. It is quite conceivable, for example, for
a citizen to trust one hospital, but not another for a specific service. Into
this highly complex matrix of situations, the question of electronic
provision or support of that service is to be considered. At this point
there is a large number of factors involved, including all of those listed
in Table 1 and Section 3.2 as well as trust in the technology itself and
the integrity and security of the communications system. In fact, at any
of what are termed trust points in diagram one, a number of different
technologies may be brought to bear, each of which may or may not
have an impact on that particular trust point.
The question of the impact of technology on trust in government is
therefore multidimensional to a high degree even before one brings
transformation into the discussion. If transformational government is
to mean anything, then it is necessary to specify with some precision
the context in which it is intended to be understood. From this
perspective, the term transformational government may turn out to
be an unfortunate one.
4.1. Research to date
To date, the literature combining transformation and trust is,
perhaps unsurprisingly, limited. One of the few articles that has
tackled it directly, referred to above, is that of Welch et al. (2005) who
assess citizen trust in government using four fairly direct questions.
The authors confine their analysis to three main factors: transactions,
transparency and interactivity. Broadly speaking, transactions are
measured by convenience, quality, privacy, efficiency, and security.
Transparency is a measure of how visible the organization and its
processes are to the user, i.e. how well does the citizen understand
what is going on? Interactivity is simply the speed and quality of
response. Welch et al.'s model is shown in Fig. 2.
The results of Welch et al.'s (2005) analysis show that citizens who
are most satisfied with e-Government also trust government more
(which conflicts with the findings of Goldfinch et al. noted above), but
also show that citizens that trust government more are more likely to
be satisfied with e-Government. That analysis provides a limited
amount of useful insight. Their third finding, that (U.S.) e-Government
is good on transparency and poor on transactions mirrors that found
elsewhere (Welch et al., 2005; Grimmelikhuijsen, 2009).
Table 1
Antecedents to trust identified in the literature.
Literature Trust antecedents
Mishra (1996) Competence (encompassing ability and
Mayer et al. (1995) reliability).
Sitkin and Roth (1993)
Covello (1992)
Barber (1983)
Hovland, Janis, and Kelley (1953)
Lee and Turban (2001) Benevolence (including concern and care).
Mayer et al. (1995)
Covello (1992)
Barber (1983)
Larzelere and Huston (1980)
Strickland (1958)
Chen and Dhillon (2003) Integrity (including honesty)
Butler (1991)
Butler and Cantrell (1984)
Lieberman (1981)
Gabarro (1978)
EE-Government
Satisfaction (i.e.
Government extent to which
Web Site Use expectations about
e-government
e have
been met.
Citizen Trust
in Government
Overall Satisfaction
with Government (i.e.
extent to which general
expectations of government
are perceived to have
been met
Fig. 2. Model of e-Government and trust. (Welch et al., 2005).
Source: Oxford University Press.
The findings of Hart/Teeter's (2003) survey and report, which were
prepared for the Council for Excellence in Government in the U.S., and
the New Zealand Council for Excellence in Government (2003) also
provide insight into citizen perceptions of e-Government and indirectly
into the trust-related implications of those perceptions. They found that
the primary concern of citizens using e-Government is data privacy. This
extends even to such potential useful tools as smart cards for fast airport
security clearance. The second is that citizens see e-Government as a
way of making government more accountable to the people. Thirdly,
those who use e-Government see government's ability to solve
problems to be greater. This finding indicates that the mere availability
of e-Government will increase citizen trust.
However, on the other hand, using the same data, West (2001,
p. 9) comments that: “… there is no significant correlation between
use of e-Government and views about trust, confidence, and
government effectiveness”. West notes that, even though citizens
regarded e-Government services as beneficial, they still have concerns
about giving data to the government on-line and in particular about
the security and possible misuse of that data. He concludes that
citizens' trust in government, as reflected in responses to question-
naires, alters with the use of ‘priming’ questions. This is a well-known
technique (see Kahnemen, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982; Plous, 1993) for
biasing the results of questionnaires. West concludes that given the
incremental nature of e-Government changes, it is not surprising that
there has been little impact so far on trust.
If transparency is the key to trust in government, then develop-
ments in a number of U.S. states may provide a way to test this.
Several states including Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Texas, Oklahoma,
and Hawaii now have websites that show how taxpayers' money is
spent. A particularly good example is the Missouri Accountability Portal
entitled Map Your Taxes.3 In an article in the Financial Times, Norquist
(2007) argued that this type of technology-enabled transparency will
lead to more democratic accountability and, by implication, to trust.
However, the key point in the article is not the technology that makes
this happen; it is the evidence of the importance of political will.
In summary, the relationship between trust and transformation is
complicated. It is multidimensional one with a large number of
different forms which range from the subtly to the fundamentally
different. Transformation is a spectrum with a number of dimensions
(process, governance, organization, etc.). Trust is a construct with a
number of meanings (personal, on-line, institutional, government,
etc.). Government is complex and multifaceted. Technology offers
many tools. Fig. 3 is a simplified representation of the position, but it
suggests that only by reducing dimensionality can the question be
answered and that sweeping statements about transformation and
trust are probably best regarded as yet ungrounded political rhetoric.
3
http://mapyourtaxes.mo.gov/MAP/. This is an interesting site, well worth a look.
 F. Bannister, R. Connolly Government Information Quarterly 28 (2011) 137–147 143

Technology Business Scope Redefinition

Business Transformation
High
Tools
Business Network Redesign

Design of
Business Process Redesign
Revolutionary levels
Nature of Research Form of
Transformation Question Trust Evolutionary levels
Internal Integration

Localized Exploitation
Low

Aspect of Low High

Government Range of Potential Benefits

Fig. 4. Ventrakamen's model of business process evolution.

Fig. 3. First level dimensionality of the trust/transformation problem.

5. Operationalizing the framework
Figs. 1 and 3 provide an overview of a possible framework for
future research. In this section the implications for research implied
by this framework are briefly examined. First the need for further
theoretical development is discussed. This is followed by consider-
ation of the implications for empirical research and some possible
lines of investigation.
5.1. Theoretical development
The field of e-Government has yet to develop a strong body of
theory and the area of transformative government is no exception.
There are two areas where theoretical development is needed. The
first and the most important area to develop is a common or reference
model of transformation in government; the second is to develop a
better conceptualization of trust in government. This first of these will
not be trivial, but it needs to be addressed if the problems discussed
elsewhere in this article are to be surmounted. The second is discussed
briefly at the end of this section.
Two aspects of transformation need to be considered. The first is
the continuous spectrum that transformation encompasses both in
the academic literature and in the popular mind. Scholl's suggestion,
referred to above, of a binary division is certainly helpful, but a finer
level of granularity would be more tractable. For this, there are models
elsewhere in the information systems world from which one might
draw. The business process re-engineering (BPR) literature is one
such source. BPR faces the same problem of a continuous spectrum of
change and a number of models have been proposed, including the
five level conceptual framework of business redefinition proposed by
Ventrakaman (1994) and reproduced in Fig. 4.
While this model does not map neatly onto transformation in
government, it could possibly be adapted to do so. Given the dimen-
sionality of the problems, this might need to be in the form of a number
of such models, depending on which dimension of transformation
is being researched. An example of such a model for structural
transformation of government, the concept of identifiable stages over
a spectrum and over time could provide a basis for a reference model
of transformation. A particular challenge in developing such a model
is the second aspect referred to above and that is that any model will
need to take into account the multiple potential dimensions of
transformation. Four important dimensions are process, structure,
power (including authority), and culture, but there are other aspects
such as accountability and transparency which are part of the general
transformation agenda. One approach, suggested above, would be to
have a number of models. A wider discussion of this is beyond the
scope of this article.
A second area that could benefit from further theoretical
development is trust in government; specifically, trust in government
could be improved by coming up with a more refined measuring
instrument. While there is a large body of literature on the basic trust
construct and there is a growing body of research on online trust in
both the e-business and e-Government literature, there has been, by
comparison, limited development of the general trust-in-government
construct, though some useful groundwork has been done (see
Braithwaite & Levi, 1998).
5.2. Trust and transformation: Empirical research
Fig. 3 implies that the nature of the relationship between trust and
transformation is not a single problem, but a large, multidimensional
problem. Leaving aside trust in politicians, both individually and as a
class, it implies that any study of the relationship between trust and
transformation needs to be framed in terms of:
1. The type of trust and definition of trust being researched;
2. Which level and arm of government being researched;
3. What type(s) and/or stage(s) of transformation is (are) being
considered; and
4. What type of technology application is being considered.
Restructuring of Governance
Structural Transformation

transformation is shown in Fig. 5. Note that this model is for illustrative High
purposes only. The challenge will be to develop and validate such Restructuring of Agencies
models.
Degree of

Rationalisation of Inter
A second starting point might be to use stage models of IT maturity
Agency Services
(not just the e-Government maturity models referred to above, both
of which were drawn from the wider information systems literature Rationalisation of Intra
Agency Services
such Gibson and Nolan (1974), Galliers and Sutherland (1991) and
Ward and Griffith (1996) many others). An interesting recent Data consolidation
contributor to this literature is de Brí (2009) who argues that a Low
given level or stage of change is dependent on successful completion Low High
of earlier stages and that one explanation for failure of change to Impact on Transparency of Service to Citizen
happen as expected is that these earlier stages are only partially
complete. While, again, these models are not an exact analogy to Fig. 5. A possible transformation model for organizational restructuring.
144 F. Bannister, R. Connolly / Government Information Quarterly 28 (2011) 137–147
Questions that are not so framed are unlikely to be answerable in
any meaningful way. Thus in this framework, the proposition that
e-Government can create greater trust in government is not a tractable
research question. The proposition that an easy to use and user-friendly
e-filing system will increase trust in the Internal Revenue Service or that
on-line publication of the reasoning behind policy decisions by the
Ministry of Social Welfare leads to greater (or less) public trust in the
competence of the ministry to make such decisions are researchable.
It should not be assumed that what is true for one part of this
problem will necessarily be true for another part. For example, it may
well be that making information on hospital performance available
online creates greater confidence in the hospital service, but it does
not follow that that will transfer to other aspects of the health services
never mind other government services nor that greater transparency
will necessarily lead to greater trust in every circumstance. What is
likely to emerge is a kaleidoscope of findings. When a solid body of
research on this large problem space has been built up, then and only
then will it be possible to see if there are any generalizable rules or
patterns that apply across a wide spectrum of the public sector.
Given a transformation reference model and using the framework,
the relationship between different forms of trust and different types
or stages of transformation could be explored in detail, opening up a
rich vein of interesting questions for researchers.
5.3. Other questions
The framework also suggests a number of broader research
questions that could also be addressed. These include;
5.3.1. What kinds or forms of transformation are desirable?
There is a tendency, in both the academic writing and government
pronouncements, to use “feel good” words, i.e. terms that are taken as
self-evidently desirable. This includes words such as agile, transpar-
ent, responsive, participative, seamless, integrated, and so on. Too
often when these words are used it is neither clear exactly what those
who write them understand or mean by these terms nor why this
particular characteristic is desirable or wanted by the citizens. Over
the past two decades, many e-Government services and initiatives
have been abandoned, not because they were technical failures
(although have been many such), but because nobody wanted them.
One of the more dramatic cases was the 2007 decision by UK
government to close down over 550 of its websites (BBC, 2007).
Millard (2010) raises questions about the whole concept of the portal,
arguing that portals have not turned out to be particularly popular,
and cites as evidence data showing that portal usage in the European
Union at least would appear to have leveled off. Yet for many years the
concept of the government portal, the desirability of the one-stop-
shop, has been an axiom of the e-Government literature. A critical
questioning of some of these concepts is overdue. It is not, for
example, self-evident that more transparency is always better or that
greater levels of participation lead to better citizen outcomes. Yet both
ideas are implicit in much of what it written about e-Government and
transformation.
5.3.2. What, if anything, is the causal relationship between trust,
transformation, and take up of e-Government?
There are two parallel, but different, questions here. It is posited by
some scholars and practitioners that transformation will create
greater trust in government (though it may be that this is true for
certain forms of transformation, but not for others). This, in turn,
will lead to a great take up of e-Government services. Others have
suggested the converse, that greater on-line trust will lead to greater
take up of e-Government services which will, in turn, lead to greater
trust-in-government. A clear answer to this question would be of both
interest and value.
5.3.3. Does trust transfer, and if so under what circumstances and to
what extent?
Another problem, referred to briefly above, which has not been
explored within the e-Government literature is trust transference. Does
trust in one branch of government or area of public service transfer to
another? One conjecture here is that it does not. Commenting on this,
Hardin (1998) observes that: “It is now a commonplace understanding
that interest does not generalize from individual to group or national
level” (p. 16).
Just because citizens trust the health system, does not mean that
they trust the police; just because a citizen trusts the e-filing system
does not mean that they trust the IRS or the Treasury Department.
Citizens may trust the central government, but not their state
government or municipal council, for example. If this is the case, is
there any reason to believe that increased trust in services or e-
Government is likely to convert to a broader trust-in-government in
government or its institutions? A number of scholars have theorized
about this and proposed models, but research results are inconclusive
and there is a paucity of good empirical evidence to date. Trust
transference is not just a matter of technology to service to government;
it can also occur between one level of government and another or
between one branch of government and another. If local e-Government
services are good, does this affect general trust in local government
competence? And, if so, does this extend to central government or do
citizens clearly differentiate these in their minds? What role, if any does
technology play as a facilitator or moderator or such processes?
5.3.4. Do factors come into play at different stages in the transformation
process?
Finally a quite technical, but important, question is whether
different trust factors come into play at different points in the
transformation process? For example, studies of online trust differ-
entiate between trust in the other party and trust in the medium. It
could be that the latter is a much more material factor in the early
stages of transformation. It could also be that a specific concern, such
as privacy or competence, is more important at certain points in the
evolution of (say) process transformation than it is at others. Finally,
the importance of the antecedents of affective trust could also vary
with stage or type of transformation.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of possible research
questions. Building up a body of knowledge on this will require more
than a single study. In an ideal world, a program of research would be
developed that would systematically examine all of the many facets of
trust and transformation. In the absence of a formal plan, researchers
have plenty of scope for many interesting investigations.
6. Reflections and conclusion
When it comes to e-Government, there are several possible
interpretations of the word ‘trust’. The meaning of trust that has been
most discussed in the public administration and political science
literature is that of trusting the government to do things correctly and
to behave properly. With the emergence of e-Government, this has
taken on the additional dimension of trust in government online
services, but aspects of governance including privacy and control of
information have also become more important. While trust in
government is perceived to be decreasing, this is does not appear to
be a universal phenomenon. Technology in general and e-Government
in particular are seen by many as a mechanism for reversing this trend,
much in the same way that ICT was seen as a driver of public sector
organizational reform in the 1970s and 1980s. As is clear from the
literature, the latter does not seem to have happened. Could effective
use of technology in itself create trust?
In seeking to consider how one might answer this question, it has
been necessary to step back and separate out ideas that are frequently
confused. First, there is good evidence that efficiency, competence,
 F. Bannister, R. Connolly Government Information Quarterly 28 (2011) 137–147
benevolence, and openness/transparency lead to greater trust in online
transactions. However, so far the literature suggests that of these only
openness contributes to an increase in trust in the government. Thus
Thomas (1998) assertion that trust builds with repetitive good
experiences of a service is probably true of trust in the system, but
there is insufficient evidence so far to show that it is true of trust in
government per se. There is no particular reason why a more efficient or
cost effective government should be more trusted at the macro level
than an inefficient one. After all, some of the most tyrannical and least
trusted regimes in human history have been paragons of administrative
efficiency.
A similar argument applies to competence. A citizen's judgment on
the trustworthiness of local government will be based on many
factors other than whether it does a good job. Consider the planning
process. How much a local government is trusted is much more likely
to be influenced by its planning decisions and the perceived fairness
and propriety of decision making than by the efficiency of its planning
process. If the latter is slow and bureaucratic, that might annoy
people, but it is unlikely to reduce their trust in the fairness or equity
of the process significantly. If, say, the same local authority is seen to
be flouting its own planning laws to favor certain wealthy business
interests, that will do serious damage to trust for which no level of
service efficiency will compensate.
The one factor that does seem important and which can be greatly
facilitated by ICT is transparency. Ironically, transparency increases trust
because it leaves less to trust. If the citizen can see how government does
its business and how it reaches its decisions, then (s)he may disagree
with those decisions, but his or her reasons for lack of trust are then
more likely to be due to differences of political perspective rather than as
a result of opacity. Likewise benevolence, which may be translated as
sharing of political views, will increase trust.
Transparency can be conveyed using a website. It is harder to convey
institutional benevolence in this manner. Benevolence emerges from
personal contact. To achieve transparency and benevolence as well as
the customer-centric, service-oriented organization as envisaged by Ho
(2002) and others requires more than good electronics. It is fundamen-
tally a political, human, and organizational problem, not a technical one,
and the complexity of this issue is not always given the recognition it
deserves in the literature. Bureaucracy was proposed by Weber (1919)
for a purpose. It was to be professional, rules-driven, fair, and equitable,
and therefore impervious to interference from unscrupulous politicians
and free from partisan favoritism. As has been pointed out many times, it
is also, amongst many other things, inflexible, impersonal, and slow, and
it can be inefficient and unwieldy. However, in replacing it with a
service-oriented, managerial, and customer-centric culture, it is vital to
ensure that its virtues, particularly those of equity and fairness, are not
lost. Empowering employees is all very well, but humans fail. That is
why there are organizations and systems.
ICT cannot deliver these things and this reality can't be emphasized
enough. ICT can deliver efficiency. It can enable effectiveness. It can
reduce cost. It can facilitate openness. But ICT can do little for benevo-
lence and nothing for openness or empowerment if those in power do
not want these things to happen. It follows that when people talk about
creating trust in government through transformative e-Government,
they are making many, sometimes heroic, assumptions about factors
that have little or nothing to do with technology.
While we can continually improve the way government works,
fundamentally, there are only a few workable models of government
and they are all variations on basic, proven designs. It may be that this is
what ICT can do for governments: it can improve the reliability and
quality of systems and it can provide a degree of transparency. But
thinking that it will, like some invisible hand, change the basic structures
of government remains an aspiration that is based more on hope than on
evidence. Technology may lead people to trust public ICT systems;
however, trust in public processes and in public servants and their
political masters cannot be delivered by technology alone.
145
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