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Top1. Introduction
The ubiquitous nature of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has contributed to transforming every sector of the economy right from the financial services industry (de Luna, Liébana-Cabanillas, Sánchez-Fernández, & Muñoz-Leiva, 2018; Puschmann, 2017) to the public sector in recent years (Mensah, Carter-Steel, & Toleman, 2020; Park & Kim, 2019). Over the last decade, a significant amount of investment and growth have seen governments embracing and increasing the use of innovative methods to provide government information and services to citizens (Government to Citizens), businesses (Government to Business), and to other governments (Government to Government) (Alawadhi, 2019; Williams, Rana, Roderick, & Clement, 2016), a practice widely known as electronic government (e-government) (Pudjianto, Zo, Ciganek, & Rho, 2011). Governments’ adoption of Information Systems (IS) is geared towards promoting efficiency and policy effectiveness as well as achieving democratic values (Krishnan, Teo, & Lim, 2013; Srivastava & Teo, 2010).
E-government is the use of ICTs by governments for the provision of public services, enhancement of managerial effectiveness, and the promotion of democratic values and mechanisms (Ospina & Pinzón, 2018; Srivastava & Teo, 2007). The prevalence of e-government across the world means that it is now a global phenomenon (Srivastava & Teo, 2006) with all national governments, the majority of sub-national governments, and the majority of local government entities offering official websites from which they can provide information and services electronically (Bertot, Jaeger, & Grimes, 2010; Norris & Reddick, 2012). E-government offers several benefits ranging from cost-effective service delivery, reduced administrative burdens, transparent, and easily accessible services to reductions in corruption (Adam, 2020a; Asongu, 2014). This has lead researchers to investigate the effects of ICT adoption on public sector performance (Gatautis, Medziausiene, Tarute, & Vaiciukynaite, 2015; Merhi & Koong, 2013; Rajib, Sajib, & Hoque, 2017). Notwithstanding, these studies afford a narrow view on the effect of ICTs on public sector performance as they have largely relied on data from single countries and thus limiting their findings to such contexts. The increasing adoption of ICTs by governments both in developed and developing countries to promote transparency and reduced corruption levels (Brewer, Choi, & Walker, 2008; Nam, 2018) makes it prudent to empirically investigate the effects of ICTs on public sector performance at the global level. Furthermore, past literature has mainly attributed the level of individuals’ digital literacy as key enablers to technology use (Distel & Ogonek, 2016; Sabani, Deng, & Thai, 2018) and digital inclusion (Holgersson, Söderström, & Rose, 2019; Ojo & Raman, 2017). A technology-savvy populace will be able to easily access government services and information thereby enhancing the interconnectedness of different aspects of the society (Bertot et al., 2010; Bertot, Jaeger, & Grimes, 2012), thus ensuring transparency, reductions in corruption, and promoting public sector performance. However, the mediating effects of human resource (HR) quality on the linkage between ICT adoption and public sector performance have been under-examined. Given this motivation, the study sets out to answer the research questions outlined below: