The factors affecting e-filing adoption among Jordanian firms: the moderating role of trust

The Kingdom of Jordan has embarked on an e-government initiative to enhance its national economy. A vital component of this initiative is implementing an e-filing system to facilitate electronic payments for users across all geographic locations. Business to Government Electronic Filing (B2G EF) has great potential to extend firms‘ competency and efficiency. As such, Jordanian government has an objective to increase the diffusion of this technology. Despite significant governmental efforts, the adoption of e-filing among businesses still needs to grow. Consequently, there have been determined efforts to better understand the phenomena. This study aims to identify factors influencing e-filing adoption using the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework and examines how these factors are moderated by trust. Quantitative research with questionnaire approach among large Jordanian firms as respondents were applied, 484 questionnaires distributed, and 315 usable responses were utilized for the analysis. Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed for data analysis. The findings revealed that factors such as relative advantage, compatibility, security, IT infrastructure, organizational readiness, organizational culture, top management support, competitive pressure, and government support significantly and positively influenced e-filing adoption. Conversely, business complexity exerts a significant negative influence. Moreover, the study indicates that trust moderates the relationships between IT infrastructure, organizational culture, and e-filing adoption, showing a positive impact for the finding. The framework, comprising relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, security, IT infrastructure, competitive pressure, government support, top management support, organizational readiness, and organizational culture, explains 58% of the variance in e-filing adoption. Overall, these results offer valuable insights for the Jordanian government to encourage organizations to adopt e-filing services effectively, develop a mechanism to increase trust and the benefits of using e-filing among the organizations. Hence, the government should focus on technology acceptance and identify ways to encourage the organizational adoption of e-government services