E-Government Services Tied to Citizens’ Wellbeing in Chinese Survey Study

A new study published in Current Psychology reports that the quality of electronic government services and citizens' adoption of those services are significant statistical predictors of subjective wellbeing, the self-assessed sense of life satisfaction that researchers describe as a core driver of social development and the highest measure of individual quality of life. Isaac Kofi Mensah and Muhammad Khalil Khan constructed their analysis around a chain of relationships: how well e-government performs, how citizens judge the quality of the resulting services, whether they actually use those services, and how that usage relates to how they feel about their lives. Within this structure they measured four constructs: e-government performance, e-government service quality, adoption of e-government services, and government capacity, which they tested as a moderator of the links between the earlier stages.

Data came from 317 valid responses collected through convenience sampling in China, and the team evaluated the model using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) with Smart-PLS software. The statistical results trace a consistent positive chain. E-government performance was a significant determinant of perceived service quality, with a standardized coefficient of 0.586 (t = 10.420, p < 0.001).

Service quality, in turn, positively drove adoption of e-government services (β = 0.492, t = 10.106, p < 0.001). Most notably for the study's central question, adoption of e-government services was a significant predictor of citizens' subjective wellbeing (β = 0.626, t = 13.160, p < 0.001), the strongest pathway in the estimated model. Government capacity, the moderator at the center of the article's title, produced a more complicated picture.

It significantly moderated the influence of e-government performance on service quality, but with a small negative coefficient (β = -0.090, t = 2.044, p < 0.05), indicating that at higher levels of government capacity the performance-to-quality link was slightly weaker in this sample. By contrast, government capacity significantly and positively moderated the effect of service quality on adoption (β = 0.087, t = 2.485, p < 0.05), meaning that stronger capacity amplified the degree to which perceived quality translated into actual use of digital services. The moderation chain stopped short of the final outcome.

Government capacity did not significantly moderate the impact of e-government adoption on citizens' subjective wellbeing (β = -0.029, t = 0.822, p > 0.05). The study's goal, as the authors frame it, is to bridge a gap in the literature: economic development and social policies such as e-government are ultimately meant to improve people's wellbeing, yet limited prior research has reported on how e-government development leads to individual subjective wellbeing. The sampling approach is worth noting when weighing the results.

The 317 valid responses were accumulated through convenience sampling rather than a probability-based design, and the estimates describe the relationships present in this particular sample. The context is also specific: the study examines e-government development, service delivery, and citizens' adoption from the Chinese perspective, and the authors discuss the scope of their policymaking implications in those terms. Its central empirical message is that the pathway from e-government performance to citizens' subjective wellbeing runs through perceived service quality and adoption, with government capacity shaping some links in the chain but not the final step from usage to wellbeing.

The authors state that the academic and policymaking implications of e-government for the development of individual subjective wellbeing are thoroughly discussed in the full article, which appeared in Volume 45 of Current Psychology as article number 1655.

Subject of Research: The relationship between e-government development, service quality, citizen adoption, government capacity, and citizens' subjective wellbeing in China

Article Title: Enhancing citizens’ subjective wellbeing via electronic (e) government: the moderating effect of government capacity

Article References: Mensah, I. K., & Khan, M. K. (2026). Enhancing citizens’ subjective wellbeing via electronic (e) government: the moderating effect of government capacity. Current Psychology, 45(21), 1655. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-026-10222-5

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s12144-026-10222-5

Keywords: e-government, subjective wellbeing, government capacity, China, PLS-SEM, SOBC model, digital public services, service quality, citizen adoption, survey study, public administration, Current Psychology