The Effect of Citizens' Trust on their E-Participation: Moderating Role of Belief in Power Distance and Perceived Risk and Mediating Role of Ambiguity Acceptance and Citizens' Attitudes

In the current world, with the advancement in information and communication technologies, organizations in the public and non-public sectors have embarked on e-participation in relationships between service organizations and main stakeholders. The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of citizens' trust toward e-participation with regarding to moderating role of perceived risk and ambiguity acceptance, and mediating role of citizens’ attitudes and belief in power distance. The statistical population of this study is citizens of the recipients from the Tehran Municipality Organization. Since in the path analysis, the sample size is determined on the basis of the number of structural indicators and also the level of significance, 384 questionnaires were distributed to determine sample size using Cohen table. The results indicate that e-participation is at a moderate level. Research findings suggest that citizens' confidence in e-participation is positive and the ambiguity in the relationship between these two variables appears as mediator. Meanwhile, the findings of the research indicate that e-participation are not affected by citizens’ attitudes. In addition, the research findings show that the "belief in power distance" has moderated the relationship between citizens’ trust and e-participation, but the “perceived risk” variable is not appearing as a moderator in the relationship between citizen's attitudes and e-participation.