Motivational Factors Impacting the Use of Citizen Reporting Applications in Saudi Arabia: The Case of Balagh Application

Citizen reporting applications are considered a new approach for interaction between government authorities and citizens. Citizen reporting applications are implemented to collectively gather information from citizens on issues related to public interest such as accidents, traffic violations, and commercial frauds. Through utilizing citizen reporting applications, citizens are able to provide information about incidents efficiently and conveniently to the local authorities via mobile applications that are designed for these specific purposes. For such applications to be successful, citizens’ willingness to participate continually and to become daily users of these applications is required. This paper applies the self-determination theory to investigate the factors that encourage citizens to participate in citizen reporting applications. In this study, the factors impacting behavioural intention to use the applications are divided into two categories. First, intrinsic motivation factors that include self-concern, social responsibility, and revenge. Second, extrinsic motivation factors that include output quality and rewards. The study empirically surveyed 297 Saudi citizens from different age groups. The partial least square (PLS) approach validates the research model. Findings reveal that output quality, revenge, and self-concern are significantly associated with citizens’ motivations to use the applications, whereas rewards and social responsibility do not significantly influence citizens’ motivations to engage with such applications. This study contributes theoretically by enriching literature on the identification of the factors behind user’s engagement in citizen reporting applications. It also contributes practically by supporting the developers of citizen reporting applications to consider these factors when designing and marketing this kind of application.