Analysis of the Influencing Factors of Citizens' Participation in

Digital Government Affairs Under the Background of Big Data

Tingting Li

Harbin University of Commerce, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China

Keywords: Big Data, Local Government, Envelopment Analysis (DEA).

Abstract: The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China deeply understood the major decision-making

and deployment of "accelerating the construction of a network power and digital China" proposed in the

conference report, promoted the modernization of the government governance system and governance

capacity with government informatization, and realized the high-quality development of digital

transformation with big data empowerment. In this paper, SPSS24 software was used to analyze the reliability

and validity of the collected sample data by distributing the questionnaire on citizen participation in public

affairs in Harbin, Heilongjiang. The data envelopment analysis method was used to evaluate the performance

of digital government in five provincial governments in China, which is of reference significance for

promoting the progress of digital government in China.

1 INTRODUCTION

With the advent of the fourth industrial revolution,

emerging technologies represented by big data,

artificial intelligence, blockchain, and the Internet of

Things have a profound impact on social

development, and also provide new technical means

for national governance. ( Liu 2022)The Outline of

the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and

Social Development of the People's Republic of

China and the Long-Range Goals for 2035 also

clearly states that strengthening the construction of

digital government is an important measure to

innovate government governance concepts and

methods, which is of great significance to

accelerating the transformation of government

functions and building a government ruled by law, a

clean government and a service-oriented government.

At present, in promoting the digital transformation of

the government or implementing the digital reform of

the government, how to give full play to the function

of the digital platform and promote the innovation of

government governance is particularly urgent.

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6829-340X

2 STUDY DESIGN

The data in this paper was collected through

questionnaires, designed on the Questionnaire Star

platform, distributed through the WeChat platform

and offline, a total of 207 questionnaires, of which

207 were valid. From the four dimensions of use

intention, use awareness, use efficiency and

information channel, the research model of the

influencing factors of large citizens' participation in

digital government affairs was constructed. The

model examines the correlation between the above

four dimensions and the participation of different

segments of society in digital government public

affairs online.

Willingness to use refers to the use of digital

government by citizens through online participation,

including online browsing of relevant information,

online and offline participation in discussions, and

the effect of providing online services to local

governments.

Awareness of use refers to the degree of

awareness and attention of citizens to the digital

government online platform, including the attention

to the precision of government governance by data

service infrastructure, and the attention to the degree

Li, T.

Analysis of the Inﬂuencing Factors of Citizens’ Participation in Digital Government Affairs Under the Background of Big Data.

DOI: 10.5220/0012069100003624

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Public Management and Big Data Analysis (PMBDA 2022), pages 5-11

ISBN: 978-989-758-658-3

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

of information technology to local government

governance.

Efficiency refers to the convenience of online

platforms that citizens feel in the process of using

government online platforms, such as the satisfaction

of online platforms with online services.

Information channels refer to the degree of trust

that citizens have in the information sources of online

platforms, including government information,

enterprise information, and Weibo and WeChat

sources.

3 SAMPLE ANALYSIS AND

EMPIRICAL RESULTS

3.1 Variable Measurement

Located in northeast China, southwest of

Heilongjiang Province, Harbin is the capital of

Heilongjiang Province, a sub-provincial city, and the

political, economic and cultural center of northeast

China. The special historical process and

geographical location have created Harbin, an exotic

and beautiful city, which not only gathers the history

and culture of ethnic minorities in the north, but also

integrates Chinese and foreign cultures, and is a

famous historical and cultural city and tourist city in

China, known as "Ice City", "Oriental Moscow" and

"Oriental Little Paris". The survey randomly

distributed questionnaires in Harbin City,

Heilongjiang Province and other districts by

anonymous method, and due to the impact of the

epidemic and other factors, 207 questionnaires were

distributed, 207 questionnaires were filled in and

collected on the spot, and the samples were analyzed

as follows.

3.1.1 Sample Descriptive Analysis

First, the basic information of the 207 surveyed

citizens was analyzed from several variables such as

gender, age, education level, and place of residence,

as shown in Table 1

Table 1: Frequency analysis of demographic variables.

variable Options frequency percentage average value standard deviation

gender

man 104 50%

1.50 0.50

woman 103 50%

age

18-29 73 35%

2.47 1.38

30-39 41 20%

40-49 37 18%

50-65 35 17%

Over 65 21 10%

Educational level

High school or less 43 21%

2.98 1.34

High school or secondary school 32 16%

college 46 22%

undergraduate 59 29%

graduate student 27 13%

occupation

student 42 20%

2.84 1.44

employee 64 31%

retire 28 14%

Unemployed 31 15%

Freelance staff 42 20%

Place of residence

Resident in the city 103 50%

1.71 0.79

Resident in the suburbs 62 30%

Temporary residence in the city 42 20%

PMBDA 2022 - International Conference on Public Management and Big Data Analysis

In Table 1, a series of data information analysis

was carried out, from the perspective of overall

gender, a random sample of 207 people were

surveyed, and the frequency percentage and standard

deviation were calculated respectively, according to

the above analysis results, the numerical

characteristics of demographic variables can be seen,

reflecting the distribution of this survey. where the

mean represents the central trend. The standard

deviation represents fluctuations. According to the

results of frequency analysis of each variable, it can

be seen that the distribution basically meets the

requirements of sampling survey. For example, the

number of male samples in all samples was 104,

accounting for 50.24% of the total sample, and the

number of female samples was 103, accounting for

49.76% of the total sample. The proportion of men

and women is almost equal, so it seems that men and

women have basically the same level of demand for

public services. Except for active sampling of people

over 65 years of age, all other age groups are random.

It can be seen that the results are biased towards the

same. (Guo 2018)

From the age distribution point of view, the

average value is 2.74, the standard deviation is 1.38,

of which 18-29 years old accounts for the largest

proportion, followed by 30-39 years old, people in

these two age groups, formal thinking is active, the

strongest acceptance, is the main target group of e-

public services.

From the perspective of education level of the

sample, the average is 2.98, the standard deviation is

1.34, of which 64% of the sample has higher

education, of which 29% are undergraduates. The

coverage and randomness of most of the

questionnaires can be seen.

From the perspective of positions, the average

value is 2.84, the standard deviation is 1.44, and there

are 42 students, accounting for 20%; 64 employees,

accounting for 31%; 59 retired unemployed,

accounting for 29%; There are 42 freelance

employees, accounting for 20%, and overall, the

proportion of employees with jobs is the highest. In

terms of place of residence, 50% of the population

lives in the urban area, 30% live permanently in the

suburbs, and only 20% live temporarily in the city.

3.2 Reliability and Validity Analysis

3.2.1 Reliability Analysis

Usually, it is necessary to test the intrinsic reliability

of the measurement scale, and the commonly used

method is the Cronbachsalpha coefficient, which

judges the reliability of the scale according to the size

of the a coefficient. In general, a ≥ 0.7 indicates good

reliability; When 0.6<a<0.7, the reliability is average

and acceptable; a<0.6, which means that the reliability

is too low to accept. The Cologbach coefficient was

analyzed from four dimensions: willingness to use,

awareness of use, efficiency of use, and source of

information. The results are shown in Table 2

Table 2: Reliability analysis results for each dimension.

The

number

of items

Cronbach

coefficient

(α)

Observed

variables

Willingness

to use

4 0.942

Questions

6-10

Use

awareness

4 0.952

Questions

11-14

Efficiency

of use

4 0.946

Questions

15-17

Access to

information

3 0.946

Questions

18-20

According to Table 2, the Cronbach coefficients

of participation intention, use awareness, use

efficiency and information source were 0942, 0.952,

0.946 and 0.946, respectively, and the results were

greater than 0.7, indicating that each variable

dimension passed the reliability test and had

reliability.

The reliability and stability of the questionnaire

comes from the reliability of the indicators. This paper

uses the α coefficient created by L.J. Cronbach. The α

coefficients can be derived from the Reliablility

Analysis in the Spss24.0 software, as shown in Table

Table 3: Analysis of overall reliability coefficients.

Reliability statistics

Cronbach

coefficient

Based on standardized

Cronbach coefficients

Number of

rojects

0.882 0.882 15

The perceived quality of the scale was analyzed

by SPSS 24.0 to calculate the questionnaire reliability

value (i.e. a coefficient), and it can be seen from Table

3 that the Cronbach's Alpha of perceived service

quality is 0.882, and the Cronbach's Alpha value of

each dimension is greater than 0.7, indicating that the

internal consistency of the index is good, the

reliability of the questionnaire is acceptable, and the

reliability of the sample is fully guaranteed.

3.2.2 Validity Analysis

Validity is validity, which refers to the validity and

correctness of the measured questionnaire, and the

Analysis of the Inﬂuencing Factors of Citizens’ Participation in Digital Government Affairs Under the Background of Big Data

closer the measurement result is to the one to be

examined, the higher the validity; Conversely, the

lower the validity. (Qiu 2019) However, because the

true value is often unknown, it is impossible to have

an absolutely positive answer to the evaluation of

validity in a specific analysis, but it can be evaluated

by indicators, and validity is very important for a

standard measurement. In order to ensure the high

stability and reliability of the questionnaire, the

validity analysis of the questionnaire results was

carried out with SPSS 24.0 software.

Table 4: Exploratory factor analysis.

KMO value and Bartlett sphericity test

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin tests the number of sampling

relevance measures

0.956

Bartlett's spherical test The last read chi-square 4430.584

f 105

Salienc

According to the results of the exploratory factor

analysis in Table 4, it can be seen that the sampling

relevance scale of the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test is

0.956. The value range of the coefficients of the KMO

test is generally between 0-1, and the closer to 1, the

better the validity of the questionnaire. According to

the significance of the spherical test, it can also be

seen that the significance of this questionnaire is

infinitely close to 0, indicating that the questionnaire

data is reliable.

3.3 Empirical Analysis

3.3.1 Assessment Object

In this paper, six provincial government portals of

Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Hainan and Zhejiang

were selected as research objects.

3.3.2 Data Acquisition

The sample data mainly comes from various

statistical yearbooks and published reports, among

which the data of the two indicators of economic level

and education level are from the website of the

National Bureau of Statistics; The popularization of

the people comes from the 23rd statistical report on

the development of China's Internet by the China

Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC); The

data on information disclosure, online affairs, and

public participation are derived from the general

report on the performance evaluation of the Chinese

government's website.

Table 5: Data score.

Provinces

Economic

level

Educational

level

Internet user

popularity

Information

Disclosure

Do things

online

Public

participation

Heilongjiang 0.028 0.064 0.162 0.544 0.306 0.553

Jilin 0.021 0.745 0.190 0.446 0.261 0.165

Liaoning 0.044 0.100 0.265 0.219 0.060 0.198

Hainan 0.005 0.063 0.256 0.628 0.299 0.631

chekiang 0.075 0.086 0.417 0.701 0.454 0.841

3.3.3 Establishment of C

R Model and

Calculation Results

Assuming that the j0th department to be evaluated is

DMU

, then X

and Y

in the model represent

matrices composed of input data and output data,

respectively, V is the input indicator weight matrix,

and U is the output metric weight matrix. h

is the

relative efficiency of DMU

.（Deng 2020）

According to the DEA's C

R model (P), the

following evaluation model can be obtained:

（P）

max h

T

0

s.t.（U

/ V

）≤1,j=1,2,…3

v≥0

u≥0

PMBDA 2022 - International Conference on Public Management and Big Data Analysis

Where X

= (x

,...,x

)

, Y

= (y

,...,y

)

,j=1,2,...,5

For convenience, reduce the amount of calculation,

and improve the calculation accuracy, you can use the

computer for programming calculation. Here,

programming is done using MATLAB 6.5

mathematical software. MATLAB is a well-known

engineering math application written in C by

Mathworks. At present, MATLAB has become the

basic application software in many scientific and

technological fields in the world. Its powerful matrix

computing power and intuitive, convenient

programming features are the reasons for choosing it

for writing DEA programs.

Before programming, save the input matrix as

xxx1.xls and the output matrix as xxx2.xls. The

Matlab program for solving linear programming (P)

is as follows:

x=[xxx1];

y=[xxx2];

n=size(x',1);

m=size(x, 1);

s=size(y, 1);

A=[-x' y'];

b=zeros(n,1);

LB=zeros(m+s,1);

UB=[];

for i=1:n;

f=[zeros(1,m) -y(:,i)'];

Aeq=[x(:,i)' zeros(1,s)];

beq=1;

w(:,i)=LINPROG(f,A

,b,Aeq,beq,LB,UB);

E(i,i)=y(:,i)'*w(m+1:m+s,i);

end

After the operation of the Matlab program of

linear programming (P), it can be seen that the relative

efficiency of the five decision units is 0.8445, 1,

0.1890, 1, and 0.6889, respectively. According to the

R model's criteria, a decision unit with a relative

efficiency value of 1 is at least a weak DEA valid.

Therefore, a decision unit with a relative efficiency

value of 1 is valid for at least a weak DEA. From this,

the following conclusions can be drawn: the decision-

making units Jilin and Hainan are DEA effective,

which theoretically shows that these two decision-

making units are both scale-effective and

technologically effective. In the economic system

composed of these five decision-making units, their

production factors have reached the best combination

and achieved the best output effect. The other

decision units have *θ values less than 1, indicating

that they are all non-DEA valid. The relative low

efficiency shows that the input resources are not fully

utilized, the output is not optimized, and in the final

analysis, there are problems in the digital government

operation and management within the government,

which should be improved.

4 COUNTERMEASURE

4.1 Improve the Establishment of

Government Information

Disclosure Systems

Digital transformation is not an option, but a necessity

for governments to respond to these crises.

Governments around the world must improve their

capacity to strategically use emerging digital

technologies and develop innovative digital public

services to respond to and defeat the pandemic.

(Sikkut 2022) With the rapid development of digital

technology, digital government transformation

(DGT) has been legitimized in response to the

pandemic, helping to improve the efficacy of

innovation, and local governments should further

strengthen the sharing of information when building

digital government to improve the understanding of

local residents about government information. First,

the government can announce the release of

information through news broadcasts or local TV

stations, such as Heilongjiang Satellite TV, so that the

public can understand the latest information. The

second is to disseminate through the publicity mode

of the Internet, and release the latest information on

government public services on official websites,

WeChat public accounts and Weibo government

affairs accounts. By improving the construction of the

information disclosure system, it is inevitable that the

public can better understand public services, and then

enhance their understanding of the digital government

of Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, so as to increase

citizens' willingness to use them. (DONG 2022)

4.2 Establish a Unified Public Service

System

With the rapid development of 5G and machine

learning, various innovative information systems are

constantly emerging. Among them, the Public Service

Information System (PSIS) has attracted a lot of

attention from researchers. However, existing public

service information systems can only handle simple

tasks and cannot answer complex questions asked by

citizens. (Liu 2022)Establish a unified public

employment service information system in the

province that integrates functions such as business

Analysis of the Inﬂuencing Factors of Citizens’ Participation in Digital Government Affairs Under the Background of Big Data

handling, data aggregation and data analysis, provide

information handling functions for all categories of

public sector business, unify the province's business

regulations, integrate business processes of various

categories, strengthen cross-business collaborative

handling and business continuity, and

comprehensively gather the province's public

employment service business data resources to carry

out data analysis and application on this basis.

Simultaneously open the Internet and mobile Internet

business application system and service evaluation

feedback functions to improve the convenience and

service experience of service recipients to obtain

public employment services.

4.3 Increase Citizens' Participation

The development of Internet technology has

irreversibly changed the "climate" of media and

information dissemination, changed the interaction

mode between citizens, society and the state, the

Internet has undoubtedly become the "biggest

variable" in the modernization of national

governance, and citizens must actively participate in

the construction of digital government, so that our

country can become better. In this regard, in the early

stage of public service construction, the government

should collect public opinions through official

website surveys, let the public actively participate in

the guidance and suggestions of public services, and

strive to build public services into the best service

model. In addition, it is necessary to allow citizens to

actively participate, and when the public service

system is built, the public can actively supervise and

complain to ensure the stable implementation of

various public service policies. On the basis of

citizens' increased participation, it is inevitable to

improve residents' satisfaction with public services.

(MA 2022)

4.4 Establish a Secure Government

Website

According to the questionnaire survey, 40% of

residents believe the news released by the government

and enterprises on the online platform, and many

people believe that there are risk problems in online

business, and it is important to establish an

information security management organization,

strengthen organizational coordination, give play to

its role of overall planning, scientific management,

macro-control and decision-making, strengthen

information security management, and form a

comprehensive information security management

organizational system. It is necessary to gradually

establish and improve the information security

organizational system. (Zhang 2022) The system

should include leading groups for confidentiality

work established by various localities and

departments; Government network and information

security coordination group with the participation of

the head of the department; A group of security

consulting experts composed of domestic and foreign

security experts is engaged. According to the needs of

construction and application, corresponding

information security management and execution

agencies (such as "government security centers") can

also be established to be responsible for the security

and confidentiality of the entire government

information system, including the provision of related

services. (Zhang2017)

5 CONCLUSION

This This paper has issued a questionnaire to survey

Harbin citizens and analyze the problems and

optimization paths of Harbin digital government,

which has certain theoretical and practical

significance, but there are still certain limitations, and

the research on some issues is not in-depth enough.

As the capital city of Harbin, government

departments should pay more attention to the online

quality education of citizens, so that they understand

their responsibilities and rights as citizens, so that

they can actively care about relevant government

decisions and the handling of major events, so as to

improve the public's sense of participation. Digital

government is an extension and transformation of e-

government, which makes the daily business

operation of the government more efficient on the

basis of using data science.

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Analysis of the Inﬂuencing Factors of Citizens’ Participation in Digital Government Affairs Under the Background of Big Data