E-Governance and Citizen Participation in Local Government: An Assessment of Citizens’ Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices in Khulna City Corporation, Bangladesh

Abstract

The use of e-governance has increased the opportunities for improving public service delivery and citizens' participation; but having digital services does not guarantee citizens' participation. The study investigates citizens' knowledge, attitude, and practice on e-governance services that might affect their online citizen participation through Khulna City Corporation (KCC), Bangladesh, based on the Knowledge–Attitude–Practice (KAP) Approach. A multistage stratified random sampling approach was used to collect data from 425 adult citizens using a structured questionnaire, which was analyzed quantitatively. Descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, exploratory factor analysis, correlation, regression, and serial mediation analysis were used to analyze the data. Results indicate that there are strong correlations in the suggested behavioural pathway. Knowledge significantly predicted citizens’ attitudes toward e-governance services (β = 0.526, p < .001), attitudes positively influenced actual practice (β = 0.310, p < .001), and practice significantly predicted online citizen participation (β = 0.345, p < .001). The serial indirect effect of knowledge on participation via attitude and practice was also significant (indirect effect = 0.011, 95% bootstrap CI [0.001, 0.024]), and the direct effect of knowledge on participation became non-significant when the mediators were introduced. The results indicate that awareness alone is not enough to activate digital participation, and that positive perceptions and service use are essential pathways for knowledge to impact civic engagement. The study emphasizes the importance of enhancing inclusive and participatory e-governance through better service reliability, procedural guidance, institutional responsiveness, user support, and interactive feedback mechanisms, which are currently lacking at KCC. However, the cross-sectional design limits causal interpretation, and the findings should be understood as associations among behavioural factors rather than definitive causal relationships.