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From E-Government to We-Government: Defining a Typology for Citizen Coproduction in the Age of Social Media
... Local governments in European countries have faced new challenges and opportunities to establish effective interaction with citizens in the context of digital democracy. Traditional communication channels based on one-way informing of residents about the activities of local authorities through official websites, print media or personal meetings have proven insufficient to ensure the expected level of openness, transparency and accountability of municipal institutions [1]. At the same time, public demands for greater citizen participation in policy-making that affects local communities are increasingly being put forward. ...
... The term «Web 2.0» itself appeared back in 2004 to denote a new stage in the evolution of the World Wide Web, associated with the transformation of websites from isolated information repositories into dynamic platforms for mass user collaboration [2]. The main features of Web 2.0 are interactivity, as users have the opportunity not only to consume, but also to generate their own content; the development of social networks where people unite according to interests and communicate with each other; the use of new technologies for content syndication and aggregation (RSS feeds, tags, etc.) [1]. The philosophy of Web 2.0 is based on understanding the benefits of collective intelligence -when the joint efforts of many users manage to accumulate knowledge, generate ideas and find more effective solutions than each could do individually [3]. ...
... Different tools are used for different purposes and target audiences, with increasing integration into broader policy cycles. Social media work well for general information and mobilization, while specialized platforms enable deeper deliberation and co-creation [1]. Mobile apps reduce participation barriers, while open data unlocks innovation potential. ...
... WoS veri tabanında kamu yönetimi alanyazınına BİT destekli ortak yapım kavramının, (Bonson vd., 2012;Clark & Brudney, 2013;Zavattaro vd., 2015), acil durum yönetimi (Chatfield vd., 2013), kent yönetimi (Castelnovo vd., 2016) ve e-devlet (Linders, 2012) özelinde ele alınmıştır. Kullanılan teknoloji açısından da bazı çalışmalar özellikle sosyal medyaya (Bonson vd., 2012;Chatfield vd., 2013;Linders, 2012) ayrı ehemmiyet göstermiştir. ...
... WoS veri tabanında kamu yönetimi alanyazınına BİT destekli ortak yapım kavramının, (Bonson vd., 2012;Clark & Brudney, 2013;Zavattaro vd., 2015), acil durum yönetimi (Chatfield vd., 2013), kent yönetimi (Castelnovo vd., 2016) ve e-devlet (Linders, 2012) özelinde ele alınmıştır. Kullanılan teknoloji açısından da bazı çalışmalar özellikle sosyal medyaya (Bonson vd., 2012;Chatfield vd., 2013;Linders, 2012) ayrı ehemmiyet göstermiştir. ...
... Kırmızı kümenin en etkin makalesi ise Linders (2012)'e, yeşil kümenin en etkin makalesi de Nabatchi vd. (2017)'ye aittir. ...
... WoS veri tabanında kamu yönetimi alanyazınına BİT destekli ortak yapım kavramının, (Bonson vd., 2012;Clark & Brudney, 2013;Zavattaro vd., 2015), acil durum yönetimi (Chatfield vd., 2013), kent yönetimi (Castelnovo vd., 2016) ve e-devlet (Linders, 2012) özelinde ele alınmıştır. Kullanılan teknoloji açısından da bazı çalışmalar özellikle sosyal medyaya (Bonson vd., 2012;Chatfield vd., 2013;Linders, 2012) ayrı ehemmiyet göstermiştir. ...
... WoS veri tabanında kamu yönetimi alanyazınına BİT destekli ortak yapım kavramının, (Bonson vd., 2012;Clark & Brudney, 2013;Zavattaro vd., 2015), acil durum yönetimi (Chatfield vd., 2013), kent yönetimi (Castelnovo vd., 2016) ve e-devlet (Linders, 2012) özelinde ele alınmıştır. Kullanılan teknoloji açısından da bazı çalışmalar özellikle sosyal medyaya (Bonson vd., 2012;Chatfield vd., 2013;Linders, 2012) ayrı ehemmiyet göstermiştir. ...
... Kırmızı kümenin en etkin makalesi ise Linders (2012)'e, yeşil kümenin en etkin makalesi de Nabatchi vd. (2017)'ye aittir. ...
Bilgi ve İletişim Teknolojileri (BİT), vatandaş ve devletin ortak yapımına ilişkin girişimlerde (kamu politikalarının ve/veya hizmetlerinin geliştirilme, tasarlanma ve sunum süreci vb.) önemli bir aracı görevi üstlenmektedir. Günümüzde kamu yönetiminde BİT destekli ortak yapım girişimleri artmaktadır. Bu çalışmanın amacı da bu alanda ortaya çıkan literatürün, betimsel, kavramsal, sosyal ve entelektüel yapısına ilişkin genel resmini analiz etmektir. Bu amaçla Web of Science Core Collection (WoS) veri tabanında bulunan 170 çalışma, R istatistik programı kullanılarak bilimsel haritalama ve sistematikleştirilmiş literatür taraması ile analiz edilmiş, bu alandaki kavramsal, betimsel, sosyal ve entelektüel yapı irdelenmiştir. Çalışma bulguları, kamu yönetiminde artan BİT destekli ortak yapım girişimlerine yönelik çalışmalara rehberlik etme ve ilerdeki çalışmalara referans noktası olma amacı gütmektedir.
... ICTs can eliminate collaboration barriers and facilitate citizen and community co-production in public services (Linders 2012). Despite the potential for citizen participation to generate public value through co-produced policies (Chatfield and Reddick 2018), practical implementations of these practices are uncommon and limited (Bovaird et al. 2016;Miao, Schwarz, and Schwarz 2021;Mouter et al. 2021). ...
... In this regard, maintaining service quality (H1) was prioritized over system quality (H2). Additionally, remote work is still in its early stages for generating shared expectations between government and citizens (Jaeger 2005;Linders 2012;Mouter et al. 2021), thus co-production based on remote work is at an early stage (H6). ...
... These unsupported relationships could be analyzed in other models to retest the relationships, or future studies could look for the inclusion of variables that intervene in the relationships (e.g., mediation and moderation). Furthermore, mechanisms can be explored to promote co-production in the implementation of telework in the public sector, because the evidence indicates that despite technological progress and the consequent elimination of barriers between citizens and government, currently citizen participation is still a rare practice in reality (Barrutia and Echebarria 2021;Linders 2012;Mouter et al. 2021;Nin, Maja, and Jadri 2020). ...
... According to [13], government-citizen interactions are divided into four levels: 1) "citizen sourcing" where citizens share opinions enabling the government to improve; 2) "government as a platform" where knowledge is transferred from government to citizens, 3) "do it yourself" government where citizens self-organize in developing services, and 4) "collaborative planning and groupware" where workshops and training sessions are performed for joint Platform Zillow.com USA [33] discussion and planning. ...
... Third, the most differentiated level is the third one. It contains "collaboration" [40][41], "co-production" [37], "active participation" [35], "partnership" [34], "eEngaging" [36], or "collaborative planning and groupware" [13]. Four, the highest level of collaboration which gives the leading role to citizens, is recognized by few authors and named differently: "empower" [41][36] [40] [38], "citizen control" [34], "do it yourself government" [13] and "self-organization" for public or private matters [37]. ...
... It contains "collaboration" [40][41], "co-production" [37], "active participation" [35], "partnership" [34], "eEngaging" [36], or "collaborative planning and groupware" [13]. Four, the highest level of collaboration which gives the leading role to citizens, is recognized by few authors and named differently: "empower" [41][36] [40] [38], "citizen control" [34], "do it yourself government" [13] and "self-organization" for public or private matters [37]. ...
Digital platforms are becoming a popular means of multi-sided interactions between public institutions and their constituents. By enabling information sharing, consultation, and other forms of government-citizen collaboration, they facilitate co-decisionmaking and co-creation. Although digital platforms are not, the mechanism through which they can create public value, although important for government institutions and citizens alike, has not been systematically studied yet. This research aims at establishing a link between digital platform-based government-citizen engagement and how such engagement can generate public value. To this end, it employs the mixed method approach consisting of the systematic literature review and the analysis of 15 case studies of representative digital government platforms. The research delivers two main observations. First, digital government platforms produce three common public values: openness, government-citizen dialogue, and productivity gains. Second, unleashing the digital platforms’ public value creation potential requires infrastructural foundations, inducements for governments to engage, and mutual benefits for citizens, businesses and the government itself.
... Digital platforms and social media can facilitate broader participation by providing accessible and user-friendly tools for stakeholder engagement. Research by Linders (2012) suggests that digital tools can enhance transparency and accountability by enabling real-time interaction and feedback between public sector entities and stakeholders. These platforms can also provide valuable data on stakeholder preferences and concerns, informing more responsive and effective financial policies and practices. ...
... Similarly, research by Lonsdale (2008) underscores the critical role of auditing in maintaining public trust and accountability. The findings on digital transformation align with earlier work by Linders (2012), which emphasizes the potential of digital tools to enhance transparency and public engagement. The importance of stakeholder engagement is also supported by earlier studies by Ebdon and Franklin (2006), highlighting the benefits of participatory budgeting and public consultations in promoting transparency. ...
This study aims to systematically review the mechanisms that promote accountability and transparency in public sector accounting, focusing on regulatory frameworks, auditing practices, digital transformation, stakeholder engagement, and ethical considerations. The study employs a systematic review design, following PRISMA guidelines to ensure a rigorous and transparent approach. The literature search spans from 2000 to 2023, including peer-reviewed journal articles, books, and official reports. Keywords such as "accountability in public sector accounting," "transparency in government financial reporting," and "public sector auditing" were used to identify relevant studies. Data was extracted and analyzed using qualitative synthesis and thematic analysis to identify patterns, themes, and gaps. The review highlights the significant role of IPSAS and GFS in enhancing financial transparency and accountability. Effective external and internal auditing practices are crucial for maintaining public trust. Digital technologies and e-government initiatives improve the accessibility and transparency of financial information, although challenges such as data security and digital literacy remain. Active stakeholder engagement and robust ethical frameworks are essential for fostering a culture of transparency and accountability. The findings underscore the need for a multifaceted approach to improving public sector financial management. Policymakers should prioritize adopting international standards, invest in digital infrastructure, and promote ethical behavior through continuous education. Future research should explore tailored support initiatives and the impact of emerging technologies on transparency and accountability.
... The availability of social media data makes it easier to record users' impressions and differences in different types of landscapes due to its large volume and long-time span [35]. When creating public policies, management is taking public opinion into account more often than only expert advice and empirical data [36]. Citizen-driven social media content allows managements to listen to and analyze citizens' opinions and attitudes towards policies [36,37], which is defined as a new network-based business model that utilizes creative solutions from distributed personal networks [38]. ...
... When creating public policies, management is taking public opinion into account more often than only expert advice and empirical data [36]. Citizen-driven social media content allows managements to listen to and analyze citizens' opinions and attitudes towards policies [36,37], which is defined as a new network-based business model that utilizes creative solutions from distributed personal networks [38]. We used the python programming language (v3.10) to gather user-generated content (UGC) information regarding perception and assessment from the six major travel network platforms in China, namely Qunar (https:// www. ...
The assessment of landscape visual quality (LVQ) holds significant importance in the preservation and advancement of traditional villages. One challenge in measuring human perception lies in establishing a connection between public preferences and landscape characteristics. This study conducted an analysis of social media data from Anyi traditional villages in China to address this issue and identified eight human perceptions: naturalness, ancientness, colorfulness, variety, uniqueness, ingenuity, vividness, and pleasantness. A total of thirty characteristic indicators with potential explanations for LVQ were determined by research group through field investigations. A questionnaire survey was developed to assess human’s preferences using 82 traditional village photos, and scores for the eight perceptions were obtained. The logistic regression was employed to establish distinct perception models, with perceptions serving as the dependent variables and characteristic indicators as the independent variables. Nomograms were subsequently utilized to visualize regression results and display the correlation between these two factors. The findings suggest that nomograms facilitate intuitive determination of the weights assigned to characteristic indicators in perceptual models, as well as their influence on LVQ. This work provides a reference for decision-making related to the adaptive protection and development of traditional villages, thereby helping to enhance the competitiveness of tourist destinations.
... La aplicación de las redes sociales al funcionamiento de la Administración se ha abordado desde diversas perspectivas: la transparencia (Linders, 2012), la gestión del conocimiento (Maríñez Navarro, 2015), o la comunicación (Frame y Brachotte, 2015; Sixto García, 2013). ...
... Además de la capacidad de las redes sociales como herramienta de comunicación unidireccional, estas permiten un ecosistema de interacción (Sandoval Almazán y Gil García, 2012) en el que pueden reconocerse las opiniones de la ciudadanía, sus intenciones y comportamientos, proporcionando así información sobre su posición o sentimiento respecto determinadas cuestiones (Khan, 2013;Perlman, 2013;Maríñez Navarro, 2015;Chun y Luna Reyes, 2012). Esta interacción permitiría atender cuestiones que de interés para los gobiernos o incluso hacer llamadas a la colaboración offline o la coproducción (Linders, 2012;Johnston y Hansen, 2011). ...
Technology is a key factor in the modernization of the State. Social networks, one of the most recent technologies, have spread in the Administration and have been a subject of study by an academia that has pointed out the importance of their institutionalization to achieve a successful technological adoption. This paper contributes to this debate, focusing on the political variable and how it affects institutionalization. For this purpose, we have chosen institutional communication, one of the various recognized uses of social technologies in institutions, a specific field such as the Spanish state administration, and a mixed research technique that includes both a descriptive and a quantitative analysis. The results clarify how the political variable significantly influences both on the decision to have social channels and their daily use and managament structure. Thus, the political factor is a barrier that weakens institutionalization, limiting the role of public employees, politically biasing the contents generated by institutional channels and giving rise to contingent management structures. The document offers a series of recommendations and some possible lines of research for further explore how the political factor affects the adoption of these technologies.
... Rather it was introduced as a process through which citizens and public officials work together around co-producing improved public services [2,12]. However, ICT/digitalization is an acknowledged power in transforming conventional co-production into more inclusive and digitally enabled forms [13,14]. Thus, ICTs are commonly argued as enablers of co-production. ...
... Implications for Digitalized Co-Production of Emergency Response As to digitalized co-production in general, it is argued that ICTs play a trans-formative role in facilitating citizen engagement in public services provision [2,14]. Most studies speak about opportunities, while Lember et al. [15] argue that discussions about the role of ICT in co-production have been accompanied by conceptual fuzziness and technology-optimism. ...
... This openness of the city's ecosystem is not just a response to the contemporary global landscape but a strategic approach to harnessing the collective potential of varied stakeholders. By embracing external influences and ideas, cities can catalyze innovation, driving forward not only technological advancements but also socio-economic development (Kummitha and Crutzen, 2019;Leitheiser and Follmann, 2020;Linders, 2012). The synergies between internal and external Open Innovation initiatives within the smart city ecosystem are crucial for cities to remain competitive and vibrant in the face of rapid global changes, ensuring they are not just participants but active shapers in smart city innovation (Christofi et al., 2021). ...
Open Innovation and the Quadruple Helix framework have emerged as key concepts in the public policy domain, particularly within smart city initiatives. Contemporary cities face growing expectations to unite multiple actors – including citizens, private and public institutions, and firms, to shape urban development and facilitate social, economic, and urban advancement. Despite the increasing focus on smart cities, a significant research gap remains in understanding the integration of various actors and the implementation of the Open Innovation paradigm—both internally and externally—and how this integration impacts the digitalization process. To address this gap, this paper examines the role of internal and external Open Innovation within the Quadruple Helix framework—encompassing governance, knowledge & academia, civil society, and business & industry—in the development and implementation of digital services in smart cities. Using a longitudinal dataset of Italian cities, this research provides new insights into the mechanisms that underpin smart city innovation, offering empirical evidence that highlights the importance of collaborative ecosystems in shaping the cities of the future. Our findings contribute to the literature on smart cities, emphasizing the need for integrated approaches that harness the potential of diverse actors and Open Innovation to achieve sustained urban advancement
... Facebook dan Twitter adalah media sosial yang optimal untuk berfungsi sebagai forum diskusi lokal baru; platform ini dapat menjadi saluran baru bagi pemerintah daerah untuk mengirim pesan terkait layanan lokal kepada warganya atau dapat berfungsi sebagai platform pertukaran informasi atau alat untuk mendapatkan umpan balik dari warga (Bonsón et al., 2019). Dipercaya bahwa penggunaan media sosial yang tepat dan strategis dapat meningkatkan efektivitas pengambilan keputusan dan pemecahan masalah di tingkat masyarakat (Linders, 2012;Yuan et al., 2023). Mengingat sifat interaktif media sosial adalah interaktif dan memfasilitasi komunikasi dua arah, kehadiran pemerintah di media sosial sangat penting bagi entitas pemerintah untuk menjangkau warga secara efektif (Gao & Lee, 2017;Houston et al., 2016;Yuan et al., 2023). ...
In the modern world, social media as a means of information sharing, communication and interaction is increasingly popular and government administrations are actively taking advantage the dominance of social media to promote public goals. Citizen participation is expected to improve the effectiveness and responsiveness of the government. This also promotes the creation of public accountability. One way to conceptualize and measure social media engagement is to map the flow of information between government agencies and the public. This research aims to identify and map the communication structure and involvement of local government with the community to improve the public accountability process. The data collection method used in this research is content analysis with a structured framework. Based on observations of 38 Provincial Governments accounts, on four social media (Facebook, X/Twitter, Instagram and YouTube), the structure of public involvement is still dominant in the one-to-many communication model. Local Government actively provides one-way information without responding to user comments or questions.
... Policies that are based on direct input from citizens are more likely to be accepted and implemented successfully in the field. Additionally, participation can help identify potential problems or challenges that may not be visible to policymakers, so that more appropriate solutions can be found (Linders, 2012). ...
Keywords Abstract Citizen Participation, Public Administration, E-Governance This study aims to comprehensively review the literature related to citizen participation in public administration. Citizen participation is an important element in increasing transparency, accountability, and governance effectiveness. This study uses a literature review method to analyze the concepts, dimensions, supporting factors, and challenges that affect citizens' involvement in public administration. The results of the study show that citizen participation can be implemented through various forms, such as consultation, dialogue, collaboration, and direct empowerment. Digital technologies, such as e-governance and social media, have expanded the space for participation, although there are still obstacles such as inequality in access to technology, lack of digital literacy, and bureaucratic resistance. Other factors that play a role include inclusive policies, responsive leadership, and a participatory culture in society. In addition, citizen participation not only improves the quality of public services, but also strengthens democracy. The study provides recommendations for developing a strategic framework to integrate citizen participation into public administration more effectively, with a focus on sustainability, inclusivity, and adaptation to technological change.
... For many researchers, social media enhance citizens' empowerment (Linders, 2012), develop their interaction with government (Fox & Marinescu, 2022), and can be used effectively for crisis situations (Sahinidis, Daskalaki, Mantzari, & Mantzaris, 2018) or for political campaigns (Gilardi et al., 2021;Williams, 2022). However, their impact on the creation of public value still remains preliminary and exploratory. ...
... However, perspectives varied on the necessity of features like audio recordings or wearable technologies, with some actors considering them valuable additions while others were more sceptical about their effectiveness and privacy implications. In line with previous research, our study corroborates the potential of social media, three-dimensional models, gamification and mapping features [6,7,22,25,66,[72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81]. ...
This paper explores the perspectives of different urban actors regarding public participation in the context of the increasing incorporation of digital technologies and urban platforms. The study is based on three workshops with local governance actors, six semi-structured interviews with academics in the fields of public participation and digital technologies and a citizen survey with 260 respondents. The results provide multi-perspective insights into the challenges of participatory processes and are synthesized into three contributions: (i) guidelines for effective public participation, including factors that encourage or discourage citizen engagement; (ii) guidelines for designing participatory platforms, highlighting specific features that promote digital engagement (i.e. social media, gamification and user-friendly interfaces), and (iii) a typology of digital participation platforms to connect the diverse needs of actor groups with the various possibilities provided by new technologies. The guidelines provide concrete recommendations to support both urban practitioners and interface designers in designing participatory strategies and platforms, respectively. Recognizing that there is no-one-size-fits-all platform, the typology provides a framework for the assessment and further development of digital platforms for public participation.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Co-creating the future: participatory cities and digital governance’.
... The primary issue in social service delivery today is not the presence of the state but how responsibilities are shared between public, private, and civil sector actors. It is crucial to design service delivery processes that meet citizen and stakeholder expectations and stimulate their involvement at all stages (Linders, 2012). ...
Purpose: This study aims to identify management practices that enhance the provision of social services through co-production. It is based on the assumption that co-produced social services align with the sustainability paradigm. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study's objectives were achieved through a comprehensive literature review and a field survey conducted in December 2022. The survey utilized a questionnaire distributed to 357 local government units (LGUs) functioning as municipalities. To ensure a representative sample that included all types of units, stratified random sampling was employed. These LGUs were distinguished by their classification within a NUTS macro-region. The sampling strata were designed to ensure comparability across macro-regions, with each stratum reflecting the diversity of institutions, categorized into urban municipality offices, urban-rural municipality offices, and rural municipality offices. A limitation of the methodology is the potential for ambiguous interpretations of research questions, leading to responses that may not fully align with the actual conditions. Future research should aim to deepen these findings through qualitative methods. Findings: The study identified key determinants that influence the collaboration between municipalities and organizations involved in social service provision, whether in the market or civil sectors. Research Limitations/Implications: The study has several limitations. First, the reliance on self-reported data from LGUs may introduce bias, as respondents might present their practices more favorably. Second, the focus on Poland limits the generalizability of the findings to other contexts with different political, social, and economic conditions. Implications: The findings suggest that co-produced social services can foster sustainability. Sustainable co-production involves the continuous and meaningful engagement of service users in the design and delivery of services, moving beyond sporadic efforts to establish long-term relationships between professionals and service users. The sustainability of social service provision refers to the ability of involved organizations to adapt to changes in policy, funding, or the needs and preferences of service users. Originality/Value: The research underscores that building relationships with social service providers significantly contributes to meeting social needs effectively, fostering sustainable practices, and making communities more responsive to citizen needs. Enhancing sensitivity to citizen needs is a crucial expectation of municipalities. Keywords: public management; public governance, social services, co-production, ecosystem. Category of the paper: scientific article.
... Greater focus on citizens enables them to intensify their engagement, which is focused on cooperation, participation, and community empowerment [69][70][71] and can result in enhanced government transparency [72] and augmented citizen trust and satisfaction [72]. High satisfaction levels lead to increased use of digital government and an enhancement of its future development. ...
Recognizing the interdisciplinary debate about the digital devices and infrastructure needed to support the emergence and viability of smart cities, the latter can be considered one of the most challenging topics within recent decades due to its relevant role in supporting and enhancing citizens’ participation in public management. Using a deductive approach, in this paper, we propose a sustainability-based conceptual framework to support both policymakers and managers in better understanding at which level to act to improve citizens’ engagement as a way to ensure sustainable development in smart cities. The purpose of this paper is to explore how citizens’ involvement in smart cities can be steered toward positive attitudes and behaviors within the context of sustainable development. Drawing on a managerial perspective, we aim to provide preliminary reflections about the key role that digital technologies on which smart cities are based can play in promoting effective sustainable development for all.
... Knowledge and understanding of the use of social media by village governments in the Minahasa region are important for improving the quality of public services. By using social media as a communication, promotion and awareness tool, rural governments can strengthen their relationships with the community, respond to community needs more quickly and expand the reach of services (Linders, 2012). Social media also provides opportunities for rural governments to innovate in providing more efficient and effective services while supporting sustainable rural development. ...
Public service issues are still often the main topic in society, starting from the lack of clear information and slow service that occurs in government in various cases, both related to information, administration and implementation of development in various fields, to the lack of resources that are able to provide the best service to the community. The current era of information technology, new media, which includes social media, is certainly one of the right solutions in overcoming communication and information problems for the government, but the problem is whether social media has been used optimally in carrying out public service duties by the government, especially the government in the village. Along with the many complaints from the public regarding government services, even though communication and information technology is already present in the midst of society and the government. This is the basis of this study, to be studied and studied in more depth, using a qualitative research approach, related to how social media becomes a communication channel for village governments in improving public services. Village governments in Minahasa Regency, North Sulawesi Province have not optimally used social media as an information channel in an effort to improve public services. This is evidenced by the lack of official social media from the village government as a media/information channel in supporting public services. Not all village governments have the human resource capabilities that can manage and operate social media well, actively and intensively in providing information to the public regarding programs, policies, and government regulations. Most village governments in Minahasa Regency do not yet have official social media as a medium/channel of information to the public. There are still many village government officials who use their personal social media for the needs of conveying information to the public, even then only when necessary. Obstacles to the Village Government in utilizing social media to improve public services include limited human resources, technological infrastructure, and cultural constraints, these factors affect the effectiveness of communication through social media.
... Electronic filing systems, for instance, have streamlined tax processes, reducing administrative burdens for both taxpayers and tax authorities while improving VAT collection efficiency. The integration of modern technologies has fundamentally shifted the paradigm, granting tax authorities the capability to analyze extensive financial datasets with unprecedented precision (Linders, 2012). This enhanced analytical power allows for the identification of patterns indicative of tax evasion, including VAT fraud, that were previously unattainable. ...
Taxpayers VAT compliance has been a constant concern for tax administration in developing countries including Tanzania. This is partly due to the nature of this tax and the portion of revenue contributed by this tax to finance public services. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of VAT compliance strategies on taxpayer adherence in Tanzania, specifically focusing on the TRA in Morogoro Municipality. The research targeted VAT-registered taxpayers and TRA staff in Morogoro Municipality. Sample size for this study was 88 respondents. Data were gathered through questionnaires and interviews. Quantitative data were analyzed using multiple ordinary least squares regression model, The study highlights that VAT compliance is notably influenced by the relationship between tax officials and taxpayers, the involvement of tax advisers, and the frequency of tax audits, with the relationship between tax officials and taxpayers having the most significant impact. Information sources on VAT, however, do not significantly affect compliance levels. To enhance VAT compliance, it is recommended that tax authorities focus on improving interactions between officials and taxpayers, increase the involvement of tax advisers, and conduct regular and thorough tax audits. Additionally, while information sources were not found to be highly influential in this study, providing clear and accessible VAT information remains important for ensuring that all taxpayers are well-informed.
... I mutamenti sono in questo senso «calati dall'alto» (Kuipers et al. 2014), vengono cioè apportati solo agli output generali degli enti e non agli input gestionali dei processi che riguardano dipendenti e cittadini. In singole e specifiche realtà si sta verificando un'inversione di tendenza che ha ricadute positive anche nella comunicazione interna, ma a mancare, nella maggior parte dei casi, è un reale atteggiamento volto a favorire il citizen engagement, inteso nel suo senso più pieno, quello della co-produzione di beni pubblici (Linders 2012, Coleman, Firmstone 2014, Bartoletti, Faccioli 2016, Paltrinieri, Allegrini 2020. ...
This study investigates the perspectives of Public Relations Office (Urp)
managers, in Italy, to evaluate the activation level of this structure
and its ongoing transformations, including the use of digital tools and
artificial intelligence. Even after 30 years, the Urp continues to play a
significant role in public communication. Recognized for their strategic
importance by communicators, particularly in promoting listening and
participation, innovative practices are emerging from both central and
local government administrations, reshaping the role of Urp. More than
a third of administrations have implemented social listening through
technological monitoring systems, while others have embraced artificial
intelligence and new technologies for dialogue with citizens. However,
despite many administrations demonstrate dynamism and receptivity
to innovation, limitations and vulnerabilities arise, often linked to resistance
to change and the limited visibility of these structures within
the organization.
... 11 With the abundance of communicative channels making large-scale social collaboration and co-production possible, government decision-making has transformed toward higher levels of openness, inclusiveness, and transparency. 12 Meanwhile, the ease of instant information sharing makes it easier to monitor corruptions and hold governments accountable. 13 Accordingly, concepts such as Wiki Government, 14 Open Government, 15 Crowdsourcing Government, 16 Platform Government, 17 Adaptive Government, 18 and Lean Government have been put forward to conceptualize how the ICTs transform governance. ...
China has become one of the most progressive actors in the global trend of governmental digitization over the past two decades. Digital technologies increasingly weaving into every aspect of the Chinese governance system call for an updated understanding of digital politics. is article o ers an up-to-date framework to depict the fast growth of China's digital government with a holistic view from four dimensions: organizations, institutions, capacities, and e ectiveness. Applying this analytical framework, we construct an original dataset to assess the current state of digital government in 101 municipalities. Our analysis shows that China has established full-scale institutions and organizations that direct the utilization of smart cities and big data in delivering 208 Kaiping Zhang, Jinxu Zhao, and Tianguang Meng public services. However, Chinese municipalities vary drastically in terms of the capacity and the e ectiveness of digital governance. A digital divide clearly manifests between regions-while the coastal cities have developed full-edged digital infrastructure and services, a large majority of inland cities have lagged far behind. This article also explores the factors that contribute to digital government. Two models of government digitization-government-society balanced model and government-driven model-coexist in Chinese municipalities. We nd that aside from socioeconomic factors such as economic development and social structure, political factors serve as a key driver. e larger city scale, lower percentage of government employee, and higher business size per public o cial, the more digitally sophisticated the city tends to become. The framework provides new insights for understanding digital government in China, revealing the pattern of rapidly growing yet unbalanced development.
... Coproduction scholars classify the different activities using various frameworks or typologies based on factors such as the degree of citizens involvement in policy design and implementation (Brandsen and Honingh 2016;Linders 2012) or the range of userprofessional relationship (Bovaird 2007). Within these types of classifications, multiple activities are described in many areas including education (Bifulco and Ladd 2006;Grolnick and Slowiaczek 1994), public safety and law enforcement (Layne 1989), healthcare (Realpe and Wallace 2010), digital communities (Meijer 2011), neighbourhood governance (Tuurnas 2016), participatory budgeting (Barbera, Sicilia, and Steccolini 2016), homeland security (Zhang, Liu, and Vedlitz 2020b), and environmental services (Hattke and Kalucza 2019). ...
In this study, we compare three modes of public participation in government (policy endorsement, coproduction, and co-investment) and introduce a two-layer explanation to the variations in citizens' willingness to participate in these modes. We present effort as an overarching factor so more demanding modes receive lower public support. We also argue that issue importance, trust in government, and political ideology shape individuals' degree of participation. Using data from a public opinion survey on local infrastructure, we demonstrate the overarching role of effort and the direct effects of all three factors on the different levels of public participation in government policy.
... By making data accessible and transparent, governments empower citizens to actively contribute to policy discussions, provide feedback, and monitor government performance. This participatory approach ensures that government actions are aligned with the interests and aspirations of the public, thereby fostering a stronger relationship between citizens and government (Linders, 2012). The present study found that more than half (56%) of the respondents articulated that their rural self-government (panchayat) implements the data driven model at below average level. ...
Data driven models are effective tool that can make rural self-government as citizen centric governance. This research explores the connection of data-driven models and citizen-centric governance, emphasizing the importance of leveraging data for informed decision-making and responsive service delivery. The study investigated the implementation levels of data-driven models in various rural self-governments (Panchayat Raj Institutions) in Tirupattur district of Tamil Nadu State. The study carried out on the various dimensions of citizen centric governance such as responsiveness, fairness, responsibility, and accountability. The findings reveal a mixed picture, with significant opportunities for improvement in the implementation of data-driven models for citizen-centric governance. The study also found that there is recognition of the transformative potential of data-driven governance in promoting citizen engagement and transparency as well as challenges like limited ICT empowerment and lack of awareness. The study underscores the need for comprehensive data-driven frameworks and policy interventions to bridge these gaps and realize the full potential of citizen-centric governance. By fostering greater data literacy and investing in technology infrastructure, governments can empower rural communities to actively participate in decision-making processes, ultimately leading to the creation of more resilient and inclusive societies.
... S. Jayashree revealed the potential of e-government to transform the physical society into an electronic one [40]. Meanwhile, social media platforms in the form of mobile applications (such as WeChat, Facebook, and Twitter) have significantly altered residents' approaches to accessing government services and constructing interactions with these services, providing individuals with a medium to address governmental affairs [41]. Moreover, societal demand for government service spaces continues to drive technological innovations in government service provisions. ...
With the rapid development of smart cities and the swift transition toward digital governance, optimizing urban spatial governance through digital technology remains underexplored in the Global South, particularly from the perspective of resident perception and interaction. Digitization of government services is a key area of interest in digital governance research; this study investigates the impact of government self-service systems on the spatial perception and behavior of residents in Guangzhou and Foshan, China. Through a mixed-method approach, combining questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews and analyzing them using a structural equation model, the findings reveal that government self-service systems significantly influence residents’ spatial behavior and perception. These systems enhance the efficiency of administrative processes, increase convenience, and lead to temporal-spatial compression, thereby reshaping residents’ physical interactions with urban spaces. The findings provide practical insights for policymakers to enhance urban governance by integrating digital technologies to improve residents’ interaction with government services. These insights can guide the development of more efficient, resident-centered digital governance frameworks, particularly in rapidly urbanizing regions. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of how digital technology transforms urban spatial governance, highlighting the critical interplay between individuals, technology, and the urban environment. The study likewise provides examples of the ongoing digital transformation of public services in countries of the Global South that are lagging behind in the area of digital governance.
... Beyond common gap in access, inequality can manifest in digital skills and competency and this is described as second-level digital divide (Friemel & Signer, 2010). Consequently, this digital divide becomes a barrier to the inclination and capacity of the citizens to participate as co-creators, thereby resulting to the dependency of a particular set of citizens as active cocreators which in turn leads to unrepresentative outcomes (Linders, 2012). ...
Public value co-creation emerged as a perspective that takes public service delivery beyond effectiveness and efficiency to the services that involve different actors which meet the citizens’ satisfaction and expectation. This development has necessitated the adoption of several strategies by governments aimed at achieving this goal. Arising from this understanding, this paper’s objective rests upon the exploration of the correlation between digitalization and public value co-creation in public sector organizations viewing the citizens as co-creators. Utilizing secondary sources of data, the paper compellingly argues that the citizens could participate more actively and effectively in digitalization driven public value co-creation in public sector organizations. However, it is highlighted in the study that digital divide is a potential obstacle which could undermine the role of citizens towards digitalization driven public value co-creation in public sector organizations. As a panacea, the paper recommends for decentralization of digital governance so as to provide majority of the citizens (especially those at the remote areas) the opportunity to participate in the public value co-creation processes.
... Desde el principio es importante pensar en la elección de tecnologías como una construcción social que involucra comportamientos, actitudes y cogniciones en el proceso de transformación digital (Mergel, Edelman y Haug, 2019). En muchas situaciones las decisiones de política sobre tecnología están impulsadas por una lógica de costo y beneficio, en la que la IA puede modificar los patrones organizacionales de la administración pública con el potencial de fomentar la coproducción de servicios públicos (Linders, 2012;Meijer, 2012), fomentar la colaboración entre organizaciones (Chen, 2017) y promover gobiernos abiertos (Janssen, Charalabidis y Zuiderwijk, 2012). Más que un conjunto complejo de sistemas y códigos, las tecnologías digitales en la administración pública pueden entenderse como herramientas que median en la autoridad estatal para implementar políticas y servicios públicos (Hood y Margetts, 2007). ...
As public administrations embrace artificial intelligence (AI) it is noted that this transition has the potential to transform public service and public policies by offering rapid changes in decision making and service delivery. However, a recent series of critiques have pointed out the problematic aspects of integrating AI systems into public administration, noting some problematic outcomes in terms of justice and values. The argument provided here is that any public administration adopting AI systems must consider and address the ambiguities and uncertainties surrounding two key dimensions: the algorithms’ outcomes and how public managers make decisions for and about the design of AI systems. This article points out the need to design institutions that immerse themselves in understanding the nuances, details, and potential outcomes of AI governance for public administration. Such institutions would reconcile consequentialist logic with a logic of appropriateness to help navigate and mediate ambiguities and uncertainties.
... Embracing the overarching theme of PDC2024, which emphasises the need to go beyond the concept and processes of 'mere' participation, we echo Bouchard's scepticism over the 'participatory orthodoxy' [3]: "whether one promotes public participation as a means to enable citizens to become 'the sources of their own solutions' [5], 'partners rather than customers' [6], or 'holders of decision-making authority' [7], there is little disagreement over (. . .) public participation's capacity to enhance governmental accountability, legitimacy, and democracy itself [8; 9]. ...
This exploratory paper challenges the prevailing 'participatory orthodoxy' in design and politics by questioning whether participation alone is enough to envision alternatives that resonate with collective aspirations. We argue for complementing emancipatory PD discourses with the idea of prefiguration and introduce 'ludic prefiguration' as a holistic and dynamic framework that interweaves elements of game design, cooperative play, and iterative collective playtesting to foster a deeper level of collaboration across the creative and political spectrums of design. This framework advocates for interactions that are not only playful but also 'inefficient' in their exploration, thereby redefining the influence of play on decision-making and questioning traditional perceptions of efficiency in design. At the heart of this approach is an activist commitment to radical imagination and meaningful inefficiency, seeking to reshape the contours of participation and pave new prefigurative pathways in democratising design and politics.
... Citizen engagement in the provision of public services is expected to be altered by the increase in digitisation, computational power and ongoing austerity policies of modern ICT (Linders 2012;Clark, Brudney & Jang 2013;Noveck 2015). It is a known fact that nobody knows better which public services are most important for their own welfare than the service users (citizens) themselves and the communities in which they live. ...
... Open Government Data (OGD) is anticipated as data produced by increasing participation, focusing on data transparency, and innovation in collaboration between government and society (Wang & Shepherd, 2020). OGD itself is open data that can be viewed as a process of data innovation that requires new collaboration methodologies and changes the relationship between government and citizens (Linders, 2012;Sieber & Johnson, 2015;Wang & Lo, 2016). OGD data is created and made available by the government, offered under a reusable, human-readable, machine-understandable license, as well as, delivered without separation and cost to the public at large (McBride, 2020) and usually often takes the form of a site or administration that the general public can access. ...
Openness of Government Data is considered important and is an innovation that influences from the community to prevent corruption by increasing transparency of information and data. This has been done by almost most of the Ministries / Government Agencies in Indonesia in all aspects that include data disclosure in the social, economic, cultural, political and security fields. One of the drivers of the emergence of Open Government Data (OGD) is the era of the industrial revolution 4.0 which has affected all aspects of life with all technological advances so that people tend to require information disclosure in supporting and overseeing the running of the government. Conversely, the lack of utilisation of OGD is something that the Government really needs to pay attention to. Here the author discusses the openness of government data in Indonesia, with several literature review studies and reviews of several journals and interviews with several experts who are expected to provide recommendations related to the importance of data disclosure using several measurement parameters so that the gap between the framework and the OGD concept itself in Indonesia can be considered. In addition, the final goal of this study aims to provide foresight for policies that can be taken by the Government aimed at data transparency that can be used optimally by the general public and does not conflict with policies that have been implemented on data disclosure information.
... In the public sector, where governance challenges abound, there is growing anticipation of a shift in the government's function from control and steering towards a more service-oriented approach [12][13][14]. Recent trends underscore an increasing expectation that government will adopt a platform role [8,15,16]. From a public administration perspective, Ansell and Miura [17] argue that the rise of the platform concept is a reaction to decentralized governance. This shift requires a more adaptable framework, not only to connect stakeholders and scale public innovation but also as an intermediary to enhance public problem-solving. ...
This article discusses the process of digitization in the implementation of public policy within developing countries, its critical success factors, challenges, and lessons learned from case studies. Public administration can improve efficiencies, transparency, and effectiveness through the infusion of digital technologies into processes implicated in the making, execution, and evaluation of public policies. Key success factors identified include robust digital infrastructure, clear strategic vision and leadership, effective stakeholder engagement, capacity building, and a supportive regulatory framework. In light of these potential benefits, developing countries experience enormous challenges such as inadequate infrastructure, political instability, socio-political resistance, and gaps in digital literacy. Through a review of empirical case studies from countries such as Estonia, South Korea, China, Bangladesh, and Rwanda, the article identifies key lessons that can inform the digital strategies of other developing nations. The discussion addresses the challenges of sustaining digital infrastructure, including ongoing maintenance costs, the need for continuous technology updates, and the risks of obsolescence. Furthermore, the article explores the significance of capacity building, public-private partnerships, and evolving regulatory frameworks in ensuring the long-term viability of digital policies. The future directions proposed underscore the necessity of adopting adaptable, resilient, and well-governed digital infrastructures to fully realize the benefits of digital public policy in the context of developing countries.
Digital transformation has become a crucial element in improving the quality of public service delivery, particularly through the implementation of e-government. This study aims to analyze the role of e-government in enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of modern public administration. Using a qualitative research method through literature analysis and in-depth interviews with government employees across several public service agencies in Indonesia, this study explores the benefits and challenges faced in the implementation of e-government. The findings indicate that e-government significantly contributes to expediting public service processes, increasing transparency, and minimizing potential corruption and abuse of power. Furthermore, e-government enables more effective interagency collaboration through integrated information systems, positively impacting operational efficiency. However, the study also identifies obstacles to the adoption of e-government, such as limited digital infrastructure, resistance from government officials, and the digital divide in society, which can reduce its effectiveness. This study concludes that e-government can serve as a strategic instrument for public administration reform if supported by infrastructure improvements, human resource training, and increased public digital literacy. Consequently, e-government not only enhances the quality of public services but also strengthens accountability and public trust in the government. The study’s recommendations include strategies to improve information technology capacity, formulate policies that support digital transformation, and raise awareness and public participation in utilizing digital government services.
Through the use of digital platforms, e-government has revolutionized public administration and increased accessibility, efficiency, and transparency. Driven by digital technology and the Internet, e-government seeks to be more responsive and citizen-centric than just digitizing government functions. With AI, e-government has entered a new era. The ability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to learn, adapt, and make decisions presents unparalleled opportunities to enhance the provision of services. Using AI, governments can analyze large data, automate repetitive tasks, and customize services. Data science and machine learning, two subcategories of AI, are crucial to e-government. They provide trend analysis, big database analysis, and service delivery optimization. Government data may be analyzed using machine learning algorithms to uncover trends and insights that will help with resource allocation, policymaking, and decision-making
Citizen participation is an essential component of modern democratic public administration. However, it is not provided automatically but requires efforts from both public authorities and citizens themselves. The formation of public opinion on the need for citizen participation contributes to the unification of these efforts on both sides. In the context of the development of the information society, public opinion can and should be formed with Web 2.0 tools and technologies, primarily social media, which have a significant impact on the formation of public opinion in modern societies. The purpose of this article is to explore the possibility of forming public opinion on the need to increase citizen participation using social advertising on social media as a Web 2.0 tool. To achieve this, three research tasks were solved: to determine the essential features of public opinion; to consider the features of analysis and formation of public opinion; to consider the use of social advertising as a Web 2.0 tool for forming public opinion. A separate section of the article is devoted to each of the tasks. Based on the results of the study, several conclusions are drawn. The authors propose a mechanism for shaping public opinion on the need to increase the level of citizen participation, which includes the following components: identification of social groups for further interaction; monitoring of the social mood of these groups; tracking and analysis of social information targeted at these groups; studying public opinion rooted in certain social groups through establishing communication with them; analysis of public opinion in terms of its contribution to increasing the level of citizen participation; application of Web 2.0 tools to identify and analyse public opinion.
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the factors influencing public servants’ anxiety and general public’s opposition toward the implementation of digital participatory platforms (DPPs) and municipal digital transformation (DX) in Japan. By addressing these factors, the research seeks to provide insights for policymakers to facilitate smoother transitions to digital governance and increase public acceptance and engagement.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses surveys conducted with both general public and public servants. The surveys were designed based on previous research and collected data through Web-based questionnaires. General public’s data were collected from 366 valid responses over four days in July 2022, while public servants’ data were gathered from 197 valid responses over eight days. Statistical analysis was used to identify key factors influencing anxiety and opposition.
Findings
Public servants’ anxiety is influenced by self-perceived creativity, openness to innovation, international collaborations, work-life balance and gender equality reforms. The general public’s opposition stems from dissatisfaction with current digital tools, social media use and political engagement. Both groups could benefit from targeted training, improved usability and inclusive engagement strategies.
Practical implications
The findings suggest that targeted training to enhance public servants’ creativity and digital literacy, fostering an innovative organizational culture and promoting work-life balance can reduce anxiety about DPPs. For general public, improving the usability of digital tools, engaging them in the design process and leveraging social media for communication and feedback can increase acceptance of digital initiatives.
Social implications
Understanding the concerns of both public servants and general public regarding DX can lead to more inclusive and effective governance. By addressing these concerns, policymakers can foster greater public trust and engagement, ultimately enhancing the effectiveness and transparency of municipal governance.
Originality/value
This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the factors contributing to resistance to DX in public governance. By examining both public servants’ and general public’ perspectives, it offers valuable insights for designing and implementing strategies to facilitate smoother transitions to digital participatory governance.
In Sweden, a decade ago, digitalized co-production emergency response initiatives of a hybrid bottom-up type emerged. They targeted local efforts to recruit groups of citizens to provide first respons for other citizens in accidents. Benefits in terms of shorter response times, saved lives, reduced human suffering, and material damage have been demonstrated. Recently, national authorities recognized the need to support the initiatives to expand to all rescue services, and the potential to scale up the use of citizen first responders, also in large-scale crisis management and as part of civil preparedness. Previous research has studied the initiatives and developed three models aimed at supporting the implementation of digitalized co-production. In this study, we report from the initial phase of the nationwide effort, carry out an initial evaluation, and present revised models. The models are adapted to rural versus urban settings and complemented with a model providing national support. Information and communication technology plays a crucial role in all of them. We define the hybrid type as interdependent digitalized co-production where government citizen sourcing is not direct but includes the intermediate level of the rescue services. Implications are discussed, e.g., on how to achieve a balance between centralization and decentralization.
Science is starting to recognize that technology has an influence on the environment. The most promise for change is seen in artificial intelligence. This research employs AI to provide environmentally beneficial, long-lasting solutions. Global resource depletion, pollution, and climate change are all addressed in the study. The chapter proposes that AI be used to develop solutions in response to these challenges, which spur change. Several case studies show how artificial intelligence might support environmental sustainability. Examples include waste management, energy efficiency, biodiversity conservation, and the prediction of natural disasters. Every case study delves into the concepts, issues, and sustainability of AI. The chapter addresses the ethical and practical ramifications of AI in the next part. These worries include loss of jobs due to automation, AI inclusion, and data privacy. It offers precise legal frameworks as well as AI integration with various technological and social solutions. The last section of the chapter discusses AI's role in sustainable development.
New technologies and social media significantly impact on the communication between government and citizens. This study examines the factors that affect the adoption of new technologies with an emphasis on block chain and of social media in Greek public administration. A mixed research approach with both qualitative and quantitative methods was employed through the distribution of questionnaires to 336 public sector employees and the implementation of 99 structured interviews. Findings showed that service quality, ease of use and information quality have a major impact on the adoption of block chain technologies in the public sector. Qualitative research revealed that there is a critical need for digital skills as well as for increasing citizens’ confidence in the announcements made by public institutions at their social media.
This study explores the relationship between government and citizen in the digital age and proposes a specific path to realize the value co-creation of government and citizen in the digital age. Quantitative analysis of 40 policy texts on “digital government construction” of 30 provincial and municipal governments in China before November 2022 was conducted using NVivo12. The case of Minsheng Cloud revealed that provincial and municipal government departments have not paid sufficient attention to citizen participation. Furthermore, citizens' participation ability and enthusiasm are not high. The study found that in the process of strengthening the construction of digital government, “government optimisation”, “citizen participation”, “governance guarantee”, “data governance” and “government digitization” are the key elements. We discuss the feasibility, necessity and coupling of the value co-creation theory to establish the benign interaction between government and citizens and realize co-creation. We find that the “DART” model can be co-created based on value, and that the continuous Improving the four aspects of “dialogue”, “access”, “transparency” and “risk assessment” will undoubtedly help realize the value co-creation of government and citizens in the digital era, and form a governance pattern of co-construction and sharing. It is therefore of great significance to promote the government's digital construction and digital governance capability to accelerate the construction of digital China and promote the modernisation of the national governance system and governance capability.
This paper aims to undertake a bibliometric analysis of e-government studies utilising the Scopus database. The study followed an archival review approach with data collected from the Scopus database. A mixed method was used, which harmonised quantitative vs. qualitative views. Microsoft Excel was employed to analyse the frequency, VOSviewer for data visualisation, and Harzing’s publish or perish for citation metrics and analysis. The study confirmed that e-government-related publications have continuously grown since 2001. The USA was ranked top in e-government research as the most active country. Brunel University London in the UK was the most active institution in terms of publishing substantial research on e-government. 159 scholars representing 140 different nations and 160 distinct institutions participated in various multilingual e-government studies. This study pioneers an examination of e-government publications within the Scopus database of scientific publications
The chapter examines digital transformation drivers and their efficacy in improving public sector human resource management in the digital age. Implementing Digitalisation in the public sector opens up possibilities for human resource management (HRM) to reform and accelerate the delivery of services using the most advanced digital technologies. Although digital transformation is expected to offer change in the public sector, various challenges may require significant backing to support the HRM function amid waves and shocks posed by digital transformation. The chapter employs a qualitative research methodology drawn from a systematic literature review to comprehensively evaluate the literature on digital transformation and its role in public sector HRM. Search engines such as Scopus, google, and Google Scholar were used to find relevant information on the role of digital transformation in enhancing public sector HRM. Keywords such as "digital transformation", "public sector", "HRM", "were used in streamlining the search for the study for the study. Findings from the literature indicated several impediments to the Digitalisation of HRM.
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate whether the implementation of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) impacts government functionality. The study will analyse GAI’s positive attributes across different dimensions to comprehensively understand its value proposition for public organisations. Furthermore, the paper will outline the strategic interventions required to integrate GAI effectively within the organisational context of government transformation.
Design/methodology/approach
This study measures “government functionality” and “GAI implementation” using abstract macro variables as a second-order formative model. It also includes first-order measurable micro-variables to better understand the concept. In addition, the study introduces “organisational context” as a moderating factor to explain the complex dynamics of integrating GAI to improve government functionality. The study proposes a conceptual framework, which was analysed using exploratory data analysis, with primary data collected through questionnaires.
Findings
The study finds a positive correlation between the implementation of GAI and improved government functionality. Furthermore, it found that organisational contextualisation significantly moderates this relationship. All the empirical outcomes align with the prescribed statistical thresholds, concluding that the articulated conceptual framework holds significance.
Research limitations/implications
The study has significant implications for managers, researchers and anyone involved in making, implementing or evaluating decisions related to digital government through GAI. However, the study has limitations, including a limited sample size and contextualisation of the Indian public sector.
Originality/value
The study contributes to existing knowledge by showing that implementing GAI positively correlates with improving government functionality. It further highlights the significance of GAI implementation according to the specific organisational context.
A Lei de Acesso à Informação representa um marco no panorama jurídico brasileiro, estabelecendo fundamentos e diretrizes para o acesso dos cidadãos às informações públicas, tendo sido promulgada com o propósito de consolidar a transparência e a accountability no setor público, busca fortalecer os princípios democráticos ao garantir que a sociedade tenha amplo acesso aos dados e documentos custodiados por órgãos governamentais. Em razão do transcurso de uma década de vigência, mediante pesquisa bibliográfica, exploratória e do método hipotético-dedutivo, investiga-se o estado da arte para propor bases para uma arquitetura informacional compatível com a efetividade dessa legislação, aduzindo a essencialidade de inciativas que a constele em uma estrutura material e pessoal qualificada para o cenário nacional.
Introduction 2 Defining terms – engagement of individual citizens, not organised stakeholders 3 Policy context 3 Changing levels of supply and demand for engagement opportunities 4 Conceptual issues: the pros and cons of public engagement 5 Sharpening the existing tools for public engagement 10 Beyond public engagement: the move to user and community co-production 19 Co-governance innovations 22 Benefits and limitations to co-production 28 Conclusion: pointers to the way forward in public engagement and 31 co-production Acknowledgements 33 References 33
'Collaborative culture', 'mass creativity' and 'co-creation' appear to be contagious buzzwords that are rapidly infecting economic and cultural discourse on Web 2.0. Allegedly, peer production models will replace opaque, top-down business models, yielding to transparent, democratic structures where power is in the shared hands of responsible companies and skilled, qualified users. Manifestos such as Wikinomics (Tapscott and Williams, 2006) and 'We-Think' (Leadbeater, 2007) argue collective culture to be the basis for digital commerce. This article analyzes the assumptions behind this Web 2.0 newspeak and unravels how business gurus try to argue the universal benefits of a democratized and collectivist digital space. They implicitly endorse a notion of public collectivism that functions entirely inside commodity culture. The logic of Wikinomics and 'We-Think' urgently begs for deconstruction, especially since it is increasingly steering mainstream cultural theory on digital culture.
We propose an improved theoretical approach to the rich variety of collective action now present in public life. Toward this end, we advance a conception of collective action as communicative in nature, and offer a two-dimensional model of collective action space, comprising dimensions for (a) the mode of interpersonal interaction and (b) the mode of engagement that shapes interaction. We illustrate the perspective by describing the location of a variety of contemporary collective action groups within it and by an explication of the space that reveals its utility for making sense of modern collective action efforts. Specifically, we apply the collective action space to illustrate the changing presence of collective action groups over time, deviations in collective action groups through changes in size, shape, and location, and variations in the experiences and motivations of people engaged in collective action efforts. Finally, we show how our communicative approach to collective action can integrate the insights of several theoretical traditions, including collective action theory, social capital theory, and aspects of organization theory.
The “new public management” (NPM) wave in public sector organizational change was founded on themes of disaggregation, competition,
and incentivization. Although its effects are still working through in countries new to NPM, this wave has now largely stalled
or been reversed in some key “leading-edge” countries. This ebbing chiefly reflects the cumulation of adverse indirect effects
on citizens' capacities for solving social problems because NPM has radically increased institutional and policy complexity.
The character of the post-NPM regime is currently being formed. We set out the case that a range of connected and information
technology–centered changes will be critical for the current and next wave of change, and we focus on themes of reintegration,
needs-based holism, and digitization changes. The overall movement incorporating these new shifts is toward “digital-era governance”
(DEG), which involves reintegrating functions into the governmental sphere, adopting holistic and needs-oriented structures,
and progressing digitalization of administrative processes. DEG offers a perhaps unique opportunity to create self-sustaining
change, in a broad range of closely connected technological, organizational, cultural, and social effects. But there are alternative
scenarios as to how far DEG will be recognized as a coherent phenomenon and implemented successfully.
Some of the most difficult issues in public management revolve around making strategic choices for the future in an era of rapid social, cultural and technological change. In previous work we drew a contrast between new public management (NPM) approaches, which predominated in the period 1980-2002, and digital era governance (DEG) which grew fast in the 2000s. Since that time the rapid development of societal and technological uses of online processes has been matched by the seismic impact of the 2008 credit crunch and financial crisis, now mapping out as austerity regimes in many OECD countries. In this paper we review the current fortunes of NPM, which has not revived despite the pressure on public spending. By contrast, the first wave of digital-era governance changes have flourished and the importance of key DEG themes has increased – specifically reintegrating government services, pushing towards holistic delivery to clients and responding to the digitalization wave in public services. We also argue for the emergence of an influential ‘second wave’ of digital-era changes inside government, responding to the advent of the social web, cloud computing, apps development and many other recent phenomena moving advanced industrial societies further towards an online civilization.
The evolution of the New Public Management movement has increased pressure on state bureaucracies to become more responsive to citizens as clients. Without a doubt, this is an important advance in contemporary public administration, which finds itself struggling in an ultradynamic marketplace. However, together with such a welcome change in theory building and in practical culture reconstruction, modern societies still confront a growth in citizens’ passivism; they tend to favor the easy chair of the customer over the sweat and turmoil of participatory involvement. This article has two primary goals: First to establish a theoretically and empirically grounded criticism of the current state of new managerialism, which obscures the significance of citizen action and participation through overstressing the (important) idea of responsiveness. Second, the article proposes some guidelines for the future development of the discipline. This progress is toward enhanced collaboration and partnership among governance and public administration agencies, citizens, and other social players such as the media, academia, and the private and third sectors. The article concludes that, despite the fact that citizens are formal “owners” of the state, ownership will remain a symbolic banner for the governance and public administration–citizen relationship in a representative democracy. The alternative interaction of movement between responsiveness and collaboration is more realistic for the years ahead.
Researching and evaluating social media initiatives is essential to encourage usage, continually improve the tools and policies governing their use, and develop governance processes that incorporate social media participation in its many forms.
The provision and production of many public goods and services involve the joint effort of government officials and citizen-users. This paper examines the successful experience of irrigation governance and management in Taiwan as a means of understanding how joint efforts can be established and sustained through institutional arrangements. Several principles for institutional design, including a careful definition of the scope of farmers' participation, complementarity of interests between individuals, reduction of asymmetries involved in the use of authority, and the existence of domains of autonomy are identified as instrumental to the success in Taiwan.
Public management research has paid increasing attention to the third sector, especially to its role in the provision of public services. Evidence of this is the rising number of publications on the topic, as well as a growing number of sessions and papers on the topic in academic conferences of the EGPA and IRSPM. However, much of the discussion on its role is motivated at least as much by ideology as by fact. We still lack a comprehensive empirical understanding of what happens when the third sector is drawn into public service provision. This article is an introduction to a theme issue on Co-Production: The Third Sector and the Delivery of Public Services, which tries to enhance this understanding by presenting several new studies on the subject. It also introduces the concepts of co-production, co-management and co-governance as a conceptual framework that enables a better understanding of such developments.
Civic engagement and collaborative public management are concepts that are defined broadly, making theoretical explication challenging and practical application of empirical research difficult. In this article, the authors adopt definitions of civic engagement and collaborative public management that are centered on the citizen and the potential for active citizenship. Following a historical review of civic engagement in the United States, a conceptual model of five approaches to civic engagement is offered. Citizen-centered collaborative public management is enhanced through these approaches. The authors suggest the need for further empirical research on collaborative public management that is grounded in citizenship action.
eDemocracy political parties are an emerging and radically new form of political party that enables citizen participation in the policy-making process using ICTs. This paper compares the eParticipation systems of four of the first eDemocracy parties (Senator On-Line, Knivsta.Now, Aktiv Demokrati and Demoex) using an eParticipation ontology that describes eParticipation systems according to 1) stages of policy-making, 2) levels of engagement, 3) stakeholders, 4) participation areas, 5) eParticipation tools and 6) emerging technologies. By applying this ontology a great diversity among eDemocracy parties' eParticipation systems was discovered. Two overall categories, proxy politician systems and deliberative community systems, are created to label the current variety of systems. However, even within these overall labels there are substantial differences and several subtypes of proxy politician eParticipation systems are suggested: individualistic systems, citizen-review systems and delegated-leaders systems. Additionally, a multi-channel system may be a variety of the deliberative community eParticipation system.
This article attempts to define "coproduction" in a manner useful to policy makers and to academics concerned with measuring the concept. Coproduction is considered the critical mix of activities that service agents and citizens contribute to the provision of public services. The involvement of the former consists of their work as professionals, or "regular producers," in the service process. Citizen coproductive activities, or "consumer production," are voluntary efforts of individuals or groups to enhance the quality and/or quantity of services they receive. Based on this definition, three types of coproduction are distinguished according to the nature of the benefits achieved: individual, group, and collective.
The key to understanding the nature of mutually empowering interaction between state and society is to distinguish two types of state power: infrastructural and despotic. While the state is always in zero-sum conflict with civil society when it seeks despotic power, the infrastructural power of the state can be enhanced by the development of strong and robust civil associations. Under certain circumstances, mutual empowerment can be used as both feasible developmental strategy and pathway to democracy once appropriate mechanisms are developed.
Citizen coproduction has its promise and its price.
We propose an improved theoretical approach to the rich variety of collective action now present in public life. Toward this end, we advance a conception of collective action as communicative in nature, and offer a two-dimensional model of collective action space, comprising dimensions for (a) the mode of interpersonal interaction and (b) the mode of engagement that shapes interaction. We illustrate the perspective by describing the location of a variety of contemporary collective action groups within it and by an explication of the space that reveals its utility for making sense of modern collective action efforts. Specifically, we apply the collective action space to illustrate the changing presence of collective action groups over time, deviations in collective action groups through changes in size, shape, and location, and variations in the experiences and motivations of people engaged in collective action efforts. Finally, we show how our communicative approach to collective action can integrate the insights of several theoretical traditions, including collective action theory, social capital theory, and aspects of organization theory.
The Internet has stimulated academic inquiries on the political implications of the Internet revolution. A great deal of attention has been focused on the following: Has the Internet altered the nature of interaction between the state and society? Will the Internet ultimately be able to promote the democratic transition of existing authoritarian political systems? This article attempts to address these two questions based on an empirical study of the situation in China. The article explores the democratic implications of the Internet in the context of the interplay between the state and society by setting up a three-layered analytical framework, that is, the Internet as a tool for communication, the Internet as public space, and the Internet as a means for collective action. In China, the impact of the Internet on democratic transition differs at each of these three layers, depending on the interaction strategies between the state and society.
The public sphere is the space of communication of ideas and projects that emerge from society and are addressed to the decision makers in the institutions of society. The global civil society is the organized expression of the values and interests of society. The relationships between government and civil society and their interaction via the public sphere define the polity of society. The process of globalization has shifted the debate from the national domain to the global debate, prompting the emergence of a global civil society and of ad hoc forms of global governance. Accordingly, the public sphere as the space of debate on public affairs has also shifted from the national to the global and is increasingly constructed around global communication networks. Public diplomacy, as the diplomacy of the public, not of the government, intervenes in this global public sphere, laying the ground for traditional forms of diplomacy to act beyond the strict negotiation of power relationships by building on shared cultural meaning, the essence of communication.
Partnerships increasingly play a major role in determining and implementing major policy drives in localities. Under-standing how they may provide value is therefore essential to understanding modern governance principles. This article describes action research aiming to develop a conceptualization of fac-tors inherent in collaborative forms and, hence, about their practicality as governance tools. Different interpreta-tions of what collaborative governance is intended to achieve are first reviewed. Two areas that seriously affect the ability of collaborations to deliver their potential, structural complexity and diversity are then reviewed. The article concludes by considering what is needed to make collaborative governance work.
Citizen participation is commonly viewed as attempts to influence the formulation of public policy. In this paper, the author argues that citizens also can and do exert important influences on policy through their participation in the execution of public programs. This is particularly the case in human services where change in the client's behavior is the "product" which is supposed to be delivered. Citizens "coproduce" public services by requesting assistance from service agents, by cooperating with service agents in carrying out agency programs, and by negotiating with service agents to redirect agents' activities. Citizen participation in service delivery is, in fact, often critical to program success.
The Obama administration campaigned on the platform of increased transparency and access to government information after the limitations of the Bush years. As part of this focus on transparency, the Obama administration is emphasizing the use of e-government and new social media services to open up access to government. This paper explores the considerations and challenges of this approach, such as the inclusion of members of the public with limited access to the internet, the use of non-governmental channels to disseminate government information, the permanence of digital-born government information, and the design of e-government.
Government agencies are increasingly using social media to connect with those they serve. These connections have the potential to extend government services, solicit new ideas, and improve decision-making and problem-solving. However, interacting via social media introduces new challenges related to privacy, security, data management, accessibility, social inclusion, governance, and other information policy issues. The rapid adoption of social media by the population and government agencies has outpaced the regulatory framework related to information, although the guiding principles behind many regulations are still relevant. This paper examines the existing regulatory framework and the ways in which it applies to social media use by the U.S. federal government, highlighting opportunities and challenges agencies face in implementing them, as well as possible approaches for addressing these challenges.
Through various platforms enabled by Web 2.0 technologies, citizens can collectively create public information, provide service, and take part in policy processes. Pushed by the Open Government Directive of the Obama administration, citizen-sourcing may be a new mode of government operations in the U.S. This paper suggests two frameworks to examine the emerging mechanism. The first framework provides three dimensions of citizen-sourcing initiatives: purpose (image-making or ideation), collective intelligence type (professional knowledge or innovative ideas), and strategy (contest, wiki, social networking, or social voting). Second, the paper presents a framework for assessing current citizen-sourcing initiatives. Its categories include design evaluation, process evaluation, and outcome evaluation. The performance of citizen-sourcing primarily depends on the appropriateness of the platform design. The effectiveness of the process needs to be evaluated in terms of the Open Government Directive's three pillar goals of transparency, participation, and collaboration. Evaluating the impact of citizen-sourcing will reveal whether citizen-sourcing is rhetorical or if it actually exerts significant effects on society.
The heated controversy over “citizen participation,” “citizen control”, and “maximum feasible involvement of the poor,” has been waged largely in terms of exacerbated rhetoric and misleading euphemisms. To encourage a more enlightened dialogue, a typology of citizen participation is offered using examples from three federal social programs: urban renewal, anti-poverty, and Model Cities. The typology, which is designed to be provocative, is arranged in a ladder pattern with each rung corresponding to the extent of citizens' power in determining the plan and/or program.
Many have argued that new electronic technologies have the potential to transform how governments relate to users of public services. This article explores the limits of e-government as it is being conceived by testing it against three service recipient models: customer, client, and citizen. We argue that despite the opportunities that electronically-based service transformations present for enhancing democratic citizen engagement and the power of clients, the market-inspired customer image is likely to emerge as the most powerful way in which service recipients are characterized and addressed. The business architecture of e-government being installed today in the pursuit of better customer relationship management may also represent a decreasingly attractive medium for client empowerment and democratic interactions between service recipients and government.
What is the impact of the possibility of political participation on the Internet on long-standing patterns of participatory inequality in American politics? An August 2008 representative survey of Americans conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project provides little evidence that there has been any change in the extent to which political participation is stratified by socio-economic status, but it suggests that the web has ameliorated the well-known participatory deficit among those who have just joined the electorate. Even when only that subset of the population with Internet access is considered, participatory acts such as contributing to candidates, contacting officials, signing a political petition, or communicating with political groups are as stratified socio-economically when done on the web as when done offline. The story is different for stratification by age where historically younger people have been less engaged than older people in most forms of political participation. Young adults are much more likely than their elders to be comfortable with electronic technologies and to use the Internet, but among Internet users, the young are not especially politically active. How these trends play out in the future depends on what happens to the current Web-savvy younger generation and the cohorts that follow and on the rapidly developing political capacities of the Web. Stay logged on …
Conclusions about the impact of the Internet on civic engagement have been hampered by the unavailability of before and after measures, a shortage of varied and multiple indicators of attitudes and behaviors regarding engagement, and insufficient attention to generational differences. This article seeks to address these weaknesses by employing a quasi-experimental design that draws on the 1982 and 1997 waves of a panel study that began with a national sample of the high school class of 1965 and that also includes that generation's lineage successor. Comparisons between those using and not using the Internet demonstrated that the digital divide, the original pre-Internet gap in civic engagement, remained in place or increased slightly over time. Taking into account pre-Internet levels of civic engagement and key socioeconomic characteristics indicates that Internet access has positive effects on several indicators of civic engagement. Comparisons of civic engagement among Internet users according to how much they employ the Internet for political purposes revealed modest bivariate associations and very little independent effect at the multivariate level. The connection between the Internet and civic engagement differed across the two generations in some respects, explained in part by intergenerational divergence in the intersection between the stage of individual political development and incorporation of the Internet into a person's media repertory.
Desmond M. Connor is the founder of Connor Development Services, Ltd., a Victoria, British Columbia sociological consultancy firm. Address questions or responses to NATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW, 55 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036.
If the next Presidential administration really wants to embrace the potential of Internet-enabled government transparency, it should follow a counter-intuitive but ultimately compelling strategy: reduce the federal role in presenting important government information to citizens. Today, government bodies consider their own websites to be a higher priority than technical infrastructures that open up their data for others to use. We argue that this understanding is a mistake. It would be preferable for government to understand providing reusable data, rather than providing websites, as the core of its online publishing responsibility. Rather than struggling, as it currently does, to design sites that meet each end-user need, we argue that the executive branch should focus on creating a simple, reliable and publicly accessible infrastructure that exposes the underlying data. Private actors, either nonprofit or commercial, are better suited to deliver government information to citizens and can constantly create and reshape the tools individuals use to find and leverage public data. The best way to ensure that the government allows private parties to compete on equal terms in the provision of government data is to require that federal websites themselves use the same open systems for accessing the underlying data as they make available to the public at large.
For at least a decade, scholars have sought ways to remedy citizen dissatisfaction with representative democracy. Recently, the development and deployment of the Internet has been heralded as a technical solution to this problem. Observers often base their optimism on analysis of the Internet’s impact on elections and public comment processes. Yet elections do not generate the policies that people resent—policy processes do. So far, we know little about the Internet’s role in this critical social activity. This article provides a framework for locating the Internet’s impact on policy processes and presents findings from two case studies on “Internet-enabled” policy making. The cases suggest that the Internet will not fix what ails representative democracy. Indeed, the Internet may only reinforce the much-resented organizational dominance of politics. Reconnecting politics with society is still primarily the work of organizational and institutional reformers, not hardware and software engineers.
Liberal representative democracy models appear to have a built-in bias against citizens in disorganized or informal sectors that are not highly focused, in contrast to those driven by single issues. Powerful lobby groups are able to mobilize resources and influence government agendas for their own causes, while groups without resources or a single focus have no mechanism for influencing government policies and processes. The imbalance created by lobbying is probably one of the most serious issues confronting current liberal representative democracy models. —Kakabadse, Kakabadse, and Kouzmin (2003, 48)
Collaborative public management research is flourishing. A great deal of attention is being paid to the process and impact of collaboration in the public sector, and the results are promising. This article reviews the literature on collaborative public management by synthesizing what we know from recent research and what we’ve known for quite some time. It addresses the prevalence of collaboration (both recently and historically), the components of emerging collaborative structures, the types of skills that are unique to collaborative management, and the effects of collaboration. Collaborative public management research offers a set of findings that contribute to an emerging knowledge base that supplements established public management theory.
In recent years, there has been a radical reinterpretation of the role of policy making and service delivery in the public domain. Policy making is no longer seen as a purely top-down process but rather as a negotiation among many interacting policy systems. Similarly, services are no longer simply delivered by professional and managerial staff in public agencies but are coproduced by users and their communities. This article presents a conceptual framework for understanding the emerging role of user and community coproduction and presents several case studies that illustrate how different forms of coproduction have played out in practice. Traditional conceptions of service planning and management are now outdated and need to be revised to account for coproduction as an integrating mechanism and an incentive for resource mobilization—a potential that is still greatly underestimated. However, coproduction in the context of multipurpose, multistakeholder networks raises important public governance issues that have implications for public services reform.
Privatization research lacks an understanding of the scope and nature of informal service delivery relationships between nonprofits and local government. This article reports on a study of local service delivery partnerships in Georgia using survey and interview data. In addition to assessing the frequency of noncontractual partnerships, this study builds on B. Guy Peters’s definition of public–private partnerships to delineate the control–formality dimensions of these partnerships more clearly. The agency theory notion that a trade-off occurs between formality and control is also tested. The findings show that most public–private partnerships involving nonprofits are led by government agencies, and they are only weakly collaborative in the sense of shared authority or resources. Often, community norms substitute for formal service agreements. The study concludes with suggestions for further research regarding trust and behavioral norms in public–private partnerships.
The adoption of electronic rulemaking by many federal agencies provides an opportunity for a greatly enhanced public role—both in terms of the numbers of people who might participate and the depth of their possible participation. This step towards E-governance poses several challenges for agencies: how they should structure their proceedings, how they can process the comments received and how they can foster and take part in the online communities of interest that will result from this activity. The online tools that may be applied to rulemaking and its ancillary activities—advisory committees, advanced notices of proposed rulemaking and enforcement—can also be used at earlier stages of the legislative process to increase public interest, involvement and commitment. This approach is relevant for all levels of government and for any issue on which public hearings are held or public comment solicited. It can provide an efficient and effective nonadversarial process in which officials and members of the public can mutually define problems and explore alternative solutions.
The Internet is often perceived as yet another technological innovation that causes a further widening of the gap between rich and poor. However, one of the most interesting phenomena to come out of the Internet revolution is its utilization as a channel for social development. Volunteers working in task forces who were recruited through the net, work to improve the lives of many millions of people in need throughout the world. Some of these volunteers are ‘field workers’, working in physical proximity to those they are trying to help, while others may be sitting at home, using their computers to help needy populations many thousands of miles away. This paper studies this trend and advocates a model to explain the potential and promise of online volunteerism from the perspective of the volunteer. It is suggested that understanding the characteristics behind Internet volunteering from the perspective of the volunteer may enhance the positive potential of the Internet.The model focuses on the unique informative and communicative aspects of net volunteering. It does so by separating this phenomenon into three separate subdivisions: the personal, the interpersonal, and the group. The personal subdivision refers to the advantages of volunteering on an individual level. The interpersonal subdivision refers to advantages in terms of dyadic interaction, and the group subdivision refers to the advantages as a result of being part of a task group. This paper concentrates almost exclusively on the positive, rather than negative, aspects of the Internet and Internet volunteering. This is because of the need for brevity, but more importantly, because the positive aspects of the Internet have been widely ignored by scholars. This paper aims to focus on these and to turn the spotlight on a fascinating combination of the affirmative harnessing of the Internet to increase social justice, and human well-being through unpaid volunteer work.
Instead of assuming a zero-sum relationship between government involvement and private cooperative efforts, the five preceding articles argue for the possibility of “state-society synergy,” that active government and mobilized communities can enhance each others' developmental efforts. This article draws on these articles to explore the forms and sources of state-society synergy. I argue that synergy usually combines complementarity with embeddedness and is most easily fostered in societies characterized by egalitarian social structures ard robust, coherent state bureaucracies. I also argue, however, that synergy is constructable, even in the more adverse circumstances typical of Third World countries.
This article explores the theory and practice of society’s participation in strengthening government accountability. It argues that both “exit” solutions based in marketization and “voice” solutions grounded in “coproduction,” social protest or consultation are insufficient. The best way to tap into the energy of society is through “co-governance,” which involves inviting social actors to participate in the core activities of the state. By way of demonstration, the article examines case studies from a wide range of contexts (Brazil, Mexico, the United States, India) and policy areas (poverty reduction, infrastructure provision, school reform, electoral administration, police reform).
This paper examines whether the tools of the Information Age---principally but not exclusively the Internet---make citizen coproduction of government services more viable and effective. The paper first discusses the re-emergence of citizen coproduction as a fashionable policy option in the face of persistent budget deficits, the rise of "government by network," and the advent of mass "peer-production." Finding a plethora of competing labels, models, and concepts for Internet-facilitated coproduction, the paper proposes a formal taxonomy to provide a more robust framework for systematic analysis. The paper then applies this framework to evaluate the impact of the tools of the Information Age on citizen coproduction. Its findings cautiously support the claim that the Information Age enables and advances new forms of citizen coproduction, namely large-scale "Do-It-Yourself Government" and "Government as a Platform." The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential implications for public administration, including the possible emergence of a new social contract that empowers the public to play a far more active role in the functioning of their government.
In response to President Obama's Open Government Directive, federal agencies developed plans to instill the principles of transparency, collaboration, and participation into their engagement with the public. Against the question, "what is open government?," the authors reviewed the prevailing literature and the agency plans to identify a set of discrete lenses and objectives that align with the Directive's principles. The lenses and objectives are then assessed for their policy implications, intended outcomes, and implementation challenges. This analysis is synthesized into a framework that will support future fieldwork to identify and construct best-practice tools and guidance that help agencies go beyond baseline compliance and apply the Directive as a tool for mission success. We conclude with a discussion on the factors and conditions for the sustainment of the Open Government movement.
With the radical changes in information production that the Internet has introduced, we stand at an important moment of transition, says Yochai Benkler in this thought-provoking book. The phenomenon he describes as social production is reshaping markets, while at the same time offering new opportunities to enhance individual freedom, cultural diversity, political discourse, and justice. But these results are by no means inevitable: a systematic campaign to protect the entrenched industrial information economy of the last century threatens the promise of today's emerging networked information environment. In this comprehensive social theory of the Internet and the networked information economy, Benkler describes how patterns of information, knowledge, and cultural production are changing-and shows that the way information and knowledge are made available can either limit or enlarge the ways people can create and express themselves. He describes the range of legal and policy choices that confront us and maintains that there is much to be gained-or lost-by the decisions we make today.
Access to information and communications technologies (ICTs) plays an increasingly important role in creating efficient markets and sustainable economic relationships. In rural areas of the developing world, one major initial benefit of ICTs will be the improvement, performance, and transparency of local institutions. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs) can serve as an institutional basis for ICT adoption and use in the rural developing world. Due to their local knowledge and relationships, they are a key source of innovation, envisioning, implementing, and validating new models for rural development. This article starts with an overview of NGOs and CBOs and the value chain for recognizing and rewarding their work. To illustrate, the article describes two information systems the author and his students developed for improving NGO efficiency and accountability. The article concludes by further describing the inherent engineering process within rural development and how computing can help enable it.
In this paper, we report a study that examines the relationship between image-based computational analyses of web pages and users' aesthetic judgments about the same image material. Web pages were iteratively decomposed into quadrants of minimum entropy ...
Despite many approaches of neoclassical and endogenous growth theory, economists still face problems in explaining the reasons for income differences between countries. Institutional economics and the deep determinants of growth literature try to depart from pure economic facts to examine economic development. Therefore, this article analyzes the impact of institutions, geography, and integration on per capita income. Concerning theoretical reasoning, emphasis is on the emergence of institutions and their effect on economic growth. However, institutions can appear in different shapes since political, legal, and economic restrictions are not the only constraints on human behaviour. Norms and values also limit possible actions. Therefore, a differentiation between formal and informal institutions is made. Informal institutions are defined as beliefs, attitudes, moral, conventions, and codes of conduct. Property rights are assumed to be the basic formal institutional feature for economic success. Despite their direct impact on growth through individual utility maximization, property rights also make a statement concerning the political and legal environment of a country. Regarding the regression analysis, different religious affiliations are used as instrumental variables for formal and informal institutions. The regression results affirm a crucial role of informal and formal institutions concerning economic development. However, a high proportion of Protestant citizens encourage informal institutions that support economic growth, while a high Muslim proportion of the population is negatively correlated with growth-supporting formal institutions. --
Implementing governmental and democratic processes using electronic systems is the subject of much debate around the world. Electronic voting has grabbed the headlines, but in reality, this constitutes just a small part of the effort to establish electronic communication between citizens and governmental functions (G2C and C2G). The goal is to provide access to information and to open up decision-making processes to citizens (e-participation) to encourage a grass-roots engagement of citizens with democratic processes.
Citizen Service Transformation: A manifesto for change in the deliv-ery of public services
- Cs Transform
CS Transform (2010). Citizen Service Transformation: A manifesto for change in the deliv-ery of public services. : CS Transform (White Papers)