Background: OECD work on data-driven public sector

Keyword(s):  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (14) ◽  
pp. 5615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyungjun Seo ◽  
Seunghwan Myeong

Nowadays, the Government as a Platform (GaaP) based on cloud computing and network, has come to be considered a new structure to manage efficiently data-driven administration in the public sector. When the GaaP concept was first introduced, the ICT infrastructures that could underpin GaaP were not sufficiently developed. However, the recent digital transformation has transformed the previous electronic government, which was system- and architecture-oriented. As part of the next generation of government models, GaaP may reinvent the government at a lower cost but with better performance, similar to the case of electronic government two decades ago. This study attempted to determine the priority of factors of GaaP by using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methodology. Because of the GaaP characteristics, we drew the main components for building GaaP from previous studies and a group interview with experts. The study results show that experts tend to prefer publicness in terms of building GaaP. Most of the factors that the experts weighed with the highest importance are related to the public sector, which revealed that governments should focus on their primary duty, regardless of the origin and characteristics of the platform in GaaP. However, since GaaP allows governments to be more horizontal and innovative, the platform approach can fundamentally shift the existing processes and culture of the public sector. The enhanced activity of citizens with ICT can also accelerate the introduction of GaaP. Finally, the study showed that a data-driven GaaP is necessary to efficiently handle big data, contract services, and multiple levels of on-line and off-line channels. In this public platform, government, citizens, and private sector organizations can work cooperatively as partners to seamlessly govern the hyper-connected society.


2018 ◽  
Vol 70 (5) ◽  
pp. 518-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxat Kassen

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study a multi-institutional and multi-layer nature of open data-driven communication processes that provide a collaborative platform to meet the interests of various stakeholders in advancing public sector innovations, namely, government agents, citizens, independent developers, non-governmental organizations, mass media and businesses alike and understand an important role of mutually beneficial public–private partnerships in the area. Design/methodology/approach This is a case study research, which itself is based on a combinative approach, especially in applying, in a successive order, two methods of investigation, namely, stakeholder and policy analysis. In general, the combination of these two research techniques is useful in understanding the most important collaborative trends in the area and locating key institutional drivers and challenges that open data policymakers face today in implementing related digital collaborative and participatory platforms. Findings The open data concept could provide a promising collaborative platform to network various e-government stakeholders and accelerate related technology-driven public reforms. The successful implementation of the idea demands a fairly equal contribution from representatives of both public and private sectors of economy. The case has also clearly demonstrated the importance of cooperation with the local non-governmental sector, independent developers and journalists, whose active participation is a key factor for the overall progress of the open data phenomenon, to a greater degree, as a collaborative movement rather than an instrument of public sector innovations. Research limitations/implications One of the fundamental limitations of the investigation is that it is a single case study. It explores the development of open data phenomena in the context of such an advanced post-industrial society as Finland. In this regard, in order to support key arguments of the research, it is necessary to compare its findings with the results of similar case studies in other administrative, political and socioeconomic settings, which would open new promising dimensions for future research in this direction. Practical implications Policy recommendations are proposed by the author in the discussion section, which could help, for example, to boost information campaigns in popularizing open data technologies and its reuse among independent developers. A lot of unique visualizations and illustrations are presented in the paper to help readers grasp better key ideas of the research. In this respect, the paper is intended for a global professional community of open data experts, e-government specialists, political scientists, journalists, lawyers, students of public policy and public administration and all those who are interested in studying the phenomenon from the perspective of its key stakeholders. Social implications The author of the paper tried to develop a universal framework of case study research that could be used in investigating phenomena of open data not only in Finland but also in the context of other post-industrial societies, especially in analyzing roles of various stakeholders in adopting open data-driven collaborative and civic engagement platforms and startups. Originality/value This research presents a first case study that investigates a collaborative potential of open data phenomena from a stakeholder perspective in a more holistic manner, especially in analyzing professional networking platforms and related communication activities that meet the interests of stakeholders as diverse as government agents and journalists, independent developers and academia, charities and businesses in an attempt to better understand the fundamental factors of the open data movement as a collaborative socioeconomic trend.


Author(s):  
Hendrik Storstein Spilker ◽  
Lisa Reuter ◽  
Heather Broomfield ◽  
Anne Aasback ◽  
Tangni Cinningham Dahl-Jørgensen

This panel presents on-going research from a large research project on digital infrastructures and citizen participation in the Nordic countries, with a focus on the datafication of the public sector and the construction of new borders between public services and citizens. In recent years, governments have faced increasing pressures to become datafied or “data-driven”. A more data-driven public is said to be able to develop a whole new range of services that are envisaged to result in better services, more effective government, more transparency in the public sector, more just service delivery, and the empowerment of citizens. The panel critically examines the challenges that arise when the precepts are to be converted into working services – such as: What kinds of foreseen and unforeseen transformations does the development of new services give rise to? • What kinds of resistance are the new services facing? • What new forms of expertise, enrollment of new actors, organizational restructuring and redelegation of roles and relations are needed? • How are citizens/clients envisioned and inscribed into the scenarios for future public administration? • How are citizens/clients consulted in the design and development of the services? • How are the new services experienced by citizens/clients? In sum, the presentations in this panel span a range of urgent themes related to the construction of borders (and alleys) between public sector services and citizens – from anticipations to effects and efforts.


Author(s):  
Petter Falk

AbstractAn increased use of data has swept through many policy areas and shaped procedural and substantive policy instruments. Hence, citizens and governments, as both producers and consumers of data, become intertwined in even more complex ways. But the inherent logic of data-driven services and systems sometimes challenges the prerequisites and ideals of liberal democracy. Though a democratically sound data-practice and data-culture is crucial for ensuring a democratic usage of citizens data, discourse tends to overlook these aspects. Drawing on insights from the project Democracy Data, this chapter explores the opportunities and obstacles for establishing democratically oriented public sector data cultures.


2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (5) ◽  
pp. 765-785
Author(s):  
Maxat Kassen

PurposeThe peer-to-peer perspective on open data is an interesting topic to research, taking into account that data-driven innovations and related startups are often developed independently by civic and private stakeholders in a highly collaborative manner and are tentatively beginning to directly compete with traditional e-government solutions, providing arguably better services to citizens and businesses. In this regard, the paper aims to further debate on the potential of such independent data-driven collaboration not only to transform the traditional mechanisms of public sector innovations but also provide more democratic ways to ensure greater transparency of government and its responsibility before the society.Design/methodology/approachThe research is based on a cross-country case study, resorting to the content analysis of three demonstrative cases in the development of open data-driven projects, which specifically promote peer-to-peer communication between its stakeholders. In this regard, the case study itself relies heavily on the analysis of rich empirical data that the author collected during his field studies in the Northern European region in 2015–2017, particularly in Estonia, Finland and Sweden. The practical research itself consists of three major parts, which reflect peer-to-peer perspectives of correspondingly civic, public and private stakeholders through manifested examples of related independent projects in the area.FindingsThe paper's results demonstrate that the use of peer-to-peer mechanisms in advancing related public sector reforms allows to transform the traditional understanding of e-government phenomena in a conceptually new way. E-government or its last more political interpretation – from the perspective of its peers could be regarded not necessarily as a platform to provide digital public services but as a source of raw material for various third party projects in, respectively, civic, government and business peer-to-peer dimensions of such reforms. As a result, open data provides an interesting playground to change the very nature of public sector innovations in the area.Research limitations/implicationsThe choice of countries for research was motivated by purposive and convenience sampling because all these countries are situated in one region, have both similarities and differences in historical, political and socioeconomic backgrounds and, therefore, provide an ideal playground to investigate open data as a context dependable phenomenon. In this regard, the unique political and socioeconomic contexts of these countries provide an interesting playground to debate on the potential of social democracy, egalitarian society and social equality, i.e. public values that are deeply embedded into the fabric of societies there, to benefit the open data movement in a fundamental manner.Practical implicationsThis paper reports on unique practical approaches for peer-to-peer collaboration and cooperation in advancing open data-driven platforms among stakeholders. The results of the case studies in three Nordic countries, which are currently among global leaders in advancing the concept of open government, are presented in an intrinsically illustrative manner, which could help practitioners and policymakers to understand better the potential of such a peer-to-peer perspective on open data. In this regard, the models proposed, of citizen-to-citizen, business-to-business, government-to-government interactions, could be interesting to a wide audience of e-government stakeholders in many nations.Social implicationsThe paper also enters into philosophical debates about societal implications of digital peer-to-peer data-driven communication among people. Recent efforts to digitize almost every part of social life, starting from popularization of solutions for distant work and ending to online access to various public services, incentivize individual members of civil society to communicate in an inherently peer-to-peer way. This fact will definitely increase the demand for related digital services. Social distancing in a digital context will allow to paradoxically emancipate technically savvy and entrepreneurial people in creating new services, including using open data, which could meet the demand.Originality/valueThe research is intrinsically of an empirical character because recent e-government reforms in the public sector in many countries, including in the open data area, provide rich practical knowledge to test the limits of new technologies to advance society in socioeconomic and, more importantly, political development. In this regard, this paper provides the first research in analyzing open data from a unique peer-to-peer perspective with an ultimate goal of the whole investigation to draw the attention of other e-government scholars and initiate debates on the collaborative nature of the phenomena to empower civil society and ensure transparency of government.


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