Changing civil servants’ behaviour concerning the opening of governmental data: evaluating the effect of a game by comparing civil servants’ intentions before and after a game intervention

Abstract

Open data policies are increasingly being adopted by governments. However, civil servants find it challenging to comply with open data policies. Gaming can help civil servants to practise opening data and can change their behaviour to support the opening of more data. In this article, the effect of playing a game is evaluated in an experiment in which several factors that influence the opening of data are compared before and after the game. The benefits appeared in unexpected ways and areas. Data management, privacy and security knowledge was transferred using the game, the perception of benefits showed significant changes, and behavioural intention was positively affected. Points for practitioners Civil servants’ behaviour influences how public policies are enacted. The release of open data by governments is related by many as crucial for increasing public transparency and civic participation, and generating new economic opportunities. Games can influence the attitude of civil servants and, consequently, change governments’ decisions. Transferring knowledge and providing insights from new experiences can influence civil servants’ attitudes to open data. Moreover, governments can use games to influence civil servants’ attitudes.

How far is municipal transparency from neighbours? Evidence from Spain and Portugal

“…However, the influence of Capital is different in each country due may be to the characteristics of each administrative system (Araujo, 2002; Coronel, 2012). This confirms the argument of neo-institutional theory which claim the influence of institutional context on the adoption of transparency (Kleiman et al. , 2022; Sáez-Martín et al.…”

“…Institutional and cultural “starting conditions” in a given country might exert great influence on its trajectory, adoption and effect of public sector reforms. These conditions can facilitate or hinder public organisations to be more or less favourable to the implementation of transparency policies (Kleiman et al. , 2022; Ruijer and Huff, 2016; Sáez-Martín et al.…”

La implementación de las políticas de transparencia en los municipios españoles de mayor población: ¿path dependency o shock institucional?

“…Ruijer y Huff (2016) y Kleiman et al (2020) parten del supuesto que las resistencias existen y proponen intervenciones para eliminarlas. Sin embargo, dirigen estas medidas a objetivos distintos.…”

Understanding the evolution of open government data research: towards open data sustainability and smartness

“…Political decisions direct or mandate agencies to disclose data but bureaucrats may decide to release less useful or less valuable data (Peled, 2011; Zuiderwijk and Janssen, 2014b). Future research may also pay attention to how to change bureaucrats’ willingness to open more data by gamification (Kleiman, 2019; Kleiman et al., 2020). In addition, innovation contests like hackathons could help create new ideas that can be transformed into applications or services.…”