Factors influencing open government data post-adoption in the public sector: The perspective of data providers

Abstract

Providing access to non-confidential government data to the public is one of the initiatives adopted by many governments today to embrace government transparency practices. The initiative of publishing non-confidential government data for the public to use and re-use without restrictions is known as Open Government Data (OGD). Nevertheless, after several years after its inception, the direction of OGD implementation remains uncertain. The extant literature on OGD adoption concentrates primarily on identifying factors influencing adoption decisions. Yet, studies on the underlying factors influencing OGD after the adoption phase are scarce. Based on these issues, this study investigated the post-adoption of OGD in the public sector, particularly the data provider agencies. The OGD post-adoption framework is crafted by anchoring the Technology–Organization–Environment (TOE) framework and the innovation adoption process theory. The data was collected from 266 government agencies in the Malaysian public sector. This study employed the partial least square-structural equation modeling as the statistical technique for factor analysis. The results indicate that two factors from the organizational context (top management support, organizational culture) and two from the technological context (complexity, relative advantage) have a significant contribution to the post-adoption of OGD in the public sector. The contribution of this study is threefold: theoretical, conceptual, and practical. This study contributed theoretically by introducing the post-adoption framework of OGD that comprises the acceptance, routinization, and infusion stages. As the majority of OGD adoption studies conclude their analysis at the adoption (decisions) phase, this study gives novel insight to extend the analysis into unexplored territory, specifically the post-adoption phase. Conceptually, this study presents two new factors in the environmental context to be explored in the OGD adoption study, namely, the data demand and incentives. The fact that data providers are not influenced by data requests from the agency’s external environment and incentive offerings is something that needs further investigation. In practicality, the findings of this study are anticipated to assist policymakers in strategizing for long-term OGD implementation from the data provider’s perspective. This effort is crucial to ensure that the OGD initiatives will be incorporated into the public sector’s service thrust and become one of the digital government services provided to the citizen.

Towards a taxonomy of research areas in open government data

“…Also, Li and Chen (2021) examined negative factors that hinder open data initiatives. Research models were adapted to explain the adoption factors and barriers in OGD initiatives, such as the technology-organization-environmental framework (Mustapa et al. , 2022), diffusion of innovation theory (Takeoka and Reddick, 2018) and resource-based theory (Zhao and Fan, 2018).…”

Challenges and Opportunities in Implementing Open Government Data Initiatives in East Africa

“…Sensitive information related to national security, law enforcement, or economic interests may be withheld from public disclosure, limiting the scope of available data for OGD initiatives. This reluctance to share data can hinder transparency and accountability efforts, as citizens may be deprived of access to critical information needed to hold governments accountable for their actions [20,21]. Even when data is available, it may be inaccessible or difficult to find.…”

Exploring Open Data Affordances for Entrepreneurial Opportunity Recognition

“…Specifically, there is a lack of understanding of how start-up entrepreneurs could use open data to recognise an entrepreneurial opportunity (Huber et al, 2022). Related literature on open data in the country revolves around open data impediments in the public sector (Mustapa et al, 2019), adoption factors in public agencies (Mimi Nurakmal Mustapa et al, 2022), open data for research purposes (Majeed et al, 2023), awareness (Hodonu-Wusu et al, 2020) but not on businesses and start-up entrepreneurship. The lack of a holistic understanding of this topic probably leads to a mismatch between data disclosure and entrepreneurial usage.…”