Government technological capacity and public–private partnerships regarding digital service delivery: evidence from Chinese cities

Abstract

Governments have increased their collaboration with the private sector regarding public service delivery, and their propensities to do so are largely shaped by their own in-house capacities. In this article, we theorize and analyze whether governments with an extremely low or extremely high technological capacity are more likely to collaborate with third-party platforms in order to jointly provide digital services. We expect there to be a U-shaped relationship between the technological capacity of those governments and their public–private partnership choices. An empirical analysis of digital service delivery across 290 prefecture-level cities in China corroborates this hypothesis. These results deepen our understanding of the competing motivations that drive the public–private partnership process. Points for practitioners Public–private collaboration has been widely adopted to promote digital service delivery. This article confirms the U-shaped relationship between government technological capacity and public–private collaboration in digital service delivery at the city level. To encourage the collaboration, it is crucial to target governments with varying capacities, which seems to be easier in large cities with high administrative rank and that are overall technologically mature and in a competitive environment technologically.

Reaping the benefits of digital transformation through Public-Private Partnership: A service ecosystem view applied to healthcare

“…One of the main critiques moved against PPP in the healthcare domain is related to their effectiveness (Rajasulochana & Maurya, 2020), although there is evidence of their contribution to public value generation (e.g., Ullah et al, 2012). Drawing on the study findings, we argue that PPPs enable healthcare institutions to overcome the obstacles preventing their digital transformation by virtue of knowledge contamination and integration with consonant private partners (Ma et al, 2021;Ziadlou, 2021). Promoting an alliance between public sector entities and private sector companies to cope with wicked public management issues, PPPs are instrumental to achieve social, environmental, and economic goals, contributing to advancing individual and collective wellbeing (Vecchi et al, 2022).…”

“…Among them, Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs) have attracted the growing interest of scholars and practitioners ( e.g. , Casady & Baxter, 2022 ; Ganapathy & Reddy, 2021 ; Ma et al, 2021 ). PPPs entail “…a sustained, collaborative effort between the public and private sectors in which each contributes to the planning and resources needed to accomplish a mutual objective” (Spielman & von Grebmer, 2004 : p. 40).…”

“…Healthcare organizations rely on different approaches to overcome resistances to change, endeavouring to take advantage of digital technologies (Agarwal et al, 2010) and achieve an improvement of health services' quality and effectiveness (Sandhu, 2020). Among them, Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) have attracted the growing interest of scholars and practitioners (e.g., Casady & Baxter, 2022;Ma et al, 2021). PPPs entail "…a sustained, collaborative effort between the public and private sectors in which each contributes to the planning and resources needed to accomplish a mutual objective" (Spielman & von Grebmer, 2004: p. 40).…”

Digitalization of public sector organizations over time: The applicability of quantitative text analysis

“…E-government (i.e. the use of information and communication technology [ICTs], such as websites) and, more recently, mobile or m-government (applications and social media accounts) are digital platforms for delivering services and information (Ma et al, 2023). In addition to new technologies, new and improved data have further facilitated the spread of information (Kneuer and Milner, 2019).…”

Big Data Dreams and Reality in Shenzhen: An Investigation of Smart City Implementation in China

“…A growing number of studies have explored the implications of this digital transformation for governance in China (Caprotti and Liu, 2020; Gao, 2020). However, there have been fewer empirical studies examining digital governance innovations at a close range (Chen and Greitens, 2021; Gao and Tan, 2020; Ma et al, 2021; Zhang et al, 2017). As such, there is still little known about the local realities of this new state-led digital governance approach in China: How are digital technologies integrated with local governance processes in China?…”