Developing and Testing an Integrative Framework for Open Government Adoption in Local Governments

• Author: Mary K. Feeney,Stephan G. Grimmelikhuijsen
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12689
• Published date: 01 July 2017
• Date: 01 July 2017

Developing and Testing an Integrative Framework for Open Government Adoption in Local Governments 579

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 77, Iss. 4, pp. 579–590. © 2016 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12689.

Developing and Testing an Integrative Framework for Open

Government Adoption in Local Governments

Mary K. Feeney is associate professor

and Lincoln Professor of Ethics in Public

Affairs at Arizona State University and

associate director for the Center for Science,

Technology and Environmental Policy

Studies. Her research focuses on public and

nonprofit management and science and

technology policy. Her most recent book is

Nonprofit Organizations and Civil Society in

the United States

(Routledge, 2014).

E-mail: mkfeeney@asu.edu

Stephan G. Grimmelikhuijsen is

assistant professor in the Utrecht University

School of Governance in The Netherlands.

His research interests include public

sector transparency, citizen attitudes,

e-government, and experimental and

behavioral public administration.

E-mail: s.g.grimmelikhuijsen@uu.nl

Abstract : Open government is an important innovation to foster trustworthy and inclusive governments. The authors

develop and test an integrative theoretical framework drawing from theories on policy diffusion and innovation

adoption. Based on this, they investigate how structural, cultural, and environmental variables explain three

dimensions of open government: accessibility, transparency, and participation. The framework is tested by combining

2014 survey data and observational data from 500 local U.S. government websites. Organizational structure,

including technological and organizational capacity, is a determinant shared by all dimensions of open government.

Furthermore, accessibility is affected by a mixture of an innovative and participative culture and external pressures. A

flexible and innovative culture positively relates to higher levels of transparency, whereas capacity is a strong predictor

of adopting participatory features. The main conclusion is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to fostering the

three dimensions of open government, as each dimension is subject to a unique combination of determinants.

Practitioner Points

• Open government adoption includes features such as accessibility, transparency, and participation.

• There is no one-size-fits-all solution to improving open government; each feature of open government is

subject to a unique set of determinants.

• Adoption of open government features is more likely to succeed in less politicized environments, when there

is ample technological capacity, and when there is a rather flexible and innovative working climate.

Stephan G. Grimmelikhuijsen

Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Mary K. Feeney

Arizona State University

O pen government brings the promise of more

transparent and trustworthy government

(Bertot, Jeager, and Grimes 2010; Janssen,

Charalabidis, and Zuiderwijk 2012 ). The Barack

Obama administration even laid down principles in

its Open Government Directive. Researchers have

investigated various aspects of open government, such

as computer-mediated transparency (Meijer 2009 ),

website information provision (Grimmelikhuijsen and

Welch 2012 ), financial transparency (Pina, Torres,

and Royo 2010 ), and online participation (Feeney

and Welch 2012 ; Ma 2014 ; Oliveira and Welch

2013 ). These studies provide insights to individual

theoretical explanations for the extent of government

accessibility, transparency, and participation.

More recently, scholars have suggested that open

government is a multidimensional concept, including

accessibility, transparency, and participation (cf.

Abu-Shanab 2015 ; Linders 2012 ; Wirtz and

Birkmeyer 2015 ), but because most research has

separately investigated the dimensions of open

government, our understanding of open government

as a whole is fragmented. An integrative analysis of

open government is important because connections

between accessibility, transparency, and participation

facilitate active citizenship. For example, if citizens

can access government information, they can actively

participate in decision-making processes (Meijer

2013 ; Meijer, Curtin, and Hillebrandt 2012 ). While

there have been analyses of what dimensions make

up open government (Abu-Shanab 2015 ; Linders

2012 ; Meijer, Curtin, and Hillebrandt 2012 ; Wirtz

and Birkmeyer 2015 ), to the best of our knowledge,

there have been no empirical studies on what factors

determine open government as a whole.

The main contribution of this article is to develop

and test an integrative approach to the potential

determinants of open government. We draw on

theories of policy innovation diffusion (Berry and

Berry 1990 ) and innovation adoption (Damanpour

1991 ; Damanpour, Walker, and Avellaneda 2009 ;

Rogers 2003 ) to better understand the determinants

of open government. Our model incorporates the

three main categories of determinants from the

policy innovation diffusion and innovation adoption

literatures: structural organizational variables, cultural

organizational variables, and external environmental

variables. Scholars have investigated these