Trust in public performance information: The effect of data accessibility and data source

• Published date: 01 March 2023
• Author: Lisa Schmidthuber,Jurgen Willems,Bernhard Krabina
• Date: 01 March 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13603

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Trust in public performance information: The effect of data

accessibility and data source

Lisa Schmidthuber | Jurgen Willems | Bernhard Krabina

Department of Management, WU Vienna

University of Economics and Business, Vienna,

Austria

Correspondence

Lisa Schmidthuber, Department of

Management, WU Vienna University of

Economics and Business, Welthandelsplatz

1, 1020 Vienna, Austria.

Email: lisa.schmidthuber@wu.ac.at

Abstract

Building on transparency literature, we theorize that information characteristics

such as accessibility of raw data and data source provision influence citizens’trust

in public performance information. Next to the question of whether providing a

data source matters, we argue that information provision from a non-government

actor can compensate for the information asymmetry between citizens and public

sector organizations due to a stronger symmetric data exchange relationship. Inte-

grating and elaborating these theoretical assumptions of principal-agent theory

with bureaucratic reputation theory, the organization’s reputation, rather than the

stakeholder group the information provider is belonging to, may explain varying

trust. We conduct eight online experiments in large-N data collections in Austria

and Germany and find that data accessibility and source provision increase trust in

performance information. Whereas citizens have more trust in government-

provided data compared to data provided by other citizens, source reputation

matters dominantly for building trust in performance information.

Evidence for Practice

•Providing users with the possibility to access raw data improves their trust in

statements on public performance.

•Citizens have more trust in statements on public performance if there is a source

provided.

•The reputation of who shares the information is decisive for citizens’trust in per-

formance information.

•Considerations based on the bureaucratic reputation theory are more successful

than the principal-agent theory, with respect to explaining citizens’trust in pub-

lic performance information.

Following the open government principles

(Grimmelikhuijsen & Feeney, 2017;Liu,2017; Moon, 2020;

Young, 2020), governments increasingly invest in leveraging

digital technology to release public performance informa-

tion. These efforts of strengthening government transpar-

ency should improve public accountability and enhance

citizens’perception of government activities including trust

in government and performance evaluation (Cucciniello

et al., 2017;Ingrams,Piotrowski,&Berliner,2020;

McDermott, 2010;Schmidthuberetal.,2021). However,

these intended outcomes might only become effective if

citizens believe that public information can be trusted

(Mizrahi & Minchuk, 2020; Moynihan & Ingraham, 2004). This

is why we are interested in the antecedents of citizens’trust

in public performance information, defined as a characteris-

tic of a trustor (Grimmelikhuijsen & Knies, 2017).

First, in line with current debates on open data

(Park & Ramon Gil-Garcia, 2022) and building on recent

works on the credibility of performance information

(James & Van Ryzin, 2017; Meier et al., 2022), we argue

that a transparent presentation of public performance

improves trust in that performance data. Concretely, we

Received: 28 February 2022 Revised: 23 December 2022 Accepted: 30 December 2022

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13603

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium,

provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

© 2022 The Authors. Public Administration Review published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Public Administration.

Public Admin Rev. 2023;83:279–295. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/puar 279

focus on providing access to raw data and adding the

data source as cornerstones of transparency. These ele-

ments can create trust in public performance information,

which in turn can strengthen the citizens’beliefs about

an organization’s intention to share performance informa-

tion (Herbig et al., 1994; Metzger & Flanagin, 2013).

Next to “how information is presented,”second, we

argue that the source type influences citizens’trust in pub-

lic performance information. We combine the question of

whether a source is provided or not with “who is the

source sharing the information.”By drawing on principal-

agent theory (Eisenhardt, 1989; Jensen & Meckling, 1976;

Ross, 1973), we assume and test that information asymme-

tries in the citizen-government relationship can be lowered

through the disclosure of performance information on

government service delivery by citizens or a third party. In

addition, we integrate principal-agent theory with bureau-

cratic reputation theory (Salomonsen et al., 2021) to elabo-

rate on how the reputation of the information provider is

potentially a stronger explaining factor for reducing infor-

mation asymmetries.

The main article’s contributions are three-fold. First, we

contribute to research on how public performance infor-

mation is perceived by citizens. Recent work in public

administration has focused on the effect of performance

information content on citizens’evaluation (Olsen, 2017;

Porumbescu et al., 2021), public managers’willingness to

use performance information (Mikkelsen et al., 2021), and

the effect of performance information on management

decision-making (Hansen & Nielsen, 2022). This study

improves our understanding of citizens’expectations

about how performance information should be provided

and who should evaluate government performance

(Ho, 2008). In doing so, we can learn about how perfor-

mance information can strengthen democracy in the end

(Pollitt, 2006).

Second, our study explores the theoretical dynamics

and contextual conditions of the transparency-trust rela-

tionship by contrasting the principal-agent theory and

bureaucratic reputation theory. More specifically, we com-

pare the differences between how citizens perceive the

information provider’s role (principal vs. agent) with the

information provider’s own reputation. In particular, we

test how the general role and specific reputation differ-

ently matter for building trust in information provision. This

was a finding that emerged during our first set of four

experiments, which we explored in further detail by con-

ducting additional experiments to verify this emerging

finding. This cumulative approach is explained in more

detail in our method section. We thereby contribute to lit-

erature discussing the role of reputation in a principal-

agent relationship in the public sector context (Bertelli &

Busuioc, 2021) and emphasizing the effect of source type

on transparency outcomes (Meier et al., 2022).

Third, this study contributes to research on the out-

comes of open data adoption (Young, 2020)byinvesti-

gating factors that shape transparency outcomes

(Cucciniello et al., 2017). By highlighting the role of data

accessibility and source availability, we contribute to the

discussion on how the format of information presentation

affects the citizen-government relationship (Baekgaard

et al., 2019; Choi & Gil-Garcia, 2022; Matheus & Janssen,

2020). The focus on citizens’expectations concerning data

accessibility and data sources has also considerable rele-

vance for practice. For policy makers, it is crucial to under-

stand which characteristics of information provision can

increase the credibility of public information.

LINKING DATA ACCESSIBILITY, DATA

SOURCE, AND TRUST IN PERFORMANCE

INFORMATION

Citizens have access to a broad range of information. Trig-

gered by fake news discussions and digital misinforma-

tion, they might read (online) information with more

skepticism and assess the credibility—perceptions about

the believability (O’Keefe, 2002)—of the content and the

information provider first. Content credibility relates to

the perceived quality, accuracy, and currency of the infor-

mation itself (Metzger et al., 2003). Accordingly, we argue

that adding information on the accessibility and source of

the data can build trust in performance information.

Source credibility refers to the extent to which the

communicator can be believed with respect to the infor-

mation provided. Here, we distinguish between the infor-

mation providers’overall role in a principal-agent

relationship and the specific reputation of the information

provider.

Accessibility of raw data

Data accessibility is an open data principle, meaning that

raw data of the information presented can be received.

Citizens might have an interest in the availability of

machine-readable data due to the ability to delve into the

topic with the potential for learning and knowledge accu-

mulation. Whereas new public management reforms put

emphasis on publishing good results (Dunleavy &

Hood, 1994; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004), open government

policies expect trust to increase along with the level of

information and type of data made available to citizens

(Janssen et al., 2012; Schmidthuber et al., 2021). Conse-

quently, we argue that the type of providing performance

information determines citizens’trust in the information

in itself (i.e., a performance statement), as information

influences decision-making processes and individuals

make decisions based on the available information

(Connelly et al., 2011; Spence, 2002).

Performance information provision only is argued to

be insufficient for enhancing citizen trust, whereas infor-

mation about data accessibility accords credibility to the

information so that positive outcomes in terms of citizens’

280 TRUST IN PUBLIC PERFORMANCE INFORMATION