Information Polity

Taylor, John A.;

2014 Information Polity

doi: 10.3233/IP-140345

Krishnamurthy, Rashmi ; Desouza, Kevin C.

2014 Information Polity

doi: 10.3233/IP-140337

Public agencies are investing significant resources in big data analytics to mine valuable information, predict future outcomes, and make data-driven decisions. In order to foster a strong understanding of the opportunities and challenges associated with the adoption of big data analytics in the public sphere, we analyze various efforts undertaken by the United States Social Security Administration (SSA). The SSA, which is commonly referred to as the "face of the government", collects, manages, and curates large volumes of data to provide Social Security services to US citizens and beneficiaries living abroad. The agency has made great strides in the burgeoning big data space to improve administration and delivery of services. This has included: (1) improving its arcane legacy system, (2) developing employee and end-user capability, (3) implementing data management strategies and organizational architecture, (4) managing security and privacy issues, and (5) advocating for increased investment in big data analytics. Despite these efforts, the SSA is still in the early stages of developing capability in the domain of big data analytics. By outlining challenges and opportunities facing the SSA, we discuss policy implications and explore issues to consider when public agencies begin to develop their capacity to analyze big data.

Polat, Rabia Karakaya ; Çağlı, Elif

2014 Information Polity

doi: 10.3233/IP-140343

Underrepresentation of women in Turkish politics is well documented. This is evident in the numbers of women in key decision-making positions, including the Parliament. The role of women's NGOs is significant in educating, motivating and mobilizing women to participate in politics. These organizations increasingly use the Internet for mobilization, opinion formation, recruitment, networking, lobbying and fundraising. The paper explores the extent to which and the ways in which Ka-der as a WNGOs is affected by the Internet, both in terms of its structure and operation, including its relationships with members and adherents and in the way Ka-der communicates with external actors, such as similar organizations, potential members, politicians and the media. We argue that different functions of WNGOs are supported asymmetrically by the Internet. While the e-mail group is mostly used for internal purposes, the website and the use of social media serve to enhance links with the outside environment.

Vander Elst, Simon ; De Rynck, Filip

2014 Information Polity

doi: 10.3233/IP-140342

How should we adapt the concept of Business – IT alignment to grasp the complexity of public organizations? To answer this question, we theorize that understanding the variation in alignment in public organizations, implies that we take into account the political and institutional context, and consider the interaction between IT and the organization as a continuous process on different levels. Those amendments on the alignment literature are integrated in an interpretive alignment approach. Case study results illustrate the value of this approach.

Vanderleeuw, James ; Sides, Jason C.

2014 Information Polity

doi: 10.3233/IP-140340

The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which cities in the United States use their web site to promote strategic goals, in particular the goal of economic development. With growing use of and reliance upon web-based information in modern society, it becomes increasingly important to understand how local communities use their web site. Do cities in the United States use the Internet to promote their city as a beneficial place to conduct business, as urban economy literature suggests that they might? If not, what kinds of information do cities convey via their web sites? Are web sites used for purposes of city branding at all? To address these questions, this study uses results of a content analysis of 345 city web sites. The cities are home-rule cities in the state of Texas. Relying on literature on web page usage, we examine a web site's homepage image and title, the links provided on the homepage, and the destination of these links. The study's findings suggest that while some city web pages reflect a strategic goal, for the most part cities are not using their web site to promote any strategic goal, economic or otherwise. We argue that even if uncertain of results, city leaders should consider at least modest changes to their web site to better promote and brand their city.

Sebetci, Özel ; Aksu, Gökhan

2014 Information Polity

doi: 10.3233/IP-140341

With the advancements in information technologies and internet applications, electronic government (e-government) gained prominence among many governments around the world. As a developing country, in Turkey, e-government has been a priority subject in delivery of government services. E-movable system, which was initiated in 2007 in public institutions, is an example to e-government applications in Turkey. The purpose of this study is to measure the success of Turkish e-movable system from the perspectives of employees in public institutions who use this system. The study developed Technology Acceptance Model for Using E-Movable System (TAMUeM) based on technology acceptance model (TAM) to measure the success of e-movable system. The model proposed consists of seven constructs including information quality, service quality, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude towards using and behavioural intention to use. The results revealed significant connections between the seven constructs of the model. All hypotheses were supported. The results imply that e-movable system is significantly accepted in public organizations and that it can be extended to be applied in private sector.

Medaglia, Rony;

2014 Information Polity

doi: 10.3233/IP-140344

Juell-Skielse, Gustaf ; Hjalmarsson, Anders ; Juell-Skielse, Elea ; Johannesson, Paul ; Rudmark, Daniel

2014 Information Polity

doi: 10.3233/IP-140346

Innovation contests are becoming popular instruments for stimulating development of digital services using open data. However, experience indicates that only a limited number of the results developed during these events become viable digital services attracting a significant user base. To further deepen our understanding of the role, design and function of innovation contests in open data markets, we conducted a survey of the websites of 33 digital innovation contests. The results of the survey show that organizers design digital innovation contests to function as intermediaries for open data innovation. By analyzing the activities performed by organizers we found several examples of how innovation contests support the participants in designing, implementing and providing services after the contests are concluded. We contribute with a key design element and attributes for the post-contest process of digital innovation contests, which adds to existing key design elements. For future research we suggest to further study open data markets and the intermediary role of digital innovation contests. Moreover we propose to develop guidelines and tools for organizers of digital innovation contests to design contests that better meet the needs of a particular open data market.

Viscusi, Gianluigi ; Spahiu, Blerina ; Maurino, Andrea ; Batini, Carlo

2014 Information Polity

doi: 10.3233/IP-140338

Open government is emerging as a core issue for increasing, on the one hand, participation of citizens, and, on the other hand, accountability, transparency, and the capability of delivering digital services by Public Administrations, with a consequent interest into public and social value as final outcomes. However, most of the open government initiatives actually concern the provision of public data under an open license and in an open and accessible format. From a policy as well as from a research point of view, open government raises a set of questions about how to manage and evaluate their quality, also considering the compliance with enforced legal frameworks, if any available focused specifically on open government issues. Thus, the paper discusses a quality-based framework for open government data compliance assessment, made up of quality dimensions and a set of criteria contributing to the measurement of a compliance index. The framework is then applied for the evaluation of the open government data initiatives of a sample of local public administration in Italy.

2014 Information Polity

doi: 10.3233/IP-140324