Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue about generation of public value through smart technologies and strategies. The key argument is that smart technologies have the ...potential to foster co-creation of public services and the generation of public value in management processes, based on the collaborative, social and horizontal nature of these smart technologies. Understanding these processes from a public management perspective is the purpose of this paper and the rest of the special issue.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach to this paper is a theoretical and conceptual review, whereas practical implications both for scholars and practitioners arise from the review of the literature and the conceptual approximation to the notion of smartness in technologies and government. This approach is rooted in the potential of the latest smart technologies and strategies to transform public administrations and to better understand and cope societal problems.
Findings
The conceptual and theoretical perspective of this paper offers ideas for future developments. The content of this paper shows that new smart technologies and strategies will shape, and will be shaped by, the future of public organizations and management. This paper illustrates the process of change in public value generation over time, as a result of different public management paradigms (from traditional public administration to new public management), but also different types of technologies (from mainframes to websites and social media and beyond). The empirical evidence of the articles of this special issue supports this conclusion; that open and collaborative innovation processes developed under this emergent technological wave could become encouraging transformative practices in the public sector.
Research limitations/implications
The theoretical and conceptual nature of this paper needs further empirical research to validate some of the discussed assumptions and ideas.
Originality/value
Although this paper is oriented to present the main contents of the special issue, it also provides an original approach to the theme of public value generation using smart technologies and strategies in public sector management.
Smartness has recently emerged as a desirable characteristic of governments, cities, communities, infrastructures, and devices. Within the public sector, smart city has become a popular term and ...municipal governments around the world are using multiple strategies to become smarter. However, there is no consensus about what smartness means and how to identify its key components or dimensions. Some definitions highlight information technology and data, while others pay attention to sustainability, openness, innovation, or resiliency. Based on a review of current literature, this paper identifies multiple dimensions of smartness and proposes an integrative view that highlights how each dimension contributes to the understanding and development of smart governments. We argue that smartness should be conceptualized in a broad and multifaceted way. The framework we present serves as a foundation to understand and measure smartness in government and provides guidelines for the comprehensive development of smart governments. Some of the dimensions have been identified and studied explicitly in the realm of smart government. A number of other dimensions are embedded in the literature as individual characteristics of a good government; although they are not explicitly referenced in relationship to smart government, we argue that they are important components of a government being smart. The paper also suggests that public managers do not control all dimensions equally. Some dimensions could be seen as relatively direct outputs of their actions, while others could be better understood as outcomes that could be affected, but not solely determined, by strategic interventions or deliberate actions.
Government innovation through social media Criado, J. Ignacio; Sandoval-Almazan, Rodrigo; Gil-Garcia, J. Ramon
Government information quarterly,
October 2013, 2013-10-00, 20131001, Volume:
30, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Social media in government is becoming one of the major trends in Electronic Government (e-government) research and practice worldwide. During the last few years, several authors have addressed the ...potential of social media for the innovation of public sector organizations. Most of these contributions have focused on the technical dimensions of social media, while other aspects have not attracted equal attention. In contrast, this introductory article interrogates the role of social media in the basic areas of e-government: government information flows and the availability of government information; the use of information technology to create and provide innovative government services; the impact of information technology on the relationships between the governed and those governing; and the increasing importance of information policies and information technologies for democratic practices. Accordingly, the next few pages propose and develop three dimensions of social media in government: tools, goals, and topics. We think that these dimensions could help to better understand the use of social media in government settings. Then, after a brief review of current trends in social media and government research, we present the articles included in this special issue. Finally, we present some practical lessons and suggest ideas for future research. This special issue could be seen as a starting point for the development of innovation through social media in public administrations around the world.
Information and information technologies have become ubiquitous in the public sector and it is difficult to think of a public problem or government service that does not involve them in some ...substantial way. Public management (PM) research now incorporates the effects of the availability and quality of data as well as the technologies used in the public sector. From a PM perspective, digital government (DG) could be considered an essential aspect of innovation, co-production, transparency, and the generation of public value. However, studies that attempt to understand the role that DG research plays in PM theory and practice are scarce. As a research field, DG emerged from multiple disciplines, including public administration, information science, management information systems, computer science, communication, and political science. There have been numerous efforts in the last decade to delineate this emergent academic community by assessing the growing body of research represented by hundreds of new peer-reviewed publications every year. This paper reviews these prior studies about the DG community, along with a systematic review of recent articles in top public administration journals from the United States and Europe, to begin to identify and compare key characteristics of these academic communities, including their core researchers, theories, topics, and methods. We argue that their similarities and differences present opportunities for more dialogue between DG and PM scholars that could produce synergies to enhance the production and dissemination of knowledge, yielding greater influence on practice.
Smart City Research Meijer, Albert J.; Gil-Garcia, J. Ramon; Bolívar, Manuel Pedro Rodríguez
Social science computer review,
12/2016, Volume:
34, Issue:
6
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
There are three issues that are crucial to advancing our academic understanding of smart cities: (1) contextual conditions, (2) governance models, and (3) the assessment of public value. A brief ...review of recent literature and the analysis of the included papers provide support for the assumption that cities cannot simply copy good practices but must develop approaches that fit their own situation (contingency) and concord with their own organization in terms of broader strategies, human resource policies, information policies, and so on (configuration). A variety of insights into the mechanisms and building blocks of smart city practices are presented, and issues for further research are identified.
This study represents two critical steps forward in the area of smart city research and practice. The first is in the form of the development of a comprehensive conceptualization of smart city as a ...resource for researchers and government practitioners; the second is in the form of the creation of a bridge between smart cities research and practice expertise. City governments increasingly need innovative arrangements to solve a variety of technical, physical, and social problems. "Smart city'" could be used to represent efforts that in many ways describe a vision of a city, but there is little clarity about this new concept. This paper proposes a comprehensive conceptualization of smart city, including its main components and several specific elements. Academic literature is used to create a robust framework, while a review of practical tools is used to identify specific elements or aspects not treated in the academic studies, but essential to create an integrative and comprehensive conceptualization of smart city. The paper also provides policy implications and suggests areas for future research in this topic.
Open government is expected to promote important changes related to transparency, participation, and collaboration in the public sector. This article analyzes the open government policy-making ...process in Madrid. In order to explain the adoption process of open government as a public policy, this study uses the “multiple streams framework,” originally developed by Kingdon and recently elaborated on by Zahariadis and Herweg et al. Our empirical data, based on semi-structured interviews and qualitative and quantitative analysis provide evidence about the adoption of open government policy in the city of Madrid and help to illustrate some of the multiple roles that policy entrepreneurs play in the policy adoption process. Overall, this article offers insights on how and why open government is adopted into the public agenda of local governments. Also, this article highlights the importance of analyzing the roles of “policy entrepreneurs” and the duality of transparency and citizen participation in open government policies.
Researchers and practitioners around the world recognize the potential of information technologies to promote government transformation. This transformation has been understood in at least two ...different ways: (1) as a transformation of internal processes and (2) as a transformation of the relationships between governments and other social and political actors (institutional transformation). Unfortunately, there is little or no evidence of such transformation, and current studies reveal that for this transformation to happen, a better understanding of the complex relationships between information technologies, organizations, and institutions is still required. This paper presents a theory of the co-evolution of technology, organizational networks, and institutional arrangements in the transformation of government. The theory uses the grammars of system dynamics and builds upon institutional approaches to understand interactions among all these variables in the development of information and communication technologies in government. Although the theory suggests the relevance of some specific reinforcing processes in this transformation, the endogenous view used in the theory empowers all stakeholders by illustrating how transformation could be promoted from any individual position involved in the process of developing digital government applications.
Governments around the world have developed e-Government programs expecting to obtain important benefits such as improved efficiency or greater transparency. However, many e-Government projects fail ...to deliver their promises in terms of specific outcomes. Some of such failures are the result of a lack of understanding about the relationships among technologies, information use, organizational factors, institutional arrangements, and socio-economic contexts involved in the selection, implementation, and use of information and communication technologies (ICT), producing mismatches and unintended consequences. This paper proposes the use of institutional theory and dynamic simulation, particularly system dynamics, as an integrated and comprehensive approach to understand e-Government phenomena. Combining a sound theory and a sophisticated analytical technique will help to improve our understanding about ICT in government settings. The paper draws on the case of the e-Mexico program, particularly on the strategy to create web-based content portals for citizens in the areas of education, health, economy, and government. Using the same technological infrastructure and under the leadership of the same Federal Ministry, four different networks of government and non-government organizations engaged in the creation of internet portals and their content. The results provide evidence to demonstrate important bidirectional relationships between formal processes (institutions), agency networks (organizational forms), and the resulting characteristics of the four thematic portals (enacted technology).
► We model interorganizational networks which develop government content portals. ► We create four simulation scenarios grounded in Mexican interorganizational networks. ► Organizational engagement and content creation form a key reinforcing process. ► Processes legitimacy influences both organizational engagement and content creation. ► Inertia from previous collaborations also influences organizational engagement.
Cities around the world are attempting to become smarter by using data and technology to improve internal operations, make better decisions, and increase the quality of life. This ...technology-intensive use frequently comes with large investments in the ICT infrastructure necessary for smart city initiatives, which may not be financially viable in the long term. Financial sustainability (FS) is a useful framework for assessing how governments meet their financial obligations, using different indicators of financial performance over time by controlling for contextual factors. This study examines 1723 municipal governments; only 89 of these explicitly conducted smart-city initiatives in Mexico over three time points (2014, 2016, and 2018). Panel data techniques were applied to compare the effects of the investments in ICT infrastructure across municipalities with or without smart-city initiatives on five indicators related to the financial condition within the FS framework (i.e., cash solvency, budget solvency, long-term solvency, service-level solvency for revenues and expenses). The results show an association between ICT infrastructure and some dimensions of FS. The main findings suggest the importance of adequate financial analysis for long-term capital and budgeting decisions, to create a more solid smart city financial strategy for the long term. Specific recommendations for city managers are also discussed.
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