[AISWorld] Government Information Quarterly - special issue on public value creation in digital government

[Panagiotis Panagiotopoulos]

*** Call for papers - Government Information Quarterly - special issue on public value creation in digital government ***

How organizational capabilities, technological configuration, managerial practices and digital innovation shape the realm of public value creation

Description available at https://goo.gl/kbYPcT

Public value creation is often discussed in e-government research and practices as being one of the main goals that drive the digitization of public sector organizations. However, there is still a lack of knowledge on how to create public value in association with e-government programs. Moreover, growing use of technology, in particular social networks and platform-based architectures, has led to a more networked society, and increased the complexity of the processes that public sector organizations have to undertake to satisfy citizens expectations and hence to create public value. E-participation, smart cities, services co-production, open data and open government, are only few of the digitally-enabled innovations that have profoundly reshaped the challenges that public sector organizations have to face to effectively and efficiently deliver the services that society expects and values.

There is a growing literature that discusses the relationships between these digital innovations and public sector organizations’ ability to better deliver public value to their respective publics. Understanding how digitally enabled innovations create public value, and identifying appropriate frameworks to measure these public value creation processes both represent important research topics in digital government and public administration research that still need to be fully explored (e.g. Williams and Shearer 2011; Cordella and Bonina 2012; Bannister and Connolly 2014). The nature of the processes by which digital innovation in public sector organizations   leads to public value is shaped by technological, institutional, and organizational dimensions that require public organization to develop new capabilities in terms of skills, configurations of resources and even consider a reassessment of policy makers’ own roles (Janssen and Helbig 2016). The capabilities required to develop, support and sustain digital initiatives in government aimed at creating public value are often overlooked (e.g. Klievink and Janssen 2009; Niehaves et al. 2013).

To fully exploit the potential offered by digital innovation, public sector organizations should develop the systematic ability to deploy, integrate, and reconfigure internal and external resources and capabilities to significantly improve organizational performance and their ability to create public value (Pablo et al. 2007; Teece et al. 2007; Wilden et al. 2016). Developing this can contribute to public value creation especially when permeating the boundaries between the various innovations in digital government that are normally covered in relative isolation from each other. This ability cannot necessarily be developed internally and organizations may need novel configurations of resources and capabilities that allow them to externally acquire these, for example through co-creation, platform organizations, and other collaborative multi-actor arrangements in governance networks (Klievink et al. 2016). There are successful examples (e.g. the UK government’s portal gov.uk) that demonstrate the importance of capability development in public value creation. Yet, with some exceptions (e.g. Pang et al. 2014), integrated perspectives on public value creation have yet to emerge.

The aim of the special issue is to extend the conceptual boundaries of digital government research by calling for new perspectives on public value creation that help understanding how public value creation is affected by specific government capabilities and configurations that themselves shape and are shaped by the technological. The emphasis of the papers submitted needs to be on a solid theoretical contribution with sufficient methodological rigor.

We welcome conceptual or empirical research papers that draw on any suitable approach (quantitative, qualitative or mixed). Indicative topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Conceptualization of organizational configuration of resources and capabilities for integrated public value creation in digital government;
• Overcoming barriers (e.g. functional, hierarchical, information sharing) that hinder public value creation;
• How public organizations have changed their approaches to public value creation in light of digital government initiatives;
• New theory and evaluation studies about success or failure to reach objectives in public value creation;
• Innovative approaches to, and organizational and governance models for public value creation in public sector organizations that discuss different government capabilities enabled by co-production, social or open innovation;
• Capabilities for integrating and managing multiple innovations in public sector organizations aimed at the generation of public value;
• Regulatory and policy initiatives to stimulate new forms of public value creation and capability development;
• How and which dynamic capabilities can enable better performance and management of public value creation process;
• The role of digital and/or traditional publics in public value creation and capability development;
• The role of public administration networks, public-private partnerships and other relational approaches in public value creation and capability development;
• Business model perspectives to public value creation and capability development;
• Stage, maturity or readiness models that capture the transformation processes associated with public value creation, and stimulate adoption;
• Research on gaps in readiness, lack of capabilities, path dependencies or other organizational and institutional misalignments that inhibit sustainable public value creation.

Special issue guest editors

Panos Panagiotopoulos, Queen Mary University of London, UK (p.panagiotopoulos at qmul.ac.uk)
Bram Klievink, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands (A.J.Klievink at tudelft.nl)
Antonio Cordella, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK (A.Cordella at lse.ac.uk)

Submission format and timelines

Papers submitted to the special issue will be subject to the GIQ review process and submission guidelines. More information and instructions are available at: https://www.elsevier.com/journals/government-information-quarterly/0740-624x/guide-for-authors

Paper submissions deadline: 14th of September 2018
Complete first round of review: early December 2018
Selected authors submit revision: early March 2019
Complete second round of review (with accept/reject decision): April 2019
Special Issue ready for submission to GIQ: June 2019

Related track at the 19th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (dg.o 2018)

Please see track 9 on ‘Public value creation and innovation in government’ via http://dgo2018.dgsociety.org/content/call-papers

References

Bannister, F., & Connolly, R. (2014). ICT, public values and transformative government: A framework and programme for research. Government Information Quarterly, 31(1), 119-128.
Cordella, A., & Bonina, C. M. (2012). A public value perspective for ICT enabled public sector reforms: A theoretical reflection. Government Information Quarterly, 29(4), 512-520.
Klievink, B., Bharosa, N., & Tan, Y.-H. (2016). The collaborative realization of public values and business goals: Governance and infrastructure of public–private information platforms. Government Information Quarterly, 33(1), 67–79.
Klievink, B., & Janssen, M. (2009). Realizing joined-up government—Dynamic capabilities and stage models for transformation. Government Information Quarterly, 26(2), 275-284.
Janssen, M., & Helbig, N. (2016). Innovating and changing the policy-cycle: Policy-makers be prepared!. Government Information Quarterly (advance online publication).
Niehaves, B., Plattfaut, R., & Becker, J. (2013). Business process management capabilities in local governments: A multi-method study. Government Information Quarterly, 30(3), 217-225.
Pablo, A. L., Reay, T., Dewald, J. R., & Casebeer, A. L. (2007). Identifying, enabling and managing dynamic capabilities in the public sector. Journal of Management Studies, 44(5), 687-708.
Pang, M. S., Lee, G., & DeLone, W. H. (2014). IT resources, organizational capabilities, and value creation in public-sector organizations: a public-value management perspective. Journal of Information Technology, 29(3), 187-205.
Teece, D. J., Pisano, G., & Shuen, A. (1997). Dynamic capabilities and strategic management. Strategic Management Journal, 18(7), 509-533.
Wilden, R., Devinney, T. M., & Dowling, G. R. (2016). The architecture of dynamic capability research identifying the building blocks of a configurational approach. Academy of Management Annals, 10(1), 997-1076.
Williams, I. & Shearer, H., (2011). Appraising Public Value: Past, Present and Futures. Public Administration, 89(4), 1367–1384.