Open government performance: an analytical framework for organizational design

This dissertation addresses the topic of open government design and performance. Open government reforms are increasingly numerous worldwide. This study seeks to develop analytical concepts and models to understand internal organizational changes that take place in public agencies when they implement open government reforms, and how these designs can be evaluated. The central research question posed by the dissertation is: ‘What is the association between organizational design and open government performance?’ In addressing this question, the focus is on three components of organization design in open government programs: organizational structure, organizational processes, and the macro-factors that shape organizational design. There are two sub-questions within the central research question: (1.1) ‘How does organizational structure contribute to open government performance?’; (1.2) ‘How does organizational process contribute to open government performance?’ Additionally, a secondary question addresses the macro-level factors of organizational design and performance: (2) Do macro-level factors shape organizational design capacity in open government? To address these questions a mixed methods approach is taken, involving content analysis, two case studies, and regression analysis. The case studies involve document analysis, participant observation, and 35 semi-structured interviews with senior decision-makers working on two open government programs in the United Kingdom and United States as part of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), a multi-country compact to promote openness in government. These case studies are of a healthcare services and a law enforcement open government program, respectively. The core result of the dissertation is the establishment of an analytical framework of open government processes. The framework includes key performance indicators that can be used to evaluate open government structures and processes. This framework is comprised of four structural factors: institutional, environmental, technological, and managerial, and three themes of the organizational processes: consultation, governance, and strategy. The dissertation concludes with discussion of how the results contribute to public administration theory on open government. The study extends scholarly understanding of how organizational design factors are crucial to open government performance. Public managers, who work at the intersection of organization and environment, must navigate complex inter-organizational information and tasks. By developing an analytic framework of such work, this dissertation offers knowledge of organizational design that can be used in an area of reform currently being adopted by many different types of country governments and at different governmental levels.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Alexander Ingram