Ronald Meijer et al.
We argue that to be successful, OD policy has to reconcile conflicting values. For this purpose, we exploit the concept of precommitment, which is in essence a restriction of one’ s choices( Elster 2000; Kurth‐Nelson and Redish 2012). We conceptualize precommitment in this paper as a policy‐instrument whereby an organization imposes some restraint on its policy in order to restrict the extent to which values may conflict and stakeholders have to worry about the trustworthiness of that policy. Our case demonstrates how by means of a precommitment instrument ‐ implemented as a data request procedure – combined with a proper data infrastructure, OD policy may reconcile potentially conflicting values.
The reminder of this paper is organized as follows. In the next section we start with a condensed description of PV. In section 3 the central“ public values” which are encountered by OD policy is described and analyzed. And the concept of precommitment is conceptualized. In section 4 the case of OD policy for judicial research and registration data in a government research institute is presented. In this case solutions for reconciling conflicting public values are presented. Finally, section 5 concludes the paper.
2. Public value approach
The PV framework was originally formulated by Moore( Moore 1995)( Williams and Shearer 2011). PV can best be understood and achieved within the notion of the“ public sphere”, a democratic space which includes, but is not coterminous with, the state in which citizens address their collective concerns and where individual liberties have to be protected( Benington and Moore 2011). The government is seen as a creator of PV and a pro‐active shaper of the public sphere: politically, economically, socially and culturally( Benington and Moore 2011). There is consensus in the literature that PV can be interpreted as combining( and reconciling), safeguarding and enrichment of the public sphere with the delivery of the values that are desired by the public( Williams and Shearer 2011).
Moore’ s central proposition was“… that public resources should be used to increase value in a way which is analogous to value creation within private enterprise. However, this PV would necessarily extend beyond narrow monetary outcomes to include that which benefits and is valued by the citizenry more generally.”( Williams and Shearer 2011). PV is also described as including the value attached to relatively concrete outcomes, and the more intangible( Grimsley and Meehan 2007). The value“ trust”, which is central to OD, as we shall demonstrate below, repeatedly appears in several definitions( O’ Flynn 2007)( Grimsley and Meehan 2007)( Williams and Shearer 2011; p7).
A strategic triangle is central in Moore’ s PV framework( Williams and Shearer 2011; p5)( O’ Flynn 2007). It contains three elements“ public values / strategic goals”,“ authorizing environment” and“ operational capability”( Williams and Shearer 2011). For a successful organizational PV strategy, these elements should be coherently aligned. This is attained by complying the strategy to three corresponding broad tests, namely it must be“ substantially valuable”,“ legitimate and politically sustainable” and“ operationally and administratively feasible”( Moore; 1995).
For information systems( IS) we find a clear parallel between the PV literature and the literature about the approach of embedding human values in IS. For instance,( Choenni et al. 2011a) stresses on the importance of embedding human values, such as privacy and trust, in the development of information systems. They plead for an explicit agreement with regard to the values that should be included in a design. Thus extending the view about the IS beyond the original more narrowly defined requirements. We argue that“ human values” embraced by government become“ public values”, as they are from then on part of the conditions, goals and objectives of organization strategies. Thus, public managers, adopting a PV approach who aim to create value in IS for e‐Government can profit from IS“ human value” ‐design approaches. We also argue that the interpreting of the OD initiatives in the PV paradigm may help to clarify the policy problems which OD may encounter and in doing so may help to raise and increase PV.
3. Public values in open data
OD consists of data that is not identifiable to a person with the aim to be reused and redistributed by everyone, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control( Zuiderwijk et al. 2012)( LinkedGov 2011)( Open _ Knowledge _ Foundation 2011)( Sweeney 2009). The idea behind opening public data is to make information that is generated or collected by organizations in the public sector re‐usable. This idea is founded on the acknowledgement that citizens are taxpayers and therefore have access rights to this data.
330