Stakeholder tensions in decision-making for opening government data

Abstract

Various types of stakeholders are often involved in the process of deciding to open data. However, the influence of multiple–actors on the decision-making process is ill-understood. Stakeholders play different roles and have different interests in opening and analyzing datasets. The objective of this paper is to understand the influence of the stakeholder’s roles and their interests in the decision-making process to open data. The roles-interest grid method is used to determine the stakeholder’s concerns and how they influence the decision-making process to open data. In addition to stakeholder theory, we employ muddling through and bounded rationality theories to create a comprehensive analysis of the decision-making process. Stakeholders are found to be diverse, where some are proponents of opening data, and others are risk-averse and do not favor disclosing data. Stakeholder’s responsible for the actual opening of data are often focused on the risks resulting in a tension between the ambitions of politicians to open data, and the practices of administrators and decision-makers. Understanding the stakeholder’s roles and their tensions can help to ensure better decisions are made. We recommend creating incentives for generating shared objectives.