Dennis Hilgers

The open innovation research landscape: Established perspectives and emerging themes across different levels of analysis

Abstract This paper provides an overview of the main perspectives and themes emerging in research on open innovation (OI). The paper is the result of a collaborative process among several OI scholars – having a common basis in the recurrent Professional Development Workshop on ‘Researching Open Innovation’ at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. In this paper, we present opportunities for future research on OI, organised at different levels of analysis. We discuss some of the contingencies at these different levels, and argue that future research needs to study OI – originally an organisational-level phenomenon – across multiple levels of analysis. While our integrative framework allows comparing, contrasting and integrating various perspectives at different levels of analysis, further theorising will be needed to advance OI research. On this basis, we propose some new research categories as well as questions for future research – particularly those that span across research domains that have so far developed in isolation.

Trajectories of efficiency measurement: A bibliometric analysis of DEA and SFA

This study surveys the increasing research field of performance measurement by making use of a bibliometric literature analysis. We concentrate on two approaches, namely Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) as the most important methods to evaluate the efficiency of individual and organizational performance. It is the first literature survey that analyses DEA and SFA publications jointly, covering contributions published in journals, indexed by the Web of Science database from 1978 to 2012. Our aim is to identify seminal papers, playing a major role in DEA and SFA development and to determine areas of adoption. We recognized a constant growth of publications during the years identifying DEA as a standard technique in Operations Research, whereas SFA is mainly adopted in Economic research fields. Making use of document co-citation analysis we identify Airports and Supplier Selection (DEA) as well as Banking and Agriculture (SFA) as most influential application areas. Furthermore, Sensitivity and Fuzzy Set Theory (DEA) as well as Bayesian Analysis and Heterogeneity (SFA) are found to be most influential research areas and seem to be methodological trends. By developing an adoption rate of knowledge we identify that research, in terms of citations, is more focusing on relatively old and recent research at the expenses of middle-aged contributions, which is a typical phenomenon of a fast developing discipline.

Identifying Participants' Roles in Open Government Platforms and Its Impact on Community Growth

This paper is concerned with the theoretical deduction and network based analysis of user roles in a public sector online participation project. In this exploratory study we investigate the heterogeneity of community participants, by deducing typical roles, the development over time and possible influences on the overall community building process. The more comprehensive understanding of the underlying network structure will contribute to a better understanding of Open Government activities in general. We find different user roles to differ in kind and quality of their contributions in creating, shaping, and disseminating Open Government activities. The communication and contribution behavior of individuals as well as the identification of different user roles was analyzed by using social network analysis (SNA).

Unleashing Innovation beyond Organizational Boundaries: Exploring Citizensourcing Projects

ABSTRACT By using information and communications technologies, public administration encourages external actors to get involved in governmental activities once performed by civil servants. This article seeks to investigate the open innovation phenomenon beyond the entrepreneurial domain in the context of open government. For this purpose, a multiple case study was conducted to explore the current state of open government in Austria. The study first reveals the role of citizens as an active part of the system, then discusses the impact of citizensourcing projects, and finally concludes with giving implications for research and practice.

Shedding Light on Participation in Open Government Arenas: Determinants of Platform Activity of Web and App Users

This article develops and tests a model to explain web-based and mobile devices usage by citizens to interact with their local government. By employing literature from diverse fields of information systems research, the authors derive an integrated model that investigates citizen participation on a city improvement platform. The model proposes three overall influences on platform activity: technological influences (perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness), motivational influences (intrinsic motivation and prosocial motivation), and sociodemographic influences (gender, age, education), and is tested among two groups of users (i.e. web page and mobile app users). Empirical results show that platform activity of both web and mobile users is mainly driven by intrinsic and prosocial motivation. Whereas perceived usefulness is positively associated with platform behavior of web users, TAM variables have not effect on mobile users’ activity. While gender and age play a role regarding web activity, age and education influence mobile participation.

The emergence of local open government: Determinants of citizen participation in online service reporting

Abstract This study contributes to the understanding of citizen-government interaction in open government arenas by investigating why citizens are willing to participate in citizensourcing platforms. We draw on technology acceptance literature, motivation theory, and the theory of planned behavior to explain individual citizensourcing activity, and quantitatively test our hypotheses surveying users of an online reporting platform. Our results indicate that respondents who experience enjoyment when engaged in citizensourcing show a higher activity level. Open government attractiveness and perceived benefit of using citizensourcing platforms further explain high level of platform activity. Besides these factors, respondents who previously reported via traditional channels are significantly more active in online reporting. Offline reporting experience also positively moderates the relationship between perceived ease of use and online reporting. Quantitative analyses show, in addition, that individual motivation for engaging in governmental initiatives varies across proactive, interactive, and passive types of users. We conclude with implications for public managers operating platforms, and discuss future research opportunities.

Does accrual accounting improve municipalities’ efficiency? Evidence from Germany

The stressed financial situation in the public sector and the continuous aspiration for austerity in western governments and public bodies is omnipresent. As one core element in the New Public Management shift, Germany, like many other countries, has experienced significant reforms in public sector accounting and reporting in the last decade. We analyse the effect of new accounting and budgeting regimes. We therefore analyse the cost efficiency of German local governments in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia over 3 years using a stochastic frontier approach. This study presents evidence for increased efficiency amongst municipalities due to the adoption of accrual accounting.

Opening Up Government: Citizen Innovation and New Modes of Collaboration

Companies use crowdsourcing to solve problems by using a widely dispersed and large group of individuals. Crowdsourcing and open innovation are not restricted to businesses. Governments also increasingly rely on open innovation principles to harness the expert knowledge of citizens and use citizens’ contributions to the public value creation process. While a large body of literature has examined the open government paradigm at the national level, we still know relatively little about how open government initiatives play out at the local level. Even less is known about whether open government initiatives may create positive spill overs, for example by having a trickle-down effect onto local tourism sectors. In this article, we present the City of Linz’s open government activities. More specifically, we review how the public administration implemented the interactive mapping and reporting application “Schau auf Linz“ (“Look at Linz“). Through our analysis of this case study, we show what role the local context and prior policies play in implementing open government initiatives on a local level. In addition, we discuss how this initiative, like others, leads to positive spill overs for the tourism sector.

Open Innovation für Parteien - Wie politische Parteien von neuen Formen der Mitglieder- und Bürgerpartizipation profitieren können

Die Zeiten, in denen neue Produkte abgeschottet und geheim in den Forschungslaboren von Unternehmen entwickelt wurden, scheinen immer mehr der Vergangenheit anzugehoren. Es setzt sich eine Strategie im Innovationsmanagement privater Firmen durch, die systematisch durch die neuen Kommunikations- und Informationsmoglichkeiten externes Losungs- und Bedurfniswissen von Experten und Nutzern auserhalb der klassischen Forschungsabteilung in die Neuproduktentwicklung integriert (Fuller et al. 2004). Um kurzere Produktlebenszyklen zu bewaltigen und ein hohes Innovationspotential aufrechtzuerhalten, sehen sich Firmen mit der Notwendigkeit konfrontiert, sich nach ausen zu offnen, um von der Kreativitat und dem Wissen bzw. der Anwendererfahrung der Kunden und Nutzer profitieren zu konnen (Chiaroni et al. 2010; Franke und Shah 2003; Gassmann et al. 2010).

Browse or Brush? An Exploration of Citizen-Government Interaction in the Municipal Realm

To gain a better understanding about new forms of citizen-government interaction enabled by modern technology, we conducted a survey among citizens who interact with their local government by using a web-based platform or a mobile application. In our paper, we investigate the patterns of online and mobile communication between citizens and local government. Based on logistic regressions, we study who possesses the characteristics that predict communication via web and mobile application. Empirical findings indicate that socio-demographic factors (gender, age, education) predict individuals’ usage of web over mobile devices. Those with experience in communicating with local government via traditional channels prefer the web interface to get in touch, whereas frequent communicators are more likely to use mobile phone.