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While “transparency-by-design” serves as the antecedent of any Open Government Data (OGD) initiative (Janssen et al., 2017), its logical objective would be the extent to which data “usage” is facilitated. This paper aims to underscore the significance, drivers and barriers to ensure “usage” of data sets conceding that re-use of data sets is one of the key objectives of any OGD initiative.

With a documentary analysis approach, the OGD initiative of Sri Lanka is investigated for the present purpose. Furthermore, the theoretical model of citizen engagement in OGD suggested by Sieber and Johnson (2015) is being referred to appreciate the extent to which the usage of data sets is facilitated via the OGD platform.

There are drivers as well as barriers as far as facilitating the usage of the data sets in the Sri Lankan OGD initiative is concerned. For instance, some of the drivers are the provision of suggesting data sets or the possibility of referring to data sets which are historical in nature. However, there are countless barriers to usage than the drivers. For instance, there is absence of metadata in the data sets; the data sets are not updated regularly; there are historical data; the formats of the data sets are limited in nature and are not user-friendly; there is no facility of conducting data visualization or analytics, and there is no collaborative approach towards building further the OGD initiative.

As only one case study is probed in the paper, further research is warranted to undertake a comparative approach by taking two or more case studies into consideration.

This study holds relevance for Sri Lankan Government and other stakeholders (policy makers, citizens, developers and the like) so far as furthering of user engagement in OGD initiative is concerned.

Facilitating more usage by citizens would increase their engagement, and they might derive value out of the data sets. At the same time, the government’s objective of ensuring increased usage of the data sets would be better realized.

“Transparency-by-design” approach had its focus on the publishing phase of OGD, and this paper seeks to provide its logical conclusion by emphasizing upon “usage by stakeholders” because by opening data sets, the government has the target to ensure that these open data sets are being used and re-used. Therefore, it is the outcome which is being discussed with the support of a case study set in the background of Sri Lanka’s Open Data initiative. Besides, this is the first study which probes the OGD initiatives of Sri Lanka – therein lies the major contribution of the study.

Even though social media are nowadays used in the frame of public governance to ensure citizens’ major participation, enhance e-dialogue and e-democracy consequently, this utilization has not been expanded yet in the field of education, whose key role focuses on the cultivation of active citizenship, as it is promoted through participation. The purpose of this paper is to examine leadership’s views of Greek Secondary and Tertiary Education on the potential use of social media for participatory decision-making processes in order to identify if the e-participation model could be implemented in the Greek education field as in other public domains.

An exploratory research was elaborated, employing a survey design of quantitative method in order to explore Greek educational organizations leadership’s perspectives toward social media usage in participatory decision-making processes.

The research reveals Greek educational leadership’s positive view on the potential effects of social media usage in participatory decision-making processes and highlights anticipated benefits as well as problems to be faced, indicating the foundation for Greek leaders to implement social media in their leadership practices and exploit their affordances as in e-governance shifts.

Bringing the concept of e-participation and crowd sourcing model – key features in e-governance initiatives through social media usage – in education field, Greek educational leadership is informed to consider social media utilization more methodically in the context of participatory decision-making processes, updating simultaneously existing leadership practices.

Up till now, social media usage in participatory decision-making processes in educational settings has hardly received attention.

It has been underscored in the extant literature that open government data (OGD) has not percolated across the length and breadth of any country, let alone the awareness of the OGD among the stakeholders themselves. In this vein, this study aims to underline the reasons as to why OGD promotion merits consideration apart from underlining the manner in which OGD promotion may be done.

Based on literature review on the OGD conceptual models and government promotion initiatives, the study further sketches an OGD model across four quadrants: beginners, followers, fast-trackers, trend-setters on the basis of the progress made in their OGD initiatives besides underlining the four elements of OGD promotional strategy as media, arena, substance and stakeholders. Also, the study explores the drivers and barriers to OGD promotional initiatives.

The study shows that across the OGD quadrants, the promotional strategies vary in terms of the 4As (acceptability, affordability, accessibility and awareness), and the same get reflected across MASS. Further, the drivers for OGD promotional initiatives are building citizens’ trust and forging stakeholder participation and collaboration in administration, thereby furthering transparency in administration, meeting the needs of the stakeholders, providing the desired impetus to value creation and innovation by the stakeholders and the need for furthering economic growth. Likewise, the barriers toward OGD promotion are linked with the lack of political will, lack of organizational leadership, mission and vision, lack of involvement of government departments, lack of budget and lack of requisite infrastructure for promotion.

Hitherto, OGD research has underscored the need to make the users aware of the potential of OGD initiative; however, no study has been undertaken to understand the manner in which the awareness may be driven among the users – the present study is a first step in this direction.

Open government data (OGD) is making available data freely to all by the government with the aim to ensure accountability and transparency in government besides generating public value by its usage. OGD is an emerging government initiative in Pakistan, and there is a lot of potential for harnessing OGD for spearheading innovation and improvising services in different economic sectors. This paper aims to seek to investigate the usage of OGD in private sector and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Pakistan.

Documentary analysis is conducted to review the national OGD portal of Pakistan. Besides, structured interviews were conducted with 49 senior management representatives from private sector and NGOs to solicit their perspectives regarding the usage of OGD for professional purposes. Also, questions were posed regarding the challenges in harnessing OGD for professional purposes.

OGD has immense usage for private sector and NGOs; however, more initiatives are required on the part of the government to open their data sets. Further, involvement of stakeholders from the private sector and NGOs and other interested partners is required for an optimum usage of OGD in different economic sectors of Pakistan.

As the research focuses on private sector and NGOs in Pakistan, the study requires a more broad-based approach to take into account the perspectives of different users. Further research is required to appreciate the role of contextual factors in determining the usage of OGD in Pakistan.

Government should be more forthcoming in its OGD initiatives and encourage collaboration from citizens, businesses, voluntary organizations and the like.

Working professionals from different economic sectors should tap OGD for generating value by improvising their services.

The study is the first one to be conducted in Pakistan about the OGD initiatives of the country. Soliciting views from the key management representatives in the private sector and NGOs, the paper contributed to the extant OGD literature which is more supply-focused and not demand-driven. While conceding that there are ample usages of OGD for the different economic sectors, the paper underlines the need for refining the OGD initiatives of Pakistan.

Increasingly, Open Government Data (OGD), a philosophy and set of policies, gains on momentum today. Believed to promote transparency, accountability and value creation by making government data available to all (OECD, 2018), OGD constitutes a yet another field in which the interlocking relation between technological advances and politics can be studied. Using the national OGD portal of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (http://www.data.gov.sa/en) as a case study, this evaluates the portal to underline the significance of maintaining the quality of the data sets published online. The usability framework (Machova, Hub, & Lnenicka 2018) constitutes the framework for evaluation of the OGD portal. The findings suggest that there are many drivers to re-use the data sets published via the portal. At the same time, however, there are barriers to re-use the data sets on account of the non-publication of updated data sets. Implicitly, quality of the data sets should be improved. More involvement of the government agencies is required for contributing toward the data sets. Also, user involvement should be promoted by encouraging them to contribute to the data sets and lending recommendations for the improvisation of the data sets published via the portal.

The purpose of this paper is to examine construction bonds, which is a risk management tool for ensuring that projects are delivered successfully, with emphasis on the influence of stakeholders, project characteristics and bonding decision factors.

Using case study of completed public building projects, questionnaires were administered on stakeholders that participated in the projects to solicit information on identified issues. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to examine relationship among identified factors, and various model selection and validation tests were carried out to arrive at the best-fit model.

The final model revealed that type of bond, stakeholders’ influence, project characteristics, risks of bonded projects and bonding decision factors have significant effect on success of bonded construction projects. Of the stakeholders, guarantors and contractors have greater influence on effective administration of bonds.

The study was limited to Lagos and Ondo states, Nigeria. Data were gathered from clients of public projects, banks and insurance companies (guarantors), as well as contracting, quantity surveying and architectural firms registered with the state governments. This is because of the fact that only such firms can be engaged on projects emanating from the governments.

To enhance project success, there is a need to adopt construction bond for both public and private projects as against the current practice where it is only mandated for public projects.

Using SEM, this research examined administration of construction bonds with a view to ascertaining their effects on projects success, thereby providing relevant empirical information for stakeholders for effective administration of construction bond.

The purpose of this paper is to present an evaluation of the national Open Government Data (OGD) portal of India (www.data.gov.in) and underline the significance of maintaining the quality of the data sets published online.

The research approach bases itself on the adapted version of embeddedness theory and cybernetic model apart from the data sets–usability framework proposed in recent literature (Machova et al., 2018).

Findings from this study indicate that OGD initiative needs to be embedded in the social fabric of the country to ensure that the data sets are being reused by a myriad set of stakeholders for deriving social and economic value. Likewise, the linkages between the stakeholders (for instance, government, citizens, non-governmental bodies, private sector, etc.) should be fortified to enable the reuse of the data sets in an appropriate manner.

Maintenance of quality of the data sets holds paramount importance. Implicitly, efforts should be made on the part of all the stakeholders concerned that the data sets be qualitatively and quantitatively adequate. This paper concludes with limitations and further research pointers.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the results of study carried out to examine the contribution of intellectual capital (IC) and isomorphic forces (IF) to internet financial reporting (IFR) among financial services firms in an emerging economy like Uganda.

This study is cross sectional and correlational. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey of 40 financial services firms. Data were analyzed through correlation coefficients and linear regression using Statistical Package for Social Sciences.

Results suggest that both IC and IF are significant predictors of IFR among financial services firms in Uganda. However, IF significantly contribute to IFR when IC is not present.

This study provides an initial empirical evidence on the contribution of IC and IF to IFR using evidence from Uganda’s financial service firms.

There is strong consensus that the Internet has the potential to positively impact firms, and SMEs in particular; however, not all firms have realized benefits from adoption. The present study extends research in the area by addressing the need to examine the “chain” of variables explaining Internet adoption. We do this by exploring SME owner/manager Internet-related usefulness and ease-of-use cognitions and intention to use the Internet for supplier information management. We also explore the influence of behavioral norms and two broader strategic perspectives, market and learning orientation, on the Internet-related cognitions. Findings have implications for researchers and practitioners by identifying factors that contribute to effectively leveraging the Internet in an important area for SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to study the select Smart Cities of Czech and Indian counterparts and assess the extent to which open government data (OGD) standards are being adhered to using select indicators.

This study integrates the benchmarking frameworks provided in literature on OGD and apply them to evaluate the OGD standards of the Smart Cities’ websites.

Whereas the Czech Smart Cities are relatively more advanced in their OGD initiatives, the Indian counterpart is far lagging behind in their endeavors.

While there are many studies on OGD and Smart Cities, there has been no study which seeks to appreciate if the OGD initiatives are being adhered to by the Smart Cities.