Does citizen coproduction lead to better urban services in smart cities projects? An empirical study on e-participation in a mobile big data platform

With contemporary development of digital technology and smart cities initiatives, citizen co-production has created a new government-citizen interface. However, it remains inconclusive whether such citizen-government collaboration has achieved the fundamental goal of improving service quality for citizens. In this research, we tested the relationship between e-participation as a form of co-production and service performance, using multiple large longitudinal datasets from a smart city mobile platform. The results of the analysis show that citizen e-participation, in providing service feedback, is positively associated with the clearance rate of urban service requests in subdistrict service units, after controlling for various factors. We also found that the effect size of e-participation on service performance varies between different types of city services. E-participation has a stronger relative influence on complex problems that may involve multiple agencies, than with simple routine services.     

How is information shared across the boundaries of government agencies? An e-Government case study

This paper explores how information is shared across the vertical and horizontal boundaries of government agencies. Different types of information sharing are identified and discussed in terms of their strengths and encountered challenges. Centralized types of information sharing are found as a primary strategy adopted to facilitate interagency information sharing in the two dimensions. Particularly, influential determinants from type comparisons and government agencies are identified and discussed regarding what agencies may take into considerations when selecting certain types of information sharing. While there is no single type of information sharing that can satisfy all the needs and concerns of government agencies, most agencies still simultaneously employ several types of information sharing in different circumstances. A competition-and-cooperation relationship exists among the different types of information sharing in both dimensions. The paper suggests that a balance between centralized and decentralized types of information sharing should be achieved to obtain advantages and diminish disadvantages. The similarities and differences between the types in the two dimensions are also compared and discussed. Lastly, the conclusion outlines the contribution and limitation of the current research and suggests future studies of the current work.     

Scientists’ genders and international academic collaboration: An empirical study of Chinese universities and research institutes

In the previous literature, no clear conclusions have been reached about the effect of gender differences on research performance (RP) in science, as measured by publication productivity, number of citations, and academic awards. Meanwhile, a gap also exists in the research regarding gender differences in international academic collaboration. To complement the existing literature, this study investigated the achievements of scientists engaged in international academic collaboration, which places heavy demands on language and communication skills and in which female scientists appear to have more advantages than male scientists. We investigated the effect of international collaboration carried out by chemists from China’s Project 985 universities and the Chinese Academy of Sciences and compared the extent to which the international collaboration improved female and male scientists’ academic performance. The results indicated that, compared to male scientists, female scientists performed better and significantly improved their academic performance through international collaboration. This conclusion was valid for different periods throughout chemists’ academic careers. The policy implications are discussed at the end of this study.     

An empirical investigation of the tribes and their territories: Are research specialisms rural and urban?

We propose an operationalization of the rural and urban analogy introduced in Becher and Trowler (2001). According to them, a specialism is rural if it is organized into many, smaller topics of research, with higher author mobility among them, lower rate of collaboration and productivity, lower competition for resources and citation recognitions compared to an urban specialism. It is assumed that most humanities specialisms are rural while science specialisms are in general urban: we set to test this hypothesis empirically. We first propose an operationalization of the theory in most of its quantifiable aspects. We then consider specialisms from history, literature, computer science, biology, astronomy. Our results show that specialisms in the humanities present a sensibly lower citation and textual connectivity, in agreement with their organization into more, smaller topics per specialism, as suggested by the analogy. We argue that the intellectual organization of rural specialisms might indeed be qualitative different from urban ones, discouraging the straightforward application of citation-based indicators commonly applied to urban specialisms without a dedicated re-design in acknowledgement of these differences.     

Does the scholarly communication system satisfy the beliefs and aspirations of new researchers? Summarizing the Harbingers research

A study from the Harbingers research project provides a comprehensive assessment of the main features of the scholarly communications system as viewed by early career researchers (ECRs) in the final year of the study (2018). Aspects covered are: discovery and access, authorship practices, peer review, publishing strategies, open access publishing, open data, sharing, collaboration, social media, metrics, impact, reputation, libraries, publishers, and scholarly transformations. Nearly 120 science and social science researchers from seven countries were questioned about these 16 aspects. It was found that some scholarly features work well for ECRs, and in this category can be included: discovery and access, authorship practices, sharing, collaboration, and publishers. Reputation, publishing strategies, and impact are more problematical, and they, in turn, cause tensions regarding some other factors – social media, open access, and open data. Of the rest, libraries are largely invisible, and ECRs have conflicting views concerning ethical behaviour. Few envisage that transformational change will take place in the next 5 years.     

Can social media increase government responsiveness? A case study of Seoul,Korea

Despite the expectation that social media use in the public sector contributes to enhancing government responsiveness to citizens, few empirical studies exist on whether social media use actually leads to more responsive public administration in practice and how social media are used by governments to build citizen-centric governance. The purpose of this study is to examine what roles are played by mayors and public officials in social media networks to increase government responsiveness. Thus, we adopt social network analysis (SNA) to the Twitter network of public services as well as carry out a case study on interactions among the mayor, local government, and citizens via Twitter in Seoul, Korea. The research findings show that the mayor of Seoul plays the most important role as a bridging hub in the Twitter network. Specifically, the mayor serves as a bridge between different clusters of citizens and public officials as well as a hub for the most connected users in the network. The mayor's role as a bridging hub in the Twitter network contributes to enhancing government responsiveness by making possible to overcome the disconnection between citizens and the local government, and information asymmetry among the mayor, public officials, and citizens.     

Harnessing the Potential of Artificial Intelligence to Foster Citizens’ Satisfaction: An empirical study on India

Governments are increasingly employing artificial intelligence (AI) enabled services though this is still a relatively new concept that is in nascent stages of implementation. Despite growing emphasis by governments on employing AI-enabled services, many citizens are skeptical of their benefits; this makes an analysis of AI-enabled services an important area of research, especially from the perspective of citizens. This paper employs IT assimilation theory and public value theory to develop a theoretical model that examines whether the introduction of AI-enabled services would generate public value for citizens in India. The model employs the Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) technique to examine how risk factors impact the uptake of AI-enabled services in India. Based on 315 interviews conducted in India, the study highlights that the breadth and depth assimilation of AI-enabled services positively impacts and enhances the satisfaction of citizens, which in turn generates public value.     

An objective study of emphasis in oral reading of emotional and unemotional material∗

One shortcoming of previous research using panel data for media and political studies has been the practice of treating the data as if they were collected from different sets of individuals at different times rather than as if they were collected at different times from the same individuals. The present study attempted to apply newer methods of analysis to panel data. Both R factor and Q factor analyses were applied to the data. The person‐types thus determined were found to be meaningfully interpretable and useful in explaining the election results. It was found that the image types were nearly as useful as associative indexes with actual voting behavior as was political affiliation.     

Effects of perceived online–offline integration and internet censorship on mobile government microblogging service continuance: A gratification perspective

The success of government social media relies on citizens' continual usage. Through the theoretical lens of the Uses & Gratifications theory, we develop a research model for mobile government microblogging services (GMS) continuance intention, in which citizens' perceived integration of online and offline social lives and internet censorship are incorporated. Based on data from 629 mobile GMS users in China, the results of the structural equation modeling analysis show that perceived online–offline integration has a significant and positive effect on the three dimensions of gratification: content gratification, social gratification, and process gratification, which jointly influence mobile GMS continuance. Citizens' perceived internet censorship negatively affects their mobile GMS continuance. These results might provide understanding about the unique aspects of government social media, especially in the context of internet censorship.     

Does the effectiveness of campaigns depend on voters’ predispositions? A comparative study of British and Taiwanese election campaigns

Using data from the 2010 British Election Study and the 2012 Taiwan Election and Democratization Study, this paper investigates the impact of political predispositions on the association between election campaigns and voting choice in Britain and Taiwan. Findings show that the political predispositions of partisanship (strength), political sophistication and election interest do play moderating roles in the association between campaigns and voting choice in Britain and Taiwan. Of these predispositions, the study finds no differences in the moderating roles of partisanship and political sophistication in Britain and Taiwan. However, election interest plays a moderating role differently in Britain and Taiwan. This paper argues that this finding may be attributed to differences in the political contexts of the two democracies. The findings of this study offer new insights into comparative political communication, indicating that the impact of election campaigns depends on individuals’ political predispositions.     

U.S government information and the Nicaraguan revolution 1979–1989: An assessment of bias

The internal effects of the Nicaraguan revolutionary reconstruction, 1979–1989, are compared and contrasted with the portrayal of these effects in a sampling U.S. government documents. Special attention is given to U.S. Department of State documents aimed at influencing public opinion. That the revolution had some clearly positive effects on Nicaraguan society is concluded, but weaknesses and contradictions in the ideology and the programs of the revolution are exposed. It is suggested that much contemporaneous U.S. government information on the topic served a propagandizing function.     

Do FOI laws and open government data deliver as anti-corruption policies? Evidence from a cross-country study

In election times, political parties promise in their manifestos to pass reforms increasing access to government information to root out corruption and improve public service delivery. Scholars have already offered several fascinating explanations of why governments adopt transparency policies that constrain their choices. However, knowledge of their impacts is limited. Does greater access to information deliver on its promises as an anti-corruption policy? While some research has already addressed this question in relation to freedom of information laws, the emergence of new digital technologies enabled new policies, such as open government data. Its effects on corruption remain empirically underexplored due to its novelty and a lack of measurements. In this article, I provide the first empirical study of the relationship between open government data, relative to FOI laws, and corruption. I propose a theoretical framework, which specifies conditions necessary for FOI laws and open government data to affect corruption levels, and I test it on a novel cross-country dataset. The results suggest that the effects of open government data on corruption are conditional upon the quality of media and internet freedom. Moreover, other factors, such as free and fair elections, independent and accountable judiciary, or economic development, are far more critical for tackling corruption than increasing access to information. These findings are important for policies. In particular, digital transparency reforms will not yield results in the anti-corruption fight unless robust provisions safeguarding media and internet freedom complement them.     

One tool to rule? – A field experimental longitudinal study on the costs and benefits of mobile device usage in public agencies

With the rising number of mobile technologies used in work- and private-life domains, opportunities, and challenges of mobile device usage in daily lives arise. Against this background, we strive to investigate how corporately provided mobile devices, i.e., tablets, affect work-life conflict and innovation behavior of public sector employees over time. We analyze employees in German public agencies due to their high intrinsic motivation goals alongside strict working schedules, regulations, and payments in contrast to the employees of the private sector. Our research pursues a sequential explorative multi-method approach of conducting a field experiment with qualitative and quantitative data. Twenty employees were divided into two equal groups: 1.) employees with tablets, 2.) employees without tablets. After analyzing the interviews and survey data using methods from grounded theory, we found that a) digital competences can create a bottleneck for employees' innovation behavior, b) corporately provided mobile devices (COPE) decrease employees work-life conflict despite increasing their workload, and c) COPE-IT can support innovation behavior of employees in public agencies, assisting them in keeping up their efficient work when work demands are high. All these effects can be mediated by the development of employee's ownership towards their COPE-IT.     

Does government social media promote users' information security behavior towards COVID-19 scams? Cultivation effects and protective motivations

Cybercriminals are taking advantage of the COVID-19 outbreak and offering COVID-19-related scams to unsuspecting people. Currently, there is a lack of studies that focus on protecting people from COVID-19-related cybercrimes. Drawing upon Cultivation Theory and Protection Motivation Theory, we develop a research model to examine the cultivation effect of government social media on peoples' information security behavior towards COVID-19 scams. We employ structural equation modeling to analyze 240 survey responses collected from social media followers of government accounts. Our results suggest that government social media account followers' participation influences their information security behavior through perceived severity, perceived vulnerability, self-efficacy, and response efficacy. Our study highlights the importance of government social media for information security management during crises.     

An experimental study of the vibration of the bones of the head and chest during sustained vowel sounds∗

This experiment was designed to test the hypothesis that an individual's preference for and valuation of relatively unavailable communicative messages compared to more readily available messages is a function of and will become more pronounced as his personal sense of “self‐uniqueness” is decreased. Greater preferences for and more favorable valuations of unavailable messages relative to available messages were also expected, independent of subjects’ anticipated familiarity or unfamiliarity with arguments contained in the messages. Experimental subjects received fictitious test results describing them as extremely high, high, or low in personal uniqueness compared with their peers. They then received information about four different messages; the messages being described as either available or unavailable to them and to others, and as containing either familiar or unfamiliar arguments. Subjects indicated their preferences for and valuations of each of the four different messages. The hypothesized effects were obtained.     

How to calculate the practical significance of citation impact differences? An empirical example from evaluative institutional bibliometrics using adjusted predictions and marginal effects

Evaluative bibliometrics is concerned with comparing research units by using statistical procedures. According to Williams (2012) an empirical study should be concerned with the substantive and practical significance of the findings as well as the sign and statistical significance of effects. In this study we will explain what adjusted predictions and marginal effects are and how useful they are for institutional evaluative bibliometrics. As an illustration, we will calculate a regression model using publications (and citation data) produced by four universities in German-speaking countries from 1980 to 2010. We will show how these predictions and effects can be estimated and plotted, and how this makes it far easier to get a practical feel for the substantive meaning of results in evaluative bibliometric studies. An added benefit of this approach is that it makes it far easier to explain results obtained via sophisticated statistical techniques to a broader and sometimes non-technical audience. We will focus particularly on Average Adjusted Predictions (AAPs), Average Marginal Effects (AMEs), Adjusted Predictions at Representative Values (APRVs) and Marginal Effects at Representative Values (MERVs).     

Does e-government reduce the administrative burden of businesses? An assessment of business-to-government systems usage in the Netherlands

The reduction of the administrative burden on businesses is an important governmental policy objective. Electronic government is presented as a promising reduction strategy in many countries. Underlying assumptions and mechanisms are hardly ever made explicit and scientific evidence of successful implementations is scarce. This paper presents an assessment of business-to-government systems in use in the Netherlands. Results show that organizational characteristics are the most influencing factors of perceived burden reduction and implementation effectiveness. Whereas perceived organizational benefits positively relate to the overall confirmation of the former system adoption decision. Surprisingly the quantitative, usage related characteristics do not present any statistical relevance. These findings help us understand existing differences in appreciation between business and governmental representatives on the successfulness of e-government projects in reducing the administrative burden on businesses. Furthermore, research results can help to enhance the effectiveness of e-government policy and measurement instruments.