Towards an ambidextrous government

Towards an ambidextrous government: Strategies for balancing exploration and exploitation in open government

Matheus, R. (TU Delft Information and Communication Technology)
Janssen, M.F.W.H.A. (TU Delft Information and Communication Technology)

2016

Governments are often putting their efforts in the operation and execution of existing services without having the means to innovate. Ambidexterity is the ability to operate existing services and to innovate at the same time Ambidexterity is a concept originating from organizational studies in the private sector and is hardly used in the public sector. The goal of this paper is to identify strategies used by governments to combine exploitation and exploration. Factors influencing ambidexterity were derived from the literature and categorized in political, organizational, technological and economical categories. These factors were used to analyze two case studies. The cases revealed strategies used by government to move from exploitation to exploration. Strategies include providing incentives, like awards and prizes, to involve resources that are external to the government. The strategies can be classified as contextual ambidexterity.

E-Government
public sector
Transparency
Open data
Open government
Accountability
Innovation
Ambidexterity
Exploration
Exploitation

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:f068e556-fa35-49ad-897b-4d2d90e236b5

https://doi.org/10.1145/2912160.2912192

ACM/IEEE

978-1-4503-4339-8

Proceedings of 17th International Digital Government Research Conference on Digital Government Research

17th International Digital Government Research Conference on Digital Government Research, 2016-06-08 → 2016-06-10, Shanghai, China

Institutional Repository

conference paper

© 2016 R. Matheus, M.F.W.H.A. Janssen