Open Government: Transparency and Collaboration in Action Minitrack

Description

Open government has become a central pillar of contemporary digital government agendas, driven by the normative goals of transparency, accountability, collaboration, and co-production and public value creation. Over the past decade, governments worldwide have increasingly relied on digital platforms, open data infrastructures, and participatory technologies to operationalize these principles. While existing research has substantially advanced our understanding of open government frameworks, drivers, and challenges, there remains a need for empirically grounded and theory-informed studies that examine how transparency and collaboration are designed, deployed, enacted and managed in practice across institutional, technological, and societal contexts.

This minitrack responds to this gap by foregrounding the doing of open government, how transparency mechanisms are designed, deployed, enacted and managed, how collaboration among governments, citizens, and non-state actors unfolds, and how these processes translate into tangible outcomes for governance, service delivery, and democratic legitimacy. It aims to:

Advance theoretical and empirical understanding of transparency and collaboration as operational practices of open government.
Provide a forum for interdisciplinary dialogue among scholars examining open government from administrative, information systems, political, and sociotechnical perspectives.
Encourage research that critically assesses both the enabling and constraining effects of digital technologies in open government initiatives.
Examine outcomes and impacts of open government “in action,” including trust, legitimacy, innovation, and public value creation.
Submissions addressed, but are not limited to, the following topics are welcomed.

Design and implementation of transparency mechanisms (e.g., open data portals, algorithmic transparency, performance dashboards)
Digital platforms for collaboration and co-production in governance and public services
Citizen engagement, participatory governance, and collaborative policymaking
Inter-organizational and cross-sector collaboration enabled by open government initiatives
Tensions between transparency, privacy, security, and ethics in practice
The role of AI, data analytics, and emerging technologies in enabling or constraining open government
Institutional, organizational, and cultural conditions shaping open government outcomes
Empirical evaluations of open government initiatives at local, national, and transnational levels
Comparative and longitudinal studies of open government practices
Methods and metrics for assessing transparency, collaboration, and public value outcomes Conceptual, qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, and design-oriented studies
Papers accepted to this minitrack will be selected based on the quality of their contribution to advancing academic scholarship in the field for a special section in Information Polity titled “Best papers on Digital Government from HICSS 2027.” This provides authors with an exceptional opportunity to extend their conference presentation into a prestigious journal publication.

Minitrack Leaders

Maria Cucciniello is Associate Professor of Public Management at Bocconi University and Director of Government,Health and Not for Profit Area at SDA Bocconi School of Managemet, Her research focuses on digital government, open government, transparency, and public sector innovation. She has published extensively in leading public administration and public management journals and has coordinated international research projects on digital transformation and governance reforms. Her work combines strong theoretical foundations with empirical analysis of public sector practices.

Mila Gasco-Hernandez holds an MBA and a Ph. D. in public policy evaluation. She is the Research Director at the Center for Technology in Government as well as an Associate Professor at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, both at the University at Albany – SUNY. Before joining SUNY, Dr. Gasco-Hernandez served as a senior researcher at the Institute of Governance and Public Management (currently known as ESADEgov - Center for Public Governance) and the Institute of Innovation and Knowledge Management, both at ESADE Business & Law School in Spain. The main general research question at the center of Dr. Gasco-Hernandez’s research agenda is: why and how does technology-driven innovation happen in the public sector? Most of her research in the last six years has focused on the topics of open government, public sector innovation, smart cities and communities, telework, and artificial intelligence in government. In these areas, she has published six books, more than 25 peer-reviewed articles, 16 peer-reviewed book chapters, and more than 40 peer-reviewed conference papers. She has been awarded more than 15 grants in external funding competitive calls and more than 25 consultancy/applied research projects.