=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2797/paper13
|storemode=property
|title=Exploring Open IT-based Co-creation in Government: A Revelatory Case Study
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2797/paper13.pdf
|volume=Vol-2797
|authors=Lieselot Danneels,Stijn Viaene
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/egov/DanneelsV20
}}
==Exploring Open IT-based Co-creation in Government: A Revelatory Case Study==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2797/paper13.pdf
Exploring Open IT-based Co-creation in
Government: A Revelatory Case Study
Lieselot Danneels*, Stijn Viaene**
*Ghent University/Vlerick Business School/KU Leuven, lieselot.danneels@vlerick.com
**Ghent University/Vlerick Business School/KU Leuven, stijn.viaene@vlerick.com
Abstract: Co-creation has mostly been studied in the context of a single organisation and in
dyadic, one-on-one relationships, while technological platforms now enable multiple parties to
-creation could be very promising, especially
in contexts where government organisations must do more with less, but empirical research is
lacking. In this research-in-progress, we focus on a revelatory case where a public service co-
creates an open IT platform with external organisations. We aim to explore the organisational
capabilities adopted by both the public service and external organisations. This research-in-
progress article reports on how we will use open innovation and technological platform literature
as lenses for our interpretive case study approach.
Keywords: Open IT-based co-creation, revelatory case, co-creation, capability
1. Introduction
In 2013, VDAB, the public employment service of the Flemish region in Belgium, launched its open
services programme. VDAB opened up its internal information technology (IT) services (including
its job-matching engine and an online assistant to improve the quality of vacancies) for use by
ing
function in the labour market and stimulating public, private, and non-profit labour-market actors
to cooperate and innovate. The open services were developed in collaboration with external
organisations (private recruitment and selection agencies, interim agencies, employers, start-ups,
and other European public employment services) who co-created the offerings on the IT platform
with VDAB. -based co-
creation of value, a concept introduced by Kohli and Grover (2008), who described it as a form of
co-
programme) or is instrumental in generating the co-creation of business value.
As in the development -creating
IT-based value cooperatively (Kohli & Grover, 2008). In an increasingly digitised and networked
world, the private and public sectors are faced with challenges and opportunities that cannot be
Copyright ©2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
136 Ongoing Research
2016). Therefore, organisations no longer limit their focus to what they are capable of on their own
but increasingly examine what they can do together with others, including partner organisations,
customers, and start-ups (Viaene & Danneels, 2015).
IT-based co-creation literature has not focused until now (Mandrella et al., 2016; Kohli & Grover,
2008; Sarker et al., 2012). First, while co-creation typically occurred in one-on-one alliances with
customers or suppliers in the past, we now see open partner networks (Furr et al., 2016) innovating
based on inflows and outflows of information to and from the network. Second, digital technologies
create new possibilities for collaboration. Digital platforms enable new forms of co-creation (Kohli
& Grover, 2008), such as allowing organisations to open their assets upon which others can innovate.
Examples include open government data platforms such as the London DataStore, through which
the city of London aims to openly exploit its data by co-creating an open data platform with the
National Health Service, power companies, and utilities (Card, 2015).
context for which open IT-based co-creation might be especially relevant but remains understudied.
Many public administrations need to do more with less (Janssen & Estevez, 2013) but have the
opportunity to become orchestrators of a network of organisations. However, little is known about
what open IT-based co-creation looks like in the public administration context (Feller et al., 2011;
Osborne et al., 2016; Voorberg et al., 2015).
For the finished research, our objective is to empirically develop an understanding of the
development and first use of a technological platform through IT-based co-creation in an open
partner network in the public administration context. Therefore, we investigate the revelatory case
of VDAB and its five-year co-creation programme to develop open services through an interpretive
case-study approach. In this research-in-progress, we report on the construction of the open
innovation and technological platform lenses that we will use in the interpretive case study.
2. Literature
Knowledge of open IT-based co-creation is largely absent in the literature (Kohli & Grover, 2008;
Mandrella et al., 2016; Sarker et al., 2012), suggesting that empirical research would be a suitable
strategy to develop insights into this new concept. The literature on IT-based co-creation served as
an initial guide to our research design and data collection. To identify the capabilities used by a
public service to co-create IT-based value with an open partner network, as well as the capabilities
services programme, employing open innovation literature and technological platform literature as
a lens. These two literature streams provide insights on capabilities that may be important in open
IT-based co-creation.
2.1. Open IT-based Co-creation
Open systems, hyper-competition, increasing specialisation, and shorter concept-to-market time
frames make it increasingly difficult to build the infrastructure for new products and services and
Ongoing Research 137
bring them to market (Grover & Kohli, 2012). This is why organisations are driven to IT-based co-
creation, avoiding investments in hard-to-duplicate assets and increasing the value they capture
(Ceccagnoli et al., 2012). IT-based co-creation of value represents the idea that "IT value is
increasingly being created and realized through [the] actions of multiple parties, value emanates
from robust collaborative relationships among firms, and structures and incentives for partners to
partake in and equitably share emergent value are necessary to sustain co-creation" (Kohli & Grover,
2008).
Sarker et al. (2012) describe the mechanisms underlying value co-creation as three different modes
of co-creation: exchange, addition, and synergistic integration. In the exchange mode of co-creation,
together with each other, in a mutually reinforcing manner[;] surrender some of their own
autonomy[;] have trust in the other to do what is in the interest of both sides of the relationship[;]
and invest in the relationship rather than just look for gains in it" (Sarker et al., 2012).
2.2. Open IT-based Co-creation in Public Administration
Although public administration literature does not provide us with theoretical frameworks to study
the phenomenon at hand, it does provide us with a focus on the specific context that might have an
impact on the case. In the public administration context, co-creation is often used interchangeably
with co-production (Voorberg et al., 2015), with both terms focusing mainly on the involvement of
citizens as end-users in the design, management, delivery, and/or creation of public services
(Osborne et al., 2016) rather than on co-creation with (multiple) organisations. In the research on co-
creation and co-production, a technological perspective is often lacking (Osborne et al., 2016;
Voorberg et al., 2015).
Open innovation studies in the government context often do not take into account the impact of
digital technologies (Feller et al., 2011). The case of Challenge.gov (Mergel & Desouza, 2013), which
crowdsources solutions to tackle complex public management problems, is a notable exception. One
of the most eminent examples of technological platforms in government are open data platforms.
But most research on open data focuses only on the technical aspects of opening up government
information, while a focus on the reuse of open data (Maccani et al., 2015), the ways to foster its
reuse (Van Veenstra & van den Broek, 2013), and the co-creation of open data platforms are missing
(Attard et al., 2015; Maccani et al., 2015).
2.3. Constructing a Lens to Study Open IT-based Co-creation
Table 1 summarises how the open innovation and technological platform literature link to key
aspects of open IT-based co-creation, and how they contributed to this study.
138 Ongoing Research
Table 4: Key Aspects of Open IT-based Co-creation in the Government Context
Aspect Literature Added value to Insights for this study
open IT-based co-
creation
Opening Open innovation Adds a focus on Provides insight on capabilities
assets for (Chesbrough, collaboration in an that may be important in open
innovation 2012; open partner IT-based co-creation:
through an Chesbrough & network - Openness in terms of
open Bogers, 2014; knowledge flows (inside-out and
network Chesbrough et outside-in): internal and external
al., 2006) sources for ideas and ways to
market them
- Moving from organisational to
ecosystem-based logic
Designing an Technological Adds a focus on the Provides insight on capabilities
IT artifact platforms technological that may be important in open
that can be (Boudreau, 2010; platform that IT-based co-creation:
used by Gawer, 2014; enables a network - Design platform openness (in
other parties Ghazawneh & of organisations to terms of access and control of the
Henfridsson, build on another platform)
2013; Tiwana, - Design platform governance
2015; Wareham (manage trade-offs through
et al., 2014) different types of control)
knowledge flows across organisational boundaries, using pecuniary and non-pecuniary
(Chesbrough, 2012). Open innovation
places external ideas and paths to market on the same level of importance as that reserved for
internal ideas and paths to market in the traditional closed innovation paradigm (Chesbrough et al.,
2006; Gassmann, 2006). Technological platforms
Gawer (2014) defines technological platforms as "evolving organisations or meta-organisations
that (1) federate and coordinate constitutive agents who can innovate and compete; (2) create value
by generating and harnessing economies of scope in supply or/and in demand; and (3) entail a
modular technological architecture composed of a core and a periphery".
3. Methodology
Given the objective of understanding the phenomenon of open IT-based co-creation from different
perspectives, this research employs an interpretive approach (Klein & Myers, 1999; Walsham, 1995).
We chose to study a revelatory case as a unique and exemplary source of in-depth insight into this
phenomenon. To broaden our understanding of the phenomenon, we explicitly built a cycle of the
Ongoing Research 139
hermeneutic circle (Klein & Myers, 1999) into our research design by adopting an embedded case
study approach (Yin, 2014).
The empirical setting of this research is the open services programme of VDAB, the public
employment service for the Flemish region in Belgium (Flanders). VDAB offers eight different open
services that continue to be further co-developed with over 20 partner organisations. We consider
unique case,
as VDAB is to the best of our knowledge one of the only public administrations co-creating with
service is one of the forerunners in Europe in regard to the digital innovation of public services
(Danneels & Viaene, 2015). Our prolonged collaboration with VDAB ensured the deep involvement
necessary to enable a thick description (Walsham, 1995).
Table 5: Organisations and Profiles of the Interviewees
Organisation and brief description Interviewee position/role
VDAB: Public employment service of the Flemish CEO
region in Belgium, offering employment services, CIO
training, and career guidance to society at large. Open Services Programme Manager
Konvert: Family firm focusing on recruitment and CIO/chief technology officer (CTO)
selection.
Randstad: Human resources (HR) service provider, Business Performance Manager
focusing on temporary jobs and recruitment and
selection, amongst others.
Tempo-Team: HR service provider, part of Randstad
Holding, focusing on temporary jobs and recruitment
and selection, amongst others.
Jobwalkr: Start-up that developed an app to inform The three owners of the start-up
users when relevant job opportunities are available in
their neighbourhood.
Jobsplus: Public employment service of Malta. IT Department Manager
Labour Market Information
Department Manager
open
services were a part, from January 2014 until June 2017 through bi-weekly or monthly steering
committee meetings, workshops, and other more informal contacts. As a primary source of data, we
conducted semi-structured, open-ended interviews with selected key personnel responsible for the
open services programme. We were interested in both the perspectives of VDAB and partner
organisations that co-created the open services. This is reflected in Table 3, which summarises the
A second important source of data was internal VDAB documentation. This
not only included documentation on the broader context in which the open services programme
occurred (notes of the steering committees and several workshops held between January 2014 and
140 Ongoing Research
June 2017) but also more specific documentation on the open services (e.g., internal and external
presentations and payment model), contacts with the partner organisations, and website providing
information to the partner organisations.
For data analysis, a dialogical process will occur between data and theory (Klein & Myers, 1999;
Walsham, 1995). We reviewed the literature on IT-based co-creation, which served as a sensitising
me. After
each interview, the first author wrote down impressions. The first author also generated more
organised sets of capabilities after a group of interviews and discussed this with the second author.
We decided that open innovation and the technological platform literature were the best lenses
through which the data may be further analysed.
4. Case Description
Founded in 1989, VDAB is the public employment service for the Flemish region in Belgium
(Flanders). It offers employment services, training, and career guidance to society at large. In 2013,
VDAB started its open services programme. IT services that were used internally were opened, in
small pieces, such that other labour market actors could embed them in their own IT systems. The
development of the open services occurred in co-creation with external organisations, such as
private recruitment, selection, and interim agencies, employers, start-ups, and other European
public employment services.
To understand the open services, it is important to note that VDAB matches job candidates to
vacancies based on competences rather than job titles to also include job seekers with a certain
affinity to the job and for better reorientation towards shortages of occupations. VDAB is one of the
forerunners in Europe in using and promoting competence-based job matching (European
Commission, 2016).
Table 6: VDAB's Open Services
Service Description
CV Export CVs, if citizens agree to have their data transferred to
Vacancy partner databases
Comeet Export vacancies
Online Assistant Competences and competence templates
Study Tree Automatic comments on contradictory or incomplete items in a
Wordcloud vacancy
Matching List of all recognised types of education
Matching-as-a-service Suggests words that are commonly associated with a vacancy the
user is introducing
Gives a list of matching candidates for a certain vacancy
Same as above, implemented in the partner organisation's own
systems
Ongoing Research 141
The first project that was part of the open services programme comprised the development of
job-matching systems. Comeet was co-created with three recruitment and selection agencies. In 2014,
Comeet was opened to other organisations. Today, VDAB offers eight different open services,
summarised in Table 4, which continue to be further co-developed with over 20 partner
organisations. Most open services are rather small (except for matching-as-a-service, where
organisations can u
In the next stages of this research-in-progress, we aim to use the two lenses constructed in this
research-in-progress, to analyze the case and discuss its implications for research and practice.
References
Attard, J., Orlandi, F., Scerri, S., & S. Auer, (2015). A systematic review of open government data initiatives,
Government Information Quarterly, 32(4), 399-418.
Boudreau, K. (2010). Open platform strategies and innovation: Granting access vs. devolving control,
Management Science, 56(10), 2010, 1849-1872.
2015, URL: https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2015/aug/03/open-data-london-smart-
city-privacy.
Ceccagnoli, M., Forman, C., Huang, P., & Wu, D.J. (2012). Co-creation of value in a platform ecosystem: The
case of enterprise software, MIS Quarterly, 36(1), 263-290.
Chesbrough, H. (2012). Open innovation: Where we've been and where we're going, Research-Technology
Management, 55(4), 20-27.
Chesbrough, H., & Bogers, M. (2014). Explicating open innovation: Clarifying an emerging paradigm for
understanding innovation, New Frontiers in Open Innovation, 3-28.
Chesbrough, H., Vanhaverbeke, W., & West, J. (2006). Open innovation: researching a new paradigm,
Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
Danneels, L., & Viaene, S. (2015). Simple rules strategy to transform government: An ADR
approach. Government Information Quarterly, 32(4), 516-525.
European Commission (2016). Competence based matching. Available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1206&langId=en
European Public Employment Services (2011). EU Network of Public Employment Services Strategy to 2020
and beyond. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1100&langId=en
Feller, J., Finnegan, P., & Nilsson, O. (2011). Open innovation and public administration: transformational
typologies and business model impacts, European Journal of Information Systems, 20, 2011, 358-374.
Managing multiparty innovation: How big companies are joining
forces to seize opportunities at their intersections, Harvard Business Review, 94(11), 2016, 76-83.
142 Ongoing Research
Gassmann, O. (2006). Opening up the innovation process: towards an agenda. R&D Management, 36(3), 223-
228.
Gawer, A. (2014). Bridging differing perspectives on technological platforms: Toward an integrative
framework. Research Policy, 43(7), 1239-1249.
Ghazawneh, A., & Henfridsson, O. (2013). Balancing platform control and external contribution in third
party development: the boundary resources model, Information Systems Journal, 23(2), 2013, 173-192.
Grover, V., & Kohli, R. (2012) Cocreating IT value: New capabilities and metrics for multifirm environments,
MIS Quarterly, 36(1), pp. 225-232.
Han, K., Oh, W., Im, K.S., Chang, R.M., Oh, H. & Pinsonneault, A. (2012). Value cocreation and wealth
spillover in open innovation alliances, MIS Quarterly, 36(1), 2012, pp. 291-325.
Harrison, T. M., Pardo, T. A., & Cook, M. (2012). Creating open government ecosystems: A research and
development agenda. Future Internet, 4(4), 900-928.
Janssen, M., & Estevez, E. (2013). Lean government and platform-based governance Doing more with less.
Government Information Quarterly, 30, S1-S8.
Klein, H. K., & Myers, M. D. (1999). A set of principles for conducting and evaluating interpretive field
studies in information systems. MIS Quarterly, 67-93.
Kohli, R., & Grover, V. (2008). Business value of IT: An essay on expanding research directions to keep up
with the times, Journal of the AIS, 9(1), 2008, pp. 23.
Maccani, G., Donnellan, B., & Helfert, M. (2015). Exploring the Factors that Influence the Diffusion of Open
Data for New Service Development: an Interpretive Case Study, In ECIS 2015, Münster, Germany.
Mandrella, M., Zander, S., & Kolbe, L.M. (2016). IT-based value co-creation: A literature review and
directions for future research, Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, p. 287-296.
Osborne, S.P., Radnor, Z., & Strokosch, K. (2016). Co-production and the co-creation of value in public
services: A suitable case for treatment?, Public Management Review, 18(5), 639-653.
Rai, A., Pavlou, P.A., Im, G., & Du, S. (2012). Interfirm IT capability profiles and communications for
cocreating relational value: evidence from the logistics industry, MIS quarterly, 36(1), 233-262.
Sarker, S., Sarker, S., Sahaym, A., & Bjorn-Andersen, N. (2012). Exploring value cocreation in relationships
between an ERP vendor and its partners: A revelatory case study, MIS Quarterly, 36(1), pp. 317-338.
Tiwana, A. (2015). Evolutionary competition in platform ecosystems, Information Systems Research, 26(2),
266-281.
van Veenstra, A. F., & van den Broek, T. A. (2013). Opening moves drivers, enablers and barriers of open
data in a semi-public organization. Electronic Government. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 50-61.
Viaene, S., & Danneels, L. (2015). Driving digital: Welcome to the ExConomy!. The Journal of Financial
Perspectives, 3(3), 182-187.
Voorberg, W.H., Bekkers, V.J.J.M., & Tummers, L.G. (2015). A systematic review of co-creation and co-
production: Embarking on the social innovation journey, Public Management Review, 17(9), 1333-1357.
Ongoing Research 143
Walsham, G. (1995). Interpretive case studies in IS research: nature and method. European Journal of
Information Systems, 4(2), 74-81.
Wareham, J., Fox, P.B., & Cano Giner, J.L. (2014). Technology ecosystem governance, Organization Science,
25(4), 1195-1215.
Yin, R. (2014). Case study research: Design and methods, Sage Publications.
About the Authors
Lieselot Danneels
Lieselot Danneels is a Professor of e-governance at Ghent University and a Lecturer at Vlerick Business
School. Her research focuses on how (public sector) organisations organise for digital transformation.
Stijn Viaene
Stijn Viaene is a Full Professor and Partner at Vlerick Business School and a Full Professor at KU Leuven. His
research and teaching focus on Information Systems Management issues in three primary areas: (1) digital
innovation and transformation, (2) business and IT alignment, and (3) business process management.