Digital Government, Open Architecture, and Innovation: Why Public Sector IT Will Never Be the Same Again

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fishenden, Jerry; Thompson, Mark
• 署名单位: University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; University of Cambridge
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH AND THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1053-1858
• DOI: 10.1093/jopart/mus022
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 977-1004

摘要

This article argues that the future of public services will be shaped increasingly by the evolution of global, Internet-enabled, digital platforms, with two distinctive technical and commercial features. First, use of open standards and architectures that separate standard business logic from supporting applications will allow government to become technology- and vendor-agnostic, freeing it from its overdependence on proprietary systems and suppliers. Second, over time, open standards and increased market choice will drive both innovation and progressive convergence on cheaper, standard utility public services. These two features will combine to create a powerful dynamic situation, driving disintegration of traditional black boxed technologies and services, traditionally organized around systems integrators and departmental structures, and their reaggregation around the citizen in the form of services. Such reaggregation is allowing progressively sharp distinctions between niche/innovative and commodity/standard offerings, supplied by a plural, innovative, and more cost-effective marketplace, with unprecedented implications for the way in which the state buys and deploys technology. We draw on a range of data from across public and private sectors to illustrate our argument and identify some key policy and implementation recommendations.