Creating and Capturing Value through Crowdsourcing

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Cover

Book edited by Allan Afuah, Christopher L. Tucci, and Gianluigi Viscusi: “Examples of the value that can be created and captured through crowdsourcing go back to at least 1714 when the UK used crowdsourcing to solve the Longitude Problem, obtaining a solution that would enable the UK to become the dominant maritime force of its time. Today, Wikipedia uses crowds to provide entries for the world’s largest and free encyclopedia. Partly fueled by the value that can be created and captured through crowdsourcing, interest in researching the phenomenon has been remarkable.

Despite this – or perhaps because of it – research into crowdsourcing has been conducted in different research silos, within the fields of management (from strategy to finance to operations to information systems), biology, communications, computer science, economics, political science, among others. In these silos, crowdsourcing takes names such as broadcast search, innovation tournaments, crowdfunding, community innovation, distributed innovation, collective intelligence, open source, crowdpower, and even open innovation. This book aims to assemble chapters from many of these silos, since the ultimate potential of crowdsourcing research is likely to be attained only by bridging them. Chapters provide a systematic overview of the research on crowdsourcing from different fields based on a more encompassing definition of the concept, its difference for innovation, and its value for both private and public sector….(More)”.

Algorithmic Government: Automating Public Services and Supporting Civil Servants in using Data Science Technologies

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Zeynep Engin and Philip Treleaven in the Computer Journal:  “The data science technologies of artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), big data and behavioral/predictive analytics, and blockchain are poised to revolutionize government and create a new generation of GovTech start-ups. The impact from the ‘smartification’ of public services and the national infrastructure will be much more significant in comparison to any other sector given government’s function and importance to every institution and individual.

Potential GovTech systems include Chatbots and intelligent assistants for public engagement, Robo-advisors to support civil servants, real-time management of the national infrastructure using IoT and blockchain, automated compliance/regulation, public records securely stored in blockchain distributed ledgers, online judicial and dispute resolution systems, and laws/statutes encoded as blockchain smart contracts. Government is potentially the major ‘client’ and also ‘public champion’ for these new data technologies. This review paper uses our simple taxonomy of government services to provide an overview of data science automation being deployed by governments world-wide. The goal of this review paper is to encourage the Computer Science community to engage with government to develop these new systems to transform public services and support the work of civil servants….(More)”.

The Public Mapping Project: How Public Participation Can Revolutionize Redistricting

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Micah Altman and Michael P. McDonald: “… unveil the Public Mapping Project, which developed DistrictBuilder, an open-source software redistricting application designed to give the public transparent, accessible, and easy-to-use online mapping tools. As they show, the goal is for all citizens to have access to the same information that legislators use when drawing congressional maps—and use that data to create maps of their own….(More)”.

Statistics Canada promises more detailed portrait of Canadians with fewer surveys

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Bill Curry at The Globe and Mail: “Canadians are increasingly shunning phone surveys, but they could still be providing Statistics Canada with valuable data each time they flush the toilet or flash their debit card.

The national statistics agency laid out an ambitious plan Thursday to overhaul the way it collects and reports on issues ranging from cannabis and opioid use to market-moving information on unemployment and economic growth.

According to four senior Statscan officials, the agency is in the midst of a major transformation as it adapts to a world of big data collected by other government agencies as well as private sector actors such as banks, cellphone companies and digital-based companies like Uber.

At its core, the shift means the agency will become less reliant on traditional phone surveys or having businesses fill out forms to report their sales data. Instead, Statscan is reaching agreements with other government departments and private companies in order to gain access to their raw data, such as point-of-sale information. According to agency officials, such arrangements reduce the reporting paperwork faced by businesses while creating the potential for Statscan to produce faster and more reliable information.

Key releases such as labour statistics or reporting on economic growth could come out sooner, reducing the lag time between the end of a quarter and reporting on results. Officials said economic data that is released quarterly could shift to monthly reporting. The greater access to raw data sources will also allow for more localized reporting at the neighbourhood level….(More)”.

The Role of Management in Open Data Initiatives in Local Governments: Opening the Organizational Black Box

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Mila Gasco-Hernandez and  Jose Ramon Gil-Garcia: “Previous studies have infrequently addressed the dynamic interactions among social, technical, and organizational variables in open government data initiatives. In addition, organization level models have neglected to explain the role of management in decision-making processes about technology and data. This article contributes to addressing this gap in the literature by analyzing the complex relationships between open government data characteristics and the organizations and institutions in which they are embedded.

We systematically compare the open data inception and implementation processes, as well as their main results, in three Spanish local governments (Gava and Rubi in Catalonia and Gijon in Asturias) by using a model that combines the technology enactment framework with some specific constructs and relationships from the process model of computing change. Our resulting model is able to identify and explain the significant role of management in shaping and mediating different interactions, but also acknowledges the importance of organizational level variables and the context in which the open data initiative is taking place…(More)”.

The five drivers for improving public sector performance

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Lessons from the new World Bank Global Report: “Almost daily, headlines in the world’s leading newspapers are full of examples of public sector failures: public money is mismanaged or outright misused; civil servants are not motivated or are poorly trained; government agencies fail to coordinate with each other; and as a result, citizens are either deprived of quality public services, or must go through a bureaucratic maze to access them.

These public-sector challenges are often present even in the world’s most developed countries. They are of course further exacerbated by lower levels of development.

So what hope do low and middle-income countries have to make their public sectors function more effectively? Is this just a futile enterprise altogether?

We believe it is not. Our new Global Report, Improving Public Sector Performance Through Innovation and Inter-Agency Coordination, argues that positive change is possible in many low and middle-income countries. The report collects 15 inspiring country cases of such reforms and shows that such change does not necessarily require huge financial investment or complex IT systems. What seems to be required, instead, are five interconnected drivers of success:

  • Political leadership is needed because few, if any, of the innovations are a purely technocratic exercise.  Leaders need to find ways to collaborate with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders to overcome inherent opposition.
  • Institutional capacity building of existing bodies is a common element across many of the 15 cases. For reforms to endure, one ultimately needs to create sustainable institutions.
  • Incentives matter, both at the institutional level (e.g., through government-wide policy, creating systems and structures that shape institutional objectives, and program monitoring systems) as well as at the level of civil servants (e.g., through performance targets and reward systems).
  • Increased transparency can help deliver change in public sector performance by breaking down government silos and ensuring inter-agency information-sharing, and publishing or disseminating performance information.  Transparency can also be a powerful driver for changing incentives.
    • Technology, while not a panacea, is present in two-thirds of the featured cases. The reformers applied relevant, even basic, IT tools and know-how to their specific functional requirements and did not over-design their efforts.  Furthermore, the technology application is rarely a stand-alone solution; rather, it is accompanied by policies and procedures to change behavior….(More)”.

Surveillance Studies: A Reader

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Torin Monahan and David Murakami Wood: “Surveillance is everywhere: in workplaces monitoring the performance of employees, social media sites tracking clicks and uploads, financial institutions logging transactions, advertisers amassing fine-grained data on customers, and security agencies siphoning up everyone’s telecommunications activities. Surveillance practices-although often hidden-have come to define the way modern institutions operate. Because of the growing awareness of the central role of surveillance in shaping power relations and knowledge across social and cultural contexts, scholars from many different academic disciplines have been drawn to “surveillance studies,” which in recent years has solidified as a major field of study.

Torin Monahan and David Murakami Wood’s Surveillance Studies is a broad-ranging reader that provides a comprehensive overview of the dynamic field. In fifteen sections, the book features selections from key historical and theoretical texts, samples of the best empirical research done on surveillance, introductions to debates about privacy and power, and cutting-edge treatments of art, film, and literature. While the disciplinary perspectives and foci of scholars in surveillance studies may be diverse, there is coherence and agreement about core concepts, ideas, and texts. This reader outlines these core dimensions and highlights various differences and tensions. In addition to a thorough introduction that maps the development of the field, the volume offers helpful editorial remarks for each section and brief prologues that frame the included excerpts. …(More)”.

Rationality and politics of algorithms. Will the promise of big data survive the dynamics of public decision making?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by H.G. (Haiko)van der Voort et al: “Big data promises to transform public decision-making for the better by making it more responsive to actual needs and policy effects. However, much recent work on big data in public decision-making assumes a rational view of decision-making, which has been much criticized in the public administration debate.

In this paper, we apply this view, and a more political one, to the context of big data and offer a qualitative study. We question the impact of big data on decision-making, realizing that big data – including its new methods and functions – must inevitably encounter existing political and managerial institutions. By studying two illustrative cases of big data use processes, we explore how these two worlds meet. Specifically, we look at the interaction between data analysts and decision makers.

In this we distinguish between a rational view and a political view, and between an information logic and a decision logic. We find that big data provides ample opportunities for both analysts and decision makers to do a better job, but this doesn’t necessarily imply better decision-making, because big data also provides opportunities for actors to pursue their own interests. Big data enables both data analysts and decision makers to act as autonomous agents rather than as links in a functional chain. Therefore, big data’s impact cannot be interpreted only in terms of its functional promise; it must also be acknowledged as a phenomenon set to impact our policymaking institutions, including their legitimacy….(More)”.

Houston’s $6 Billion Census Problem: Frightened Immigrants

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Natasha Rausch at Bloomberg: “At Houston’s City Hall last week, Mayor Sylvester Turner gathered with company CEOs, university professors, police officers, politicians and local judges to discuss a $6 billion problem they all have in common: the 2020 census.

City officials and business leaders are worried about people like 21-year-old Ana Espinoza, a U.S. citizen by birth who lives with undocumented relatives. Espinoza has no intention of answering the census because she worries it could expose her family and get them deported….

Getting an accurate count has broad economic implications across the city, said Laura Murillo, chief executive officer of the Hispanic Chamber. “For everyone, the census is important. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican or Democrat, black or white or green.”…

For growing businesses, the census is crucial for understanding the population they’re serving in different regions. Enterprise Rent-A-Car used the 2010 census to help diversify the company’s employee base. The data prompted Enterprise to staff a new location in Houston with Spanish-speaking employees to better serve area customers, said the company’s human resources manager Phil Dyson.

“It’s been one of our top locations,” he said.

Doing the Math

Texas stands to lose at least $1,161 in federal funding for each person not counted, according to a March report by Andrew Reamer, a research professor at the George Washington Institute of Public Policy. Multiplied by the estimated 506,000 unathorized immigrants who live in the nation’s fourth-largest city, that puts at stake about $6 billion for Houston over the 10 years the census applies.

That’s just for programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. The potential loss is even larger when grants are taken into account for items like highways and community development, he said…(More)”.

The causal effect of trust

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Björn Bartling, Ernst Fehr, David Huffman and Nick Netzer: “Trust affects almost all human relationships – in families, organizations, markets and politics. However, identifying the conditions under which trust, defined as people’s beliefs in the trustworthiness of others, has a causal effect on the efficiency of human interactions has proven to be difficult. We show experimentally and theoretically that trust indeed has a causal effect. The duration of the effect depends, however, on whether initial trust variations are supported by multiple equilibria.

We study a repeated principal-agent game with multiple equilibria and document empirically that an efficient equilibrium is selected if principals believe that agents are trustworthy, while players coordinate on an inefficient equilibrium if principals believe that agents are untrustworthy. Yet, if we change the institutional environment such that there is a unique equilibrium, initial variations in trust have short-run effects only. Moreover, if we weaken contract enforcement in the latter environment, exogenous variations in trust do not even have a short-run effect. The institutional environment thus appears to be key for whether trust has causal effects and whether the effects are transient or persistent…(More)”.