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When Bureaucracy Meets the Crowd : Studying “Open Government” in the Vienna City Administration

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Kornberger

    (EM - EMLyon Business School)

  • Renate E. Meyer

    (Universität Wien = University of Vienna, CBS - Copenhagen Business School [Copenhagen])

  • Christof Brandtner

    (Stanford University)

  • Markus A. Höllerer

    (Universität Wien = University of Vienna, Australian School of Business [Sydney] - UNSW - University of New South Wales [Sydney])

Abstract

Open Government is en vogue, yet vague: while practitioners, policy-makers, and others praise its virtues, little is known about how Open Government relates to bureaucratic organization. This paper presents insights from a qualitative investigation into the City of Vienna, Austria. It demonstrates how the encounter between the city administration and "the open" juxtaposes the decentralizing principles of the crowd, such as transparency, participation, and distributed cognition, with the centralizing principles of bureaucracy, such as secrecy, expert knowledge, written files, and rules. The paper explores how this theoretical conundrum is played out and how senior city managers perceive Open Government in relation to the bureaucratic nature of their administration. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to empirically trace the complexities of the encounter between bureaucracy and Open Government; and second, to critically theorize the ongoing rationalization of public administration in spite of constant challenges to its bureaucratic principles. In so doing, the paper advances our understanding of modern bureaucratic organizations under the condition of increased openness, transparency, and interaction with their environments.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Kornberger & Renate E. Meyer & Christof Brandtner & Markus A. Höllerer, 2017. "When Bureaucracy Meets the Crowd : Studying “Open Government” in the Vienna City Administration," Post-Print hal-02311976, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02311976
    DOI: 10.1177/0170840616655496
    as

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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Virpi Sorsa & Eero Vaara, 2020. "How Can Pluralistic Organizations Proceed with Strategic Change? A Processual Account of Rhetorical Contestation, Convergence, and Partial Agreement in a Nordic City Organization," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 839-864, July.
    2. Helena Leino & Eeva Puumala, 2021. "What can co-creation do for the citizens? Applying co-creation for the promotion of participation in cities," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(4), pages 781-799, June.
    3. Florian, Mona, 2018. "Unlikely allies: Bureaucracy as a cultural trope in a grassroots volunteer organization," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 151-161.
    4. Francesco Schiavone & Francesco Paolo Appio & Luca Mora & Marcello Risitano, 2020. "The strategic, organizational, and entrepreneurial evolution of smart cities," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 1155-1165, December.
    5. Mindel, Vitali & Overstreet, Robert E. & Sternberg, Henrik & Mathiassen, Lars & Phillips, Nelson, 2024. "Digital activism to achieve meaningful institutional change: A bricolage of crowdsourcing, social media, and data analytics," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(3).
    6. Fedorenko, Ivan & Berthon, Pierre & Edelman, Linda, 2023. "Top secret: Integrating 20 years of research on secrecy," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    7. Ghita Dragsdahl Lauritzen, 2020. "Looking beyond formal organization: How public managers organize voluntary work by adapting to deviance," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(3), pages 467-481, May.
    8. Johannes Wachs & Mih'aly Fazekas & J'anos Kert'esz, 2019. "Corruption Risk in Contracting Markets: A Network Science Perspective," Papers 1909.08664, arXiv.org.

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