Historical Performance Gap, Readiness of Government, and Open Data Quality: Transnational Empirical Analysis Based on Performance Feedback Theory

Abstract

Open government data has become an important movement for government administrations in numerous countries. Previous studies have paid less attention to the complex relationship among the historical performance gap, the readiness of government (including policy and action dimensions), and open data quality. Therefore, on the basis of performance feedback theory, a theoretical model has been developed and tested to analyze the impact of the historical performance gap on the readiness of government and open data quality. The model is empirically tested by the partial least squares method using sample data from 115 countries. The results show that the historical performance gap could indirectly contribute to a country's open data quality by promoting the readiness of government. In addition, the impact of this gap on the readiness of government and open data quality shows a U-shaped curve. In other words, a greater change in the effect of open data utilization in a country in the previous year entails a more significant promotion of readiness of government and open data quality in the next year. These findings drive governments to pay more attention to performance evaluation in open data and improve the readiness of government to improve their respective country's open data quality.