Exploring the factors influencing agencies' engagement in open data: A case study of Taichung city government

Open data has been an important trend among the government administrations around the world. The concept of open data is that, without violating privacy and national security, government data should be open, freely used, and redistributed by the public. It is expected that open data can promote transparency of government. In addition, open data has the potential to stimulate economic growth through value-added applications developed by the public, including citizens, private enterprises, and non-profit organizations. In Taiwan, when realizing the importance of open data, Taiwan government has started promoting the related initiatives in both the central government and local governments. In this research field, most studies have focused on the central government level, on the discussions of the types of open data to be released, and on the promotion of open data activities. Nevertheless, there is still limited research discussing the determinants of open government data, particularly there is a lack from the perspective of local governments. In order to fill this gap, this study explores the determinants of open data by selecting Taichung City Government as a case study. Specifically, this study attempts to identify the factors influencing government agencies' intentions of open data participation. The influential factors are explored from four perspectives: technology, organization, legislation and policy, and environment. In the technological perspective, the identified factors are information system operation, data type, and data format. Second, in the organizational perspective, the influential factors are top management support, cost and benefit, budget and resource, and performance evaluation. Third, legislation and policy is found to have the most significant impact on government agencies. Fourth, in the perspective of environment, both social pressure and peer effect are found to be the influential factors. Lastly, practical implications, limitations, and future research directions are also discussed in the study.