Case Settings

Penguin Intelligence, a Tencent research arm, 87.7 percent of WeChat users use the app for daily work communication (South China Morning Post, 2017). By contrast, only 22.6 percent of the respondents of the survey report email as their primary means of work communication. These statistics indicate that unlike previous studies on e-government that suggested face-to-face is still a much-preferred channel for communication between government and citizens (Reddick and Anthopoulos, 2014; Reddick and Turner, 2012), social media has become a common choice for communication and collaboration between government and non-government stakeholders in China. The pervasiveness of WeChat as a work communication technology provides great opportunities for deep and sustainable incorporation of ICT in the governments’ engagement and collaboration with their stakeholders to provide and improve public services.

In sum, the administrative reform, e-government development, as well as the prevalent use of social media for daily work communication in China makes it an interesting field to study the governance and organizational form of e-government collaboration through the mediation of social media. In addition, recent policy promotion on further public digitalization (i.e., “Internet Plus”) led to a surge of e-government collaboration, providing a good number of cases on e-e-government collaboration that can be observed from an early stage.

in cities by the central government of China. In the area of e-government, this intense investment has translated into a more developed Internet infrastructure, more pilot projects on the application of advanced technologies, as well as more room for experimentation of new e-government development models. In December 2017, the central government of China announced a “Notice on the Development of National Comprehensive Pilot Projects on E-government”, listing Shanghai as one of the five regions to develop exemplary and systematic e-government solutions by the end of 2019, and showcased these solutions country-wide (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People’s Republic of China, 2017).

This notice affirms the top-rank position of Shanghai in China’s e-government development, making its administration an interesting field to study new ways of governing and organizing e-government collaboration. Figure 5 indicates the geographical location of the cases.

Figure 5. Case location (source: Google Maps)

In particular, I have chosen four cases of e-government collaboration, among the ongoing e-government projects in Lu’an and Shanghai. These four cases are selected primarily based on the extent of complexities and uncertainties in regard to the organizational form and governance of the projects, including:

First, all of the projects are the results of public-private collaboration that involve exchange of knowledge between government and non-government stakeholders.

Second, all of the projects have experienced changes in the range of stakeholders. The range of stakeholders may vary from less than 5 organizations to more than 50 stakeholders (both individuals and organizations).

Fourth, the majority of the project stakeholders in the four cases have experienced different degrees of ambiguities in role and task assignment during project development.

Fifth, most of the projects have shown signs of changes in organizing practices (e.g., use of technology, ways of decision-making and role assignment). Some of the projects have even undergone revisions of project forms, for instance changing from IT outsourcing contract to IT service contract, or from informal network to IT service contracts.

Moreover, my choice of cases was also influenced by the accessibility of the project. I had access to some of the e-government projects even prior to my choice of the research field. Accessibility as such helps me to attain a more comprehensive understanding of the local e-government environment.

In the following, I will briefly introduce each case and highlight the primary issues in the collaboration.

An extended account of the cases can also be found in each paper. Table 5 summarizes the overview of the cases.

Table 5. Overview of the characteristics of the four cases (Adapted from (Wang et al., 2017) Case 4 Observe Network Growing need for understanding the application of advanced technologies among all- levels of governments across the country Developing -Evaluation of implemented advanced technologies in public services -Understanding the potential of implementing advanced technologies in public services Case 3 ShanghaiOpen Data Application (SODA) Growing need for developing open data based initiatives among local governments and open data community Top-down policy mandate Developing and Managing -Potential Open Data Service Infrastructure -Open Data Driven Service Ideas

Case 2 Shanghai WeChat Service Top-down policy mandate; Growing need for mobile service apps among local governments Developing and Managing -Governments’ public accounts -WeChat based Government Service Platform (i.e., City Services Platform)

Case 1 Lu’an Municipal and District E-government Implementation Top-down policy mandate Developing and Managing -Government Portal Websites, Office -Administration Systems -Online Forum for Government-Citizen Information Exchange -Government Social Media (e.g., Weibo and WeChat) Accounts for Government Information Sharing

e l

Case 4 Observe Network 2 years (2015-2016) Interest Network Expanding membership with 6 reported participating government organizations Provincial and Municipal Government and Bureaus across the country

Case 3 ShanghaiOpen Data Application (SODA) 3 years (2015-2017) Interest Network; IT service contract; IT outsourcing contract Expanding membership with 8 reported initial participating government organizations Central Government Municipal Government and Bureaus (under the direct administration of the central government) District Government

Case 2 Shanghai WeChat Service 2 years (2015-2016) Public-Private Partnerships 14 + Municipal Government and Bureaus (under the direct administration of the central government)

Case 1 Lu’an Municipal and District E-government Implementation 9 years (2004-2016) IT outsourcing contract 4 + Municipal Government and Bureau District Government and Bureau

oject ration ganizational rm mber of vernment ganizations ture of vernment ganizations

Case 4 Observe Network Expanding membership with 6 participating non- government organizations Private Company (State- owned Enterprise, Small and MediumCompanies, Start-ups) University NGO WeChat and other real-time engagement platforms

Case 3 ShanghaiOpen Data Application (SODA) Expanding membership with 7 reported initial participating non- government organizations Private Company (State- owned Enterprise, Small and Medium Companies, Start- ups) University NGO WeChat

Case 2 Shanghai WeChat Service 1 Private Company (Mega Corporation) N/A

Case 1 Lu’an Municipal and District E-government Implementation 2 Private Company (Small and Medium Sized Companies) N/A

t ns n- t ns e

4.4.2.1 Case 1 Lu’an Municipal and District E-government Implementation

The Lu’an project is a series of IT outsourcing projects on the implementation of municipal and district level e-government platforms, in response to a series of top-down policy mandates regarding administrative reform and e-government development starting in the 2000s (see above). The project goal includes the development and management of government portal websites, office administration systems, online forum for government-citizen information exchange, and government social media (e.g., Weibo and WeChat) accounts for government information sharing with the citizens.

These e-government implementation projects concern four municipal and district level governments and bureaus (i.e., Lu’an Municipality E-government Office, Lu’an Municipality Internet Propaganda Office, Jin’an District Organization Department, Jin’an District Informatization Office), as well as two private companies (i.e., Longsun and Lu’wang Forum). Longsun is in charge of developing and managing the government portal websites, office administration systems, and government social media accounts for government information sharing. Lu’wang is in charge of developing and managing the Lu’an Online Forum for government information exchange.

The primary conflict in case 1 is around the distribution of work (e.g., Who is doing website design? And who is doing content creation?), and the decision-making authorities (e.g., Who would have a say in deciding which server is the best for hosting governments’ websites? And who has a say in deciding what to do when citizens complain about local public organizations in an online forum?) between government and non-government stakeholders. The government stakeholders showed a particularly strong interest in retaining the in-house expertise and authority on both social and technical matters, while the non-government stakeholders also needed to retain their expertise and authority on technical matters in order to secure their contract. The non-government stakeholders may also be concerned about social matters, as the users (i.e., citizens)’ satisfaction with the platform also influences the sustainability of their product.

These conflicts especially become more acute when the projects are under time or budget pressure.

4.4.2.2 Case 2 Shanghai WeChat Service

The Shanghai WeChat Service project operates under a strategic public-private partnership agreement between Shanghai Municipality and one of the largest IT companies in the country, Tencent Holdings Limited. The partnership started in 2015 in response to a top-down policy mandate to mobilize public services, and a growing need among local government to develop mobile service apps. Under the agreement, Tencent assists Shanghai Municipality and its subordinated units (such as the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau, Shanghai Police, and the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Taxation) in managing the governments’ public accounts on Tencent’s major social media platform, WeChat. In addition, Shanghai Municipality and its subordinated units have agreed to co-develop a digital public

The primary conflict in case 2 is around the distribution of work and decision-making authorities in different occasions. For instance, for the management of government accounts on WeChat, while government units have full decision-making power over content creation on public accounts, the content publishing process is limited by the framework design of WeChat, which has on occasion made Tencent more than just technical support in the management of public accounts. As for the public service provision platform, although government units can apply to provide their services on the WeChat public service provision platform, WeChat has the decision-making power to deny the request based on their evaluation of the potential traffic for a certain service.

4.4.2.3 Case 3 Shanghai Open Data Application (SODA)

The Shanghai Open Data Apps (SODA) project is a contest organized by Shanghai Municipality to award the best applications developed using open government data and among the first attempts to implement open data initiatives in China. The contest was at first driven by a growing need for developing open data based initiatives among local governments and open data community. The need was heated, as the premiere Li Keqiang made a public statement on open data in 2015. The first contest started in 2015, aiming to help the local government to establish potential open data service infrastructure, and to develop open data driven service ideas.

The contest was initiated and organized by a group of open data advocates that are affiliated with government organizations (i.e., Shanghai Municipal Commission for Economy and Informatization (SMCEI)), companies (i.e., China Industrial Design Institute (CIDI) Shanghai, Enerlong, Kesci), universities (i.e.,the Open Meta Nexus Innovation Lab (OMNIlab) at Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lab for Digital and Mobile Governance (DMG) at Fudan University), and NGOs (i.e., Open Data China). The scope of stakeholders has grown in scale as SODA turned out to be a huge success, and praised by state and regional media in 2015. New stakeholders such as district government, incubators, and investors have joined the organization of SODA in subsequent years.

It is important to note that in case 3, stakeholders adopted WeChat as the main platform for communication in the collaboration, especially during the first two years of the project. The organization of SODA at first took place in a chat group on WeChat where these advocates are members. In the chat group, each member shares his or her resources (e.g., knowledge, financial, and human resources) to drive the project forward.

The coordination for planning the project also takes place in the chat group, where all the stakeholders take part in making decisions on a wide array of issues, ranging from budget allocation to daily operations. The organizing group expands each year with new contributors from governments, companies, universities, and NGOs.

collaboration, and the interaction among the original stakeholders has also changed. Tensions started to emerge around the distribution of decision-making authorities, ways of interaction, and ideas of ownership.

4.4.2.4 Case 4 Observe Network

The Observe project is a series of network-based workshops initiated in 2015, in response to the growing need to understand the application of advanced technologies among all-levels of government across the country. The main goals of these workshops were to evaluate the implemented advanced technologies in public services, as well as understanding the potential of upcoming advanced technologies in public services. The network consists of government, university, and NGO actors across the country. The Observe project broadens the network of participants through both online (i.e., WeChat group) and offline participation in discussions, providing opportunities for governments to evaluate and control implemented IT projects and acquire new knowledge and potential human resources from the network of participants.

The workshops started with a close collaboration between Zhaoqing Municipality in Guangdong Province and Fudan University in Shanghai, and then moved on to other regions and a broad network-based collaboration. By 2017, the “observe” workshop had taken place in 7 municipalities (i.e., Zhaoqing, Nanhai, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guizhou, Chongqing, Yuxi) in China. Sometimes the local government proposed to host the workshop with a relevant topic in regard to technology implementation in government for discussion. Sometimes the discussion themes were chosen based on the needs of both government and non-government stakeholders. The topics could range from big data, open government data, to smart cities, and mobile services. Once the network agreed on the topic, the workshop took place in the hosting city.

At the workshop, the hosting municipality gave a full introduction to local e-government initiatives and addressed plans for next steps. The participants then gave feedback in regard to these projects. Interaction between participants is further supported by open online chat groups, which enable new participants to ask questions and give feedback on the implementation of IT-related public projects.

In case 4, the collaboration among stakeholders was characterized by multiple decision-making authorities among a network of governments, companies and universities and NGOs. The stakeholders also share knowledge and resources on a voluntary basis. Although there is collaboration behind “observe”, there are also concerns around the sustainability of the self-governing network.