Prioritizing public values in e-government policies: A document analysis

Abstract

This article investigates which public values are prioritized in e-government policies, what the connection is to governance approaches and how the public value prioritization can be explained. Strategic horizontal e-government policy documents are analysed from 2000 to 2018 in Belgium, the United Kingdom and the European Union. A public value typology is developed which connects three-ideal type governance approaches: (1) hierarchy, (2) market and (3) network. The results show that market related public values often play a dominant role in e-government policy documents, but so do – to a lesser degree – network related public values. Hierarchy related public values are seldom dominant. At the national level, four factors explain the prioritization: The attention for a specific governance approach at a given time, the influence of politics, the specific topic of the e-government policy document and the role of authors. Power distribution at the EU level plays a key role in defining the public values balance. This articles contributes to the knowledge on public values in e-government policies, the wider discussion on governance approaches in public administration and the need to understand the relation between public values and public value creation.

Keywords

E-government public values governance approaches

1. Introduction

As Savoldelli et al. (2014) argue, public administration actors around the globe have attempted to reform their public administration by relying on public governance approaches as well as on the use of information and communication technology (ICT). Especially in the last two decades, public administrations have in this regard turned to the development of e-government policies to modernize their administrations and service delivery to their users. There is an ongoing expectation that the use of ICT via an e-government policy will lead to increased efficiency and effectiveness, the end of silo structures and the offering of more personalized citizen services (Bannister & Connolly, 2018; Cordella & Bonina, 2012; Cordella & Paletti, 2018). An e-government policy, here defined as the approach on “the use of ICT in order to design […] or redesign information processing and communication practices in order to achieve a better government”, is influenced by the governance approach that is taken by the government and public administration (Meijer & Bekkers, 2015). Whereas in the 1980s and 1990s the traditional Weberian bureaucracy approach was criticized by New Public Management (NPM), more recent critiques on NPM reforms led to the emergence of other governance approaches and related public values (PVs). One can think thereby of New Public Governance (NPG) and ideas on coproduction and co-creation. Haug (2018), for example, argued that technological developments are putting pressure on the hierarchy related governance approach, leading to opportunities for the network related governance approach (Haug, 2018). Cordella and Bonina (2012) also argue that NPM has strongly influenced ways to assess the use of ICT by public administrations, as well as the use of those technologies via e-government policies.

Conducting an e-government policy leads to the need to prioritize certain PVs, which are ‘normative concepts that are used to give direction to public action and/or legitimize such action’ (Jaspers & Steen, 2018; Karkin & Janssen, 2014). Such a prioritization refers to the dominance of certain PVs in a policy. Current academic research shows a number of limitations in this respect, especially on the attention given to the transformative effect of e-government policies on PVs and related governance approaches (Terzis, 2017). Although the overall study of PVs has received robust attention (Bozeman, 2002, 2009; Jørgensen & Bozeman, 2007; Moore, 1995), the relationship between PVs, related governance approaches and e-government policies remains largely neglected, from a theoretical and, even more so, from an empirical point of view (Jaspers & Steen, 2018; Jørgensen & Bozeman, 2007; Jørgensen & Vrangbaek, 2011; Vrangbæk, 2009).

In this paper we aim to improve current knowledge of the PVs balance in e-government policies. A prioritization of certain PVs will take place when conducting an e-government policy and this leads to the fundamental question on what PVs and related governance approaches are present in e-government policies of public administrations. The following research questions guide the research: (1) What PVs are prioritized in the e-government policies of public administrations? (2) how are the PVs present in the e-government policies connected to a governance approach? and (3) how can PVs prioritization be explained? Research is executed via an analysis of e-government policy documents created between 2000 and 2018 by the Belgian federal administration, the United Kingdom (UK) central administration and the European Union (EU).

The paper continues with an explanation of the methodology that has been followed to conduct this research. Afterwards, and in order to be closely aligned to Section 4, the results section, the concepts of PVs and governance approaches are explained on the basis of the existing literature. This section helps to understand how the literature approaches the research questions. The concepts are defined and a typology which connects PVs and governance approaches is presented. The Results section presents the main findings of this document analysis with a focus on the prioritized PVs in the e-government policy documents and the factors explaining the potential change in the PVs balance. The Discussion, Section 5, focuses on the relation between PVs and governance approaches in an e-government context and builds a bridge between the public values and the public values creation by public administrations. A conclusion and forward looking perspective follows in Section 6.

2. Methodology

In this methodology section, the five different steps that are followed to conduct this research are explained. The overall methodology is presented in Fig. 1. First an overview of the case selection is given, followed by the document selection, the document analysis, the data analysis and finally the analysis reporting.

Figure 1.

Methodological research approach.

2.1 Country case and time period selection

Three public administrations were selected, two traditional national public administrations and the European Union (EU). It was decided to select Belgium and the United Kingdom for three reasons. Firstly, the two countries have a different governance approach, ranging from a more traditionally-oriented Weberian bureaucracy to strongly NPM-oriented structures, sometimes influenced by more recent governance approaches. An overview is provided in Table 1. Belgium has a stronger legacy of the traditional Weberian bureaucracy, with some influences of NPM and NPG. The UK was originally a Weberian bureaucracy, but evolved into an administration with strong NPM characteristics. Looked at from a European perspective, it is also clear that both countries have different governance traditions: Belgium has a continental tradition, whereas the UK has an Anglo-Saxon tradition. The different ways in which these public administrations are governed make an analysis of both cases relevant. A second reason for selecting those two public administrations is the fact that both countries differ in terms of their e-government developments. Since 2004 the United Kingdom has always scored higher than Belgium on the United Nations E-Government Index where Belgium has consistently scored slightly lower. Finally, both countries were selected for practical reasons as well. The authors have an extensive knowledge of the e-government policies, the overall governance approaches and political situations in the countries and the authors have a mastery of the languages of both countries.

Table 1
Case study countries: Targeted administrative level and overall governance approach

Country	Administrative level	Governance approach
Belgium	Federal administration	Originally Weberian bureaucracy, influenced by New Public Management.
		Experiments with New Public Governance and co-creation/coproduction.
United Kingdom	Central administration	Originally, a strong Weberian bureaucracy, reforms in 1980’s and 1990’s
	(non-devolved parts)	created a public administration with strong NPM characteristics.

Source: Pollitt and Bouckaert (2017).

In addition to the United Kingdom and Belgium, it was also decided to analyse the e-government policy of the EU. The EU cannot be regarded as a traditional public administration and can therefore not be compared with the other two public administrations. The Union has no competence in defining the e-government policies or strategies of member states (Publications Office of the European Union, 2016). It does, however, have an important impact on e-government developments for EU member states via legally binding and nonbinding actions in other domains where the EU has competencies (De Coninck & Van Hecke, 2018). EU member states do not function as self-standing public administrations that are not influenced by other public administrations. The EU is one key influence on public administration as shown by Hooghe and Marks (2001, 2003). The EU is to this end relevant to analyse, as there is the expectation that the PVs balance at EU level also influences member state administrations. At the EU level the horizontal and strategic e-government policies developed by the European Commission, the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and the Ministerial Declarations are examined. This can, for example, include Minister Declarations such as the 2009 Malmö Declaration or 2017 Tallinn Declaration, the Directives and Regulations that influence e-government development at the level of the member states or the nonbinding EU Action Plans on E-Government or the Interoperability Framework developed by the European Commission.

The period of analysis runs from 2000 to 2018. This has been a deliberate choice as it seems that the year 2000 was an important year for public administrations around the world initiating strategic and horizontal e-government policies. At the Belgian level, for example, it was decided in that year to launch a horizontal e-government organisation, In addition, countries such as Singapore and Brazil started to invest more funds in their e-government policies (Ke & Wei, 2004; Musafir, 2018; SPF BOSA, 2019). Whereas the UK and the EU already published a number of relevant policy documents before 2000, it was considered necessary to cover a period in which the three public administrations would have published horizontal e-government policies. Otherwise it would not be possible to make a comparison between the two national public administrations and the EU. Therefore we decided to focus our research on this period.

2.2 Document selection

Documents defining the horizontal strategic direction of the e-government policy were selected for the analysis. The concept of ‘horizontal’ e-government policies, refers to policies that are developed for the entire public administration. The policies are supposed to cover all different policy areas in which the public administration is active and are as such not developed for a specific policy area. For the two traditional public administrations (Belgium/UK) this implied a focus on non-legally binding documents as those documents define the strategic direction of the e-government policy. All the documents focus on the e-government policy as a self-standing horizontal policy domain and where prepared or co-prepared with the ministerial cabinets, by the administrative organisation that is responsible for the e-government policy of the administration. The documents are all of strategic nature and set the direction for the future developments of e-government activities. None of the documents have a technical or operational nature. The strength of working with strategic documents is the fact that they are more abstract and therefore often include more information on the prioritized PVs. At the EU level, both legally binding documents (Directives, Regulations) and non-legally binding documents (Action Plans, Ministerial Declarations etc.) were selected. The first category has a defined impact at the national level and is therefore of crucial importance for national e-government developments, the second category is more strategic and includes as such also a clear orientation to PVs.

The first step of the policy document selection was to define a list of policy documents that would be as complete as possible. To this end it was decided to apply a mix of purposive sampling and snowball sampling (Bryman, 2016). None of the three public administrations has a structured overview of e-government policy documents that were published by the public administration during the analysed period. As a result of this the authors were forced to make use of this combined sampling strategy: Some e-government policy documents of each public administration were, because of earlier research, known to the researchers. This can be labelled as purposive sampling. Those documents then served as an entry point for finding other policy documents to be included in the analysis: Based on references in the documents that were known in advance to the researchers, extra documents were selected. All documents were selected on the basis of three criteria: The focus had to be the horizontal e-government policy of the public administration, the documents had to be of a strategic nature and the documents had to be prepared by the public administration or in collaboration with the public administration.

Once a list of documents was created for each administration, random sampling was carried out on each of the three document lists whereby half of the documents were selected. Half the documents were selected for two reasons. First, there is a practical argument: It would have been impossible to analyse all documents due to limited resources. Secondly, and more importantly, each document requires a thorough analysis in the reporting. Analysing all documents would lead to an overload of information to be reported. An overview of the numbers of selected and analysed documents can be found in Table 2. A complete overview of all documents can be found in the Annexes 1–3.

Table 2
Number of selected document and analysed documents

	Selected documents	# Selection analysed documents
Belgium	20	10
United Kingdom	13	7
European Union	16 (8 legally binding texts/8 non-legally binding	8 (4 legally binding text/4 non-legally binding
	texts)	texts)

Choosing for a policy document analysis is a deliberate choice. Since research focuses on the period 2000 to 2018, there would be a strong risk for a memory bias if this research is conducted via interviews with civil servants. Besides the fact that it is impossible to recollect what and why certain decisions were taken over such a long period, also the ideas of individuals on values might change and would influence the research results. Secondly, we defined PVs as being ‘distinctive of an individual or characteristic of a group’. Policy documents fit this definition in an excellent way: They have been prepared by groups of people and can as such be regarded as disconnected from the individual level.

2.3 Document analysis

The PVs typology presented in Table 3 was used for the coding of the policy documents. The applied PVs typology has been obtained on the basis of one group discussion and four bilateral discussions. Each PVs was defined and in this way a comprehensive coding scheme was obtained. The coding itself took place in NVivo 12, a qualitative text analysis software. A closed coding approach was applied. Only those PVs which are part of the typology as presented in Table 3 were used for the coding in order to ensure that the document results are comparable. A sentence or word group could refer to one PVs or to several PVs, if the latter was the case then different codes where assigned to the same sentence or word group. In one sentence or word group references could be made to two or more PVs. Making the decision on assigning this sentence or word group to only one PVs would lead to biased results. So if this situation appeared, it was decided to assign the sentence or word group to the different PVs that related to it. The authors completed the coding: The first author was responsible for the coding of all the documents and the co-authors reviewed the coding process. In this way the authors were able to ensure that the data was always coded by the same person and that there was no difference in the way that the different documents were coded

Table 3
PVs typology according to governance approaches

Hierarchy related PVs	Market related PVs	Network related PVs
Responsibility to the citizen (X) Responsibility to the elected politicians of the day (X) Compliance with the law (X) Accountability to government (X) Rectitude (X) Responsibility to the enterprises (Z) Responsibility to societal organizations (Z) Protecting citizens from exploitation (X) Protecting citizen security (X) Protecting enterprise security (Z) Protecting societal security (Z) Impartiality (X) Political loyalty (Y) Judicial values/due process (Y) Accountability towards society in general (Y)	Efficient use of public funds (X) Respect for the individual (X) Service to the citizen in his/her different roles (X) Economy/parsimony (X)Responsiveness (X)Effectiveness (X)Efficiency (X)Service to enterprises (Z)Satisfying user’s needs (Y)Productivity (Y)Innovation orientation (Y)Service to societal organizations (Z)	Equality of treatment and access (X)Consulting societal organizations (Z)Balancing different interests (Y) Consulting citizens (X)Consulting enterprises (Z)Inclusiveness (X)Develop networks (Y)Consulting other administrative level (Z)
X $=$ Bannister and Connolly (2014)/Y $=$ Vrangbæk (2009)/Z $=$ Personal Addition.

Source: Bannister and Connolly (2014), Vrangbæk (2009), Personal Research.

2.4 Data analysis

Once the policy documents had been coded, the data for each document was grouped, weighted and interpreted. For each of the three PVs categories (hierarchy, market and network), the PVs were added up to get an overview of the total number of references to PVs in one category. After this, the data was weighted in order to make the results of the three categories comparable. This was a necessity since there are three PVs categories that each consist of a different number of PVs. The weighting was conducted as follows: The total sum of PVs references for each category was multiplied by the factor representing the balance between the total number of PVs (35) divided by the number of PVs for each category (hierarchy: 16 PVs, market: 12 PVs and network: 8). On the basis of the weighted data, the percentages were calculated to represent the results in a relative way, that is, one category represents a percentage of the total amount of PVs references found in each analysed document. By making use of this approach, the data for each analysed document could be compared and analysed.

2.5 Assumptions and limitations

There is a number of important limitations and assumptions which we would like to clarify before presenting the results of the analysis. Firstly, it has to be underlined that the number of documents related to the e-government policy of public administrations was too high for a well-executed qualitative text analysis. A first list of documents was created on the basis of purposive sampling and snowball sampling, as explained above, and on the basis of this list a random selection was made. The list which resulted of this random selection was then analysed. A first risk is that the purposive and snowball sampling strategy did not detect all relevant policy documents. A second risk is that the random sampling led to a loss of relevant information which is not included in the analysis. Secondly, PVs are a complex study object: We have for this purpose, on the basis of one group discussion and four bilateral discussions, made a precise selection of the PVs, left out PVs which did to not relate clearly to a certain governance approach and defined the PVs. However, the typology developed in this article is open for criticism and debate. Finally, a document analysis requires a certain level of interpretation: The PVs are all defined but there remains a risk for a certain interpretation which might in turn lead to an interpretative bias in the final research results.

3. PVs, governance approaches and e-government policies

By reviewing the existing literature on the concepts of PVs, governance approaches and e-government policies, we established a PVs typology connected to governance approaches. First, the concepts of PVs and governance approaches are clarified, afterwards the relation between PVs and governance approaches is analysed and finally this is done for the relation between PVs and e-government policies. Figure 2 presents the conceptual connections thereby referring to the structure of the paper.

Figure 2.

Literature overview and connection to results and discussion section.

3.1 Giving meaning to the concept of PVs

According to Kluckhohn (1952) a value is ‘a conception, explicit or implicit, distinctive of an individual or characteristic of a group, of the desirable which influences the selection from available modes, means and ends of actions’. Bozeman (2009) argues in this respect that it is questionable if a definition of PVs is necessary. According to the author there is no necessity in defining it as it is closely related to other concepts such as public interest, public value criteria or public goods (Bozeman, 2009). Nevertheless, the author does state that PVs are ‘those providing normative consensus about (a) the rights, benefits, and prerogatives to which citizens should (and should not) be entitled; (b) the obligations of citizens to society, the state, and one another; and (c) the principles on which governments and policies should be based’ (Bozeman, 2009; Bryson et al., 2014). What, however, is missing in the description of Bozeman (2009) is the broader link to society: The attention is only on citizens, whereas society encompasses more than just citizens. Government policies also target enterprises, non-profit organisations and other societal actors which are distinct from citizens.

In order, however, for the reader to have a clear understanding of what we mean with PVs, we can state, in line with Kluckhohn (1952) that public values are ‘concepts, distinctive of an individual or characteristic of a group, of the desirable which influences the public services offered by the public administration’. The elements which Bozeman (2009) brings forward will, despite rigid focus on citizens, function as guiding principles: They underline the relation which is established between state and society.

It is essential to clarify the differentiation between ‘public values’ (plural) and ‘public value’ (singular) in order to avoid confusion between both concepts. The concept of ‘PVs’ (plural) points to the input side and refers to the driving forces behind a certain decision or behaviour. This line of thought is represented by, for example, Bozeman (2009), and focuses on the policy or societal level. The public value (singular) line of thought focuses on the values of public managers themselves and the creation of public value by them. This line of thought is represented by Moore (1995). It refers to the output side and is focused on the performance of administrations (Bryson et al., 2014; Ho et al., 2018; Moore, 1995).

From an empirical point of view, a number of relevant studies have been published on the potential conflicts that might emerge between PVs (de Graaf et al., 2016; Hubert & van Hout, 2011; Reino & Jaakson, 2014; van der Wal et al., 2011). de Graaf et al. (2016) state in this respect for example that “in daily practice, multiple public values that are all desirable will conflict in such a way that choices have to be made”. This ‘conflictualization’ connects to our research: The prioritization of PVs can be considered as a first step towards a potential conflict. Public administrations will in their daily practices be forced to make certain choices on the PVs they strive for. Societal actors, the public administration, public servants, politicians or citizens might desire multiple values, but not all can be fulfilled. Therefore, a balance in the PVs will be aimed for. Some PVs will receive more attention than others, whereby the prioritization of certain PVs can change over time and certain values become more important than others (de Graaf et al., 2016; Hubert & van Hout, 2011).

3.2 Public governance approaches: Hierarchy, market and network

Pollitt and Bouckaert (2017) state that ‘governance’ is a concept that “appears in almost as many versions as there are authors writing about it”. Rhodes (1996) for example describes governance as “a change in the meaning of government, referring to new processes of governing; or changed conditions of ordered rule; or new methods by which society is governed”. Although it gives a first indication of what the concept can mean, thereby referring clearly to the role of government towards society, it remains vague and imprecise. It points in different directions and can include various aspects. What we retain from the description is the focus on the organisation of government in relation to society. Rijke et al. (2012) are more precise in describing the concept. According to them governance “refers to both processes and structures for steering and managing parts of societies”, entailing “the networks of actors, institutional frameworks and processes that take place within these networks and frameworks.” (Rijke et al., 2012). Once more we note a clear focus on the role of the government and administration in relation to society. However, the definition of Rijke et al. (2012) entails a normative element as it refers to ‘networks’, whereas governance can also take place in different forms, thereby not focusing on the presence and/or development of networks.

What is clear from both definitions is however that the government and administration orientation is a key element of governance. A ‘governance approach’ can as such be defined as ‘a method for steering and managing parts of society by the public administration’. Such a method is linked to certain PVs which are prioritized above others. Before going deeper into the relation between PVs and governance approaches in the next section, the three governance approaches will be briefly introduced. This paper looks at three ideal type public governance approaches: Hierarchical governance, market governance and network governance.

Hierarchical governance can be related to the ideal type bureaucracy developed by Max Weber. Meuleman (2008) attributes the following characteristics to hierarchical governance: “[It] accounts for top-down decision-making, strict internal and external accountability procedures, a hierarchical organisation structure, an emphasis on project management rather than on process management, strategy styles of a planning and design type, and a strong preference for legal measures.” (Meuleman, 2008). Hierarchical governance has been the most used governance approach in Western public administrations, although it has been criticized since the 1970s, leading to an uptake of the two other governance approaches by those public administrations.

The second governance approach, market governance, is related to NPM. A number of characteristics are related to market governance, such as the inclusion and focus on efficiency principles, the adherence to private sector approaches as well as market mechanisms, a customer orientation, increased attention for management skills, output-driven policy making, increased administrative competition instead of hierarchy when providing public services and contractual provision of public services (Hood, 1995; Kickert, 2001; Levy, 2003; Meuleman, 2008). Just like with hierarchical governance, also market governance cannot however be captured within a single definition. It is a broad approach which resulted out of the economic recession of the 1980s that has been (partially) implemented in various forms in different Western public administrations (Hood, 1991, 1995). However, what is always present in this governance approach is the ‘market’ element which “refers to market mechanisms and market thinking” (Meuleman, 2008).

The third and final governance approach discussed in this paper is network governance. It can be defined as “the ‘management’ of complex networks, consisting of many different actors from the national, regional and local government, from political groups and from societal groups (pressure, actions, and interest groups, societal institutions, private and business organisations)” (High et al., 2005; Kickert, 1997; Meuleman, 2008). Meuleman (2014) argues that network governance “is characterized by cooperation rather than coercion or competition, by trust rather than authority or price, and by interdependency than dependency or independency”. This governance approach will for example focus on the inclusion and consultation of the broader public in policy making and service development. Concepts such as co-creation and coproduction can be seen as part of network governance (Van Eijk & Steen, 2016; Steen et al., 2016).

3.3 The relation between PVs and governance approaches

Although the literature on PVs and governance approaches is elaborate, much less attention is given to the relation between PVs and governance approaches. This section aims to clarify this relationship by looking at currently existing empirical and theoretical literature, in order to present at the end of this section a typology that can be applied in this research.

From an empirical point of view, we see that some authors start from the potential conflict that can emerge between PVs to build a connection to related governance approaches. When such a conflict emerges, the actor confronted with this conflict will need to make a decision on which PVs are prioritized over other PVs. The research of Jaspers and Steen (2018) on PVs and coproduction starts from a need for prioritization of PVs and the potential conflicts that can emerge between PVs. Specifically the authors look at the use of coproduction – which can be considered as being part of network governance – as a governance mode to prioritize PVs and to deal with potential conflicts between PVs (Jaspers & Steen, 2018; Steen et al., 2016). The PVs are, in the research of Jaspers and Steen (2018), considered as the dependent variable on which the coproduction governance approach impacts as an independent variable. This causal relation is not put forward by Vrangbæk (2009) who analysed the PVs of Danish civil servants. In his analysis on the PVs of civil servants, the author finds a number of PVs that appear among different public organisations: responsibility, transparency, maintenance of judicial values, adherence to professionalism and innovation. The author found a clear connection to governance approaches and states that there is mostly adherence to hierarchical governance and clan-based governance – an approach not included in this study as there is discussion in literature on whether or not this governance approach can be considered as a separate approach (Meuleman, 2008; Vrangbæk, 2003, 2009).

From a theoretical point of view the relation between PVs and governance approaches remains also largely understudied. An example is the article of Jørgensen and Bozeman (2007) in which the authors identify a list of 68 PVs on the basis of a systematic literature review. The authors make no connection to governance approaches. Instead the authors make a connection to the different relations between public administration actors as well as between the public administration, the political layer and society. Other authors have however established a connection between PVs and governance approaches, such as Hood (1991) in his work on NPM. Hood (1991) argued in this respect that “different administrative values have different implications for fundamental aspects of administrative design – implications which go beyond altering the ‘settings’ of the systems” (Hood, 1991). Bannister and Connolly (2014) connect their typology, which is presented in Table 4, also to the research conducted by Hood (1991). The PVs typology of Bannister and Connolly (2014) and Vrangbæk (2009) are, because of their connection to several governance approaches, considered as highly relevant for this research.

Table 4
PVs typology Bannister and Connolly (2014)

Duty oriented	Service oriented	Socially oriented
Responsibility of the citizen	Respect for the individual	Inclusiveness
Responsibility to the elected politicians of	Service to the citizen in his or her	Equality of treatment and access
the day	different roles	Justice
Proper use of public funds	Responsiveness	Respect for the citizen
Compliance with the law	Effectiveness	Due process
Efficient use of public funds	Efficiency	Protecting citizen privacy
Integrity and honesty	Transparency	Protecting citizen security
Facilitating the democratic will		Accountability to the public
Accountability to government		Consulting the citizen
Economy/parsimony		Impartiality
Rectitude		Protecting citizens from exploitation

There are however a number of difficulties in both typologies. The meaning of certain PVs (‘proper use of public funds’, ‘facilitating the democratic will’, ‘respect for the citizen’) of the Bannister and Connolly (2014) typology are unclear. Furthermore, the connection to the governance approaches remains partially undefined. The duty oriented values are the only category of values that can be connected to a governance approach. Those values can be traced back to the sigma-type values of Hood (1991), which the last author connects to NPM. However, other authors connect some of the PVs in this category to the Weberian bureaucracy (Hondeghem, 2017). It has therefore been decided to leave out the PVs that had no clearly definable meaning and to rework both typologies to a new typology.

Table 5

PVs typology Vrangbæk (2009)

Hierarchical governance	Market governance	Network governance	Clan/professional governance
Accountability towards society	Satisfying user’s needs	Balancing different interests	Independent professional
in general	Innovation and service	Develop networks	standards
Judicial values/due process	orientation		Continuity and robustness
Political loyalty	Productivity		Due process
Public insight and transparency
Listening to the public opinion

In the typology of Vrangbæk (2009), presented in Table 5, all PVs are connected to a governance approach. However, also clan-based governance is taken on board in this typology. According to us this cannot be considered as a separate governance approach, and the focus lies in this research on three ideal-type governance approaches: Hierarchy, market and network governance (Bouckaert et al., 2010; Meuleman, 2008). There are two reasons for not including clan-based governance in the applied typology. In the first place there is discussion in the literature on whether or not this can be considered as a separate governance approach, whereas the three other approaches are generally accepted as the three ideal-types of governance (Meuleman, 2008). Secondly, the argumentation applied by Vrangbæk (2009) on why clan-based governance was included in the typology is unclear in comparison to why the three other governance approaches were included. It was therefore decided to not include the clan-based governance approach. Furthermore, some PVs (‘public insight and transparency’) presented in this typology did not belong solely to one of three categories or combined different PVs (‘innovation and service orientation’).

Recognizing however the strengths of both the typologies of Bannister and Connolly (2014) (Table 4) and Vrangbæk (2009) (Table 5), we decided to rework both typologies to a reworked version which is presented in Table 3.1

This reworked typology is used in this research and has been obtained on the basis of one group discussion and four bilateral discussions with different colleagues. More information on this can be found in the methodological section.

Based on the three governance approaches described above, the PVs of both typologies have been classified. It is important to underline that the PVs have been related to the governance approach they are most related to. The PVs taken from the Vrangbæk (2009) typology (indicated with a ‘Y’) have all been left in the same governance category. The PV ‘public insight and transparency’ has not been included in the typology, as this PV can, according to our definition not be related to any of the three governance approaches. ‘Listening to the public opinion’ has been left out since there is strong overlap with other the other PVs ‘consulting the citizen’, ‘consulting enterprises’, and ‘consulting societal organisations’. Finally, ‘innovation and service orientation’ is split in two PVs, as they can have different meanings and implications. Besides the Vrangbæk (2009) typology, also the Bannister and Connolly (2014) typology (indicated with an ‘X’) served as a building block for the typology. As this typology was not related to governance approaches, a reshuffling of the PVs took place to connect them to the governance approach they are mostly related to. A number of PVs were left out, because it appeared that certain PVs where difficult to operationalise (e.g. ‘proper use of public funds’, ‘facilitating the democratic will’), there was an overlap with other PVs (e.g. ‘accountability to the public’, ‘justice’, ‘due process’) or it was unclear to which governance approach the PVs could be connected the most (e.g. ‘integrity and honesty’, ‘transparency’, ‘fairness’). Finally, certain PVs were added (indicated with a ‘Z’) as they were deemed to be missing in the typology (e.g. network governance included ‘consulting citizens’ but not enterprises or societal organisations, to this end these were added). The final typology consists of 15 PVs related to hierarchical governance, 12 PVs related to market governance and 8 PVs related to market governance.

The strength of this typology lies in the fact that it continues on the work conducted by other researchers in this domain, who build their typologies either for the specific domain of e-government or have applied their typology in practice. Furthermore, the strongly added value of the typology is the clear relationship between on the one hand PVs and on the other hand the governance approaches. As stated earlier, this theoretical relationship between PVs and governance approaches was until now largely neglected and via this typology we aim to contribute to this relationship.

3.4 Approaching PVs in e-government policies

We wish to underline that the relation between PVs and e-government policies has only received marginal academic attention. A systematic literature review revealed that in most of the scientific literature on this topic there is, first of all, a conceptual confusion between ‘PVs’ and ‘public value’. Secondly, the PVs perspective is mainly used as a starting point, but without a clear introduction or clarification of their meaning, and finally, the authors often do not continue using the concept in their papers or for the argument that they aim to make. An exception to this are the results of Jørgensen (2007) and Palmhøj Nielsen (2003) who focused on Danish public sector organisations. The authors argue that the PVs of the Danish ICT Office shifted from traditional bureaucracy oriented PVs towards more NPM-oriented PVs. Interestingly enough they connected the PVs to governance approaches and used a highly similar typology as Vrangbæk (2009). Whereas at the start, the balance of the Danish ICT Office’s PVs was more inclined towards citizen equality, service quality and openness, those values were gradually replaced with increased attention for efficiency and productivity growth via e-government. According to the authors, this shifting balance in the PVs was a result of the changing governance structure in which the Ministry had more influence: It prioritized different PVs and was, because of its governance structure, able to prioritize also different PVs in the ICT Office. This is a highly relevant finding as it shows that the original values in the e-government policy of the organisation were replaced by NPM values (Jørgensen, 2007; Palmhøj Nielsen, 2003).

4. Results

On the basis of the typology presented in the previous section, this section presents the research results for the three studied public administrations. As the national public administrations are different from the EU public administration, the results of the two national administrations are first analysed and compared, followed by the EU administration. Following this, the relation between the national administrations and the EU is further deepened.

4.1 Belgian and United Kingdom public administration

4.1.1 Belgian federal administration

Figure 3 includes data on the Belgian federal administration. Within the analysed period there is a clear change of the PVs balance. The documents BE2000, BE2001, BE2004 and BE2004 (2) show a focus on market related PVs with a result above 50%. In those documents there is no changing trend concerning hierarchy related PVs or network related PVs: Hierarchy related PVs represent between 16% and 29% of the PVs, network related PVs fluctuate between 15% and 28%. More recent documents, from 2004 onwards, do not show a clear line of preference for a PVs category. BE2005 is balanced and BE2006, BE2012 and BE2017 mostly emphasise network related PVs, followed by market and hierarchy related PVs. BE2012 is the only document in which the network related PVs score above 50%. The two documents from 2011 stand out for two reasons. The first document, BE2011, was the results of a broad political crisis at the Belgian federal level leading to a financial agreement on e-government policy without any policy orientation. As there was no text in the document related to the e-government policy to be pursued, there were also no PVs as such included in the document. BE2011 (2) scored 62% on market related values, which was the highest score of all analysed documents. Overall, market related PVs are dominant in five documents, network related PVs in four documents – but only once with more than 50% – and hierarchy related PVs are never the dominant category, though several times hierarchy related PVs are the second category present in the documents (BE2001, BE2004 (2), BE2005). For BE2005, the hierarchy related PVs achieve almost the same percentage as the network related PVs, which has the highest percentage.

Figure 3.

Belgian federal administration PVs distribution (percentages).

Figure 4.

United Kingdom administration PVs distribution (percentages).

Two factors can explain the changes in the PVs balance in these e-government policy documents. The first factor is the public governance approach and the special attention devoted to a specific governance approach by the government. In the period 1999 to 2003 the Belgian federal government and administration developed the NPM-inspired Copernicus Programme to reform the administration (Depré & Hondghem, 2005). The government devoted time and resources on reforming public administration on the basis of one governance approach. After this period, the drive for NPM based reforms faded away and the overall interest in public administration reform on the basis of a specific governance approach disappeared (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2011). This change is visible in the data. Market related PVs are present in the first years, but decline immediately afterwards, whereby 2004 is a transition year. In later policy documents there is also increased focus on network related PVs (see BE2012 and BE2017). The overall focus on NPM reforms declined as new governance approaches started to influence the Belgian administration (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2017). Chantillon, Crompvoets, and Peristeras (2017) for example conclude that in the field of geospatial e-services the focus on network governance increased as well.

A second factor is the political situation which influences public administration. The data in the BE2011 (2) document, which has the highest percentage of market related PVs, followed by the BE2012 document that has, in contrast, the highest percentage of network related PVs, refers to this. This change can be explained by the political situation at the time. The 2011 document was the first e-government policy document after a policy standstill of almost two years (De Kamer van Volksvertegenwoordigers, 2014; Raeijmaekers & Maeseele, 2014). As a result, and because of an economically liberally oriented Minister, strong attention was devoted to the efficiency of the state and the administration. Furthermore, robust attention was devoted to user-centric service delivery, especially, but not only, towards enterprises. A year later, in the BE2012 document, it was underlined that in order to achieve the goals of the BE2011 (2) document, there was a need for more cooperation, both within the federal administration as with external governmental and non-governmental actors. The need for consultation was especially emphasised in relation to enterprises.

4.1.2 United Kingdom central administration

Data on the UK shows a shift in the PVs balance over time. Market related PVs are dominant in three policy documents (UK2005, UK2005 (2) and UK2011 (2)), whereby these last two documents have a score of more than 50% for this category, leading to low percentages for the two other categories. The hierarchy related PVs score especially low. Network related PVs in contrast are dominant in four of the eight documents (UK2011, UK2013, UK2013 (2) and UK2016) but never count for more than 50%, leading to a more balanced percentage in relation to market related PVs, but less in relation to hierarchy related PVs. In general, it can be said that the hierarchy related PVs always score the lowest, except in the UK2013 (2) document.

Looking in greater detail at the content of the different documents can explain why those PV balances are present and what the relation is between documents. The UK2005 document and the UK2005 (2) document were both written in the same year. Nevertheless there is a strong difference between both documents, with UK2005 having a more balanced presence of market and network related PVs in comparison with UK2005 (2). In the UK2005 document there is much more attention to inclusiveness of vulnerable groups and the consultation of enterprises than in the other document. Of interest in this respect are the authors: UK2005 (2) was prepared by the Cabinet Office, whereas the UK2005 document in contrast was written by the Cabinet Office, the UK Department for Trade and Industry – explaining the focus on consultation of enterprises – and the Social Exclusion Unit and Department for Education & Skills – explaining the focus on inclusiveness.

The UK2011 and the UK2011 (2) documents have a relevant difference as well. UK2011 is more dominant on the network related PVs but is immediately followed by market related values. The other document is clearly focused on market related PVs. The first document is the general Government ICT Strategy, whereas the other is a sub-strategy entitled “Government End User Device Strategy”. The difference between the two documents is explained by the much stronger attention devoted to network values, such as inclusiveness, the need to consult enterprises and the need to focus on the development of networks.

The UK2011 document is highly similar to the UK2013 document for the PVs balance. This does not come as a surprise as both documents are the general e-government strategies of the UK administration and are content wise also in line with each other since also the government did not change in this time period (UK Government n.d.). In comparison to the other documents of the UK, it is noticeable to see that the UK2013 (2) and UK2016 documents both score high on network related PVs and at the same time have a higher percentage of hierarchy related PVs than the other documents. This is explained by the fact that those documents are focused on the development of an Open Government, with a strong emphasis on the creation of networks and the inclusion of citizens, enterprises and societal organisations in the development of such an open government.

Figure 5.

Comparing Belgian and United Kingdom public administration PVs distribution (percentages).

4.1.3 Comparing public administration in Belgium and the United Kingdom

The overall balance of PVs in the analysed policy documents of both public administrations, as presented in Fig. 5, shows that the Belgian documents have a slightly higher emphasis on market related PVs as well as hierarchy related PVs. The UK policy documents devote more emphasis on network related PVs. Whereas the PVs balance in the Belgian policy documents can be explained by the attention devoted to a specific governance approach and the influence of a political situation, the key influencing factors for the UK policy documents seems to be the specific topic that is being dealt with in the policy document as well as the different entities of the public administration that are involved in the writing of the policy document. At the Belgian level, however, the two factors that influence UK policy documents do not have an effect as the public administration entity responsible for preparing the document is always the same – that is, the entity responsible for the ICT and e-government. Also, the Belgian documents are also not structured around one theme as is often the case in the UK. All topics are dealt within the same document. So no influence can take place.

4.2 European Union public administration

The third set of analysed policy documents comes from the EU. As discussed earlier, the public administration of the EU cannot be treated as a public administration similar to the national public administrations of Belgium and the UK. The EU is a collaboration between different countries with a public administration possessing various tools to influence the policies of member states, as has been demonstrated by, among others, Hooghe and Marks (2001, 2013).

The results for the different analysed EU policy documents are presented in Fig. 6. Market related PVs are four times dominant, twice having a percentages above 50% (EU2013 and EU2016). Network related PVs are three times dominant, also twice with a percentage above 50% (EU2006 and EU2007) and finally, the hierarchy related PVs are dominant in one document, also with a percentage above 50%. The hierarchy related PVs are however also six times the PVs with the lowest presence in the documents. A first factor influencing the balance of PVs in those documents seems to be the specific topic dealt with. The first set of documents that have a similar PVs balance between the categories are the EU2006, EU2007 and the EU2010 documents: All documents put network related PVs first, followed by market related PVs and hierarchy related PVs. This does not come as a surprise as the EU2006 and EU2010 documents deal with the development of interoperable e-services in the EU, which requires coordination and the development of cooperation networks in order to ensure the exchange of data and service building blocks. Highly relevant is the result of EU2004, the decision of the European Parliament and the Council on interoperable delivery of e-services, in connection to the documents EU2006 and EU2010 – both also focus on interoperable service delivery. Market related PVs are dominant in EU2004, followed immediately by network related PVs. The document focuses on improved service delivery towards internal and external governmental actors. EU2006 and EU2010, in contrast, put network related PVs first. The focus on improved service delivery seems to result in the need for more cooperation – with both internal and external government actors –, resulting in a shift towards network related PVs. Finally, similar to EU2006 and EU2010, is the document EU2007 on the establishment of a common ‘Infrastructure for Spatial Information’. This refers to the creation of a network – in this case for the exchange of data and information – and ways to stimulate cooperation.

Figure 6.

European Union administration PVs distribution (percentages).

The EU2013 document, i.e. the Directive on re-use of public sector information or the PSI Directive, shows a dominant focus on market related PVs. This data is in line with the overall aim of the EU institutions concerning the reuse of public sector information. The aim in the first place is not to give societal actors or citizens access to data to participate in policy making or to hold government accountable, but to support enterprises in their search for information (European Commission, 2018). This public sector information is in turn expected to lead to economic benefits and stimulation of the economic growth. This explains the market orientation when it comes to the PVs in the document.

Another relevant document is EU2014, that is, the eIDAS Regulation. It is the only document in the analysis with a dominance of hierarchy related PVs. This regulation aims to “enhance trust in electronic transactions” and relies thereby strongly on the necessity of complying with the law and the need to work on citizen, enterprise and societal security. The eIDAS Regulation is focused on access to public services in other EU Member States and is in that respect related to cross-border cooperation and interoperability. The analysis did not include key EU documents on interoperability, such as the ISA and ISA ${}^{2}$ Decisions, but is needs to be emphasised that those documents too are expected to have an influence on the national governance of Member States.

Finally, the documents EU2016 and EU2017, that are respectively the EU eGovernment Action Plan 2016–2020 and the Ministerial Tallinn Declaration on eGovernment,2

The Ministerial Tallinn Declaration on eGovernment is not an official EU document as it has not been produced by the European Institutions. However it has been agreed by the Member States under the Estonian EU Presidency (July – December 2017) and can be regarded as a highly influential document on this subject at EU level.

both have a dominance of market related PVs. EU2017 is however more balanced than EU2016, especially when looking at the percentages of hierarchy related PVs versus network related PVs. In the EU eGovernment Action Plan 2016–2020 the attention goes especially to serving citizens, efficiency in service delivery, satisfying the users and the need for innovation. There is, however, also consideration of increased internal and external collaboration. Hierarchy related PVs are present, but to a lesser degree. The Ministerial Tallinn Declaration is the most balanced document of all. This should probably not come as a surprise as it was agreed at Ministerial level and involved strong diplomacy whereby all member states had to find a compromise, leading to a document in which the three PVs categories are present. It should be mentioned that the Ministerial Tallinn Declaration builds on earlier Ministerial Declarations on this topic, for example the Ministerial Malmö Declaration of 2009.

Table 6

European Union administration – status and authorship

	Status	Authorship
EU2004	Legal	Commission/Council/Parliament
EU2006	Non-legal	Commission
EU2007	Legal	Commission/Council/Parliament
EU2010	Non-legal	Commission
EU2013	Legal	Commission/Council/Parliament
EU2014	Legal	Commission/Council/Parliament
EU2016	Non-legal	Commission
EU2017	Non-legal	EU Member States

Figure 7.

European Union public administration PVs distribution by author(s) (percentages).

Figure 8.

European Union public administration PVs distribution by legal status (percentages). Documents European Commission/ European Parliament/Council of Ministers: EU2004 – EU2007 – EU2013 – EU2014. Documents European Commission: EU2006 – EU2010 – EU2016. Documents Member States: EU2017.

Besides the topic focused on in the policy document, there seems to be another factor influencing the balance of PVs. Figures 7 and 8 respectively present the PVs balance for the policy documents according to the authors and the legally binding status. Table 6 provides an overview on the legal status and authorship of the EU policy documents. Figure 7 shows that, when the European Commission is the sole author of the document, there is substantially more emphasis on network related PVs and much less on hierarchy related PVs. When the member states are involved, via the Council of Ministers of the EU or via the unofficial Ministerial Meetings, then the market related PVs remain almost stable in comparison to when the European Commission is the sole author, but the emphasis on hierarchy related PVs increases at the expense of the network related PVs. Also the results presented in Fig. 8 are highly relevant: Documents with a legally binding status have a much stronger focus on hierarchy related PVs then documents with a non-legally binding status. Indeed, when a document is non-legally binding then the attention for network related PVs increases at the expense of the hierarchy related PVs. The market related PVs remain stable. Those results can be explained by the powers of the different actors at the European level: When the European Commission is the sole author, or when the document is non-legally binding – and is as such connected to the European Commission, except for the unofficial Ministerial Declarations, then the authors cannot rely as strongly on hierarchy related instruments as when the document is legally binding. So at the EU level, the powers possessed by the actors seem to influence the balance of PVs as well as the topic on which the policy document is focused.

4.3 The relation between national public administrations and the EU

The relation between the EU and its member states is complex. The EU and the member states have a distinctively different approach to policy making and to the preparation of policy documents. Whereas Belgium and the UK position their e-government policies in non-legally binding documents, the situation is different at the EU level. Different factors influence and explain the PVs balance in the policy documents. The Belgian and UK policy documents follow the governance evolutions and trends that are discussed in literature – with a growing diversification of the PVs balance in the policy documents, but those trends and evolutions are much less visible in the EU policy documents (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2017). The influencing factor here seems to be the power distribution among the different EU institutions. As Hooghe and Marks (2001) argue, the EU member states – in this case Belgium and the UK – no longer function as self-standing blocks. Both the EU and national levels influence each other. The results show indeed that when the member states are involved in the EU policy documents the balance of the PVs is different from when the member states are not involved. Member states are at the same time also being influenced in their policies by EU policy documents – for example, the open data policy, which is legally binding at the EU level and needs to be implemented as policy in member states.

5. Discussion

In this discussion section we focus on two particular contributions that this paper makes to the literature. The first contribution is related to the ongoing governance debate in public administration literature. For years, public administration scholars as well as practitioners have devoted attention to debate on various governance approaches and their presence in public administrations (Bouckaert et al., 2010; Dunleavy et al., 2006; Hood, 1991; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2017). This paper contributes to the debate on governance approaches in two ways. Firstly it takes a different viewpoint by bringing e-government perspective into the debate. As Pollitt (2010) states, the influence ICT has on public administration is to a large extent still neglected by public administration scholars, although the inclusion of ICT and e-government has the potential to transform the public administration. Secondly, by taking a particular public value perspective on governance approaches, we demonstrated that e-government policies are not focused on a single type of PVs which are related to one governance approach, but rather that a pluralistic PVs environment exists within the e-government policies – at least for the three public administrations analysed in this study. Taking a PVs perspective allowed us to capture this PVs pluralism, showing the complexity of governance approaches in public administrations (Dickinson, 2010). In line with Misuraca and Viscusi (2015), who “expected that the role of government will shift from being a central steering entity to that of a moderator of collective decision-making processes”, it can be argued on the basis of our research results that this is indeed partially the case if looked at the e-government policies from a PVs perspective.

Secondly, taking a PVs perspective potentially allows to better understand the public value that is created by a public administration. Savoldelli et al. (2014) argue in this respect that public value can only be created by a public administration if grounded in politics, PVs and evidence. Also Kelly et al. (2002) underline the importance of PVs for the creation of public value. In the introduction we paid specific attention to the conceptual difference between PVs and public value, but it needs to be clear that PVs influence the public value that is created. In order to understand the impact of e-government policies on public administrations and the public value that is created, a PVs perspective can used to this end. Cordella and Bonina (2012) state that market related practices have defined the way in which ICT has been implemented in public administrations, and that mainly private sector perspectives have been taken to understand the impact of ICT on the public sector. Taking a PVs perspective offers a different conceptual lens to understand this impact, and from our results it seems that other PVs have also received a substantial amount of attention, which in turn can influence the public value creation.

6. Conclusion

In this paper we aimed to contribute to a better understanding of the balance of PVs in e-government policies within public administrations. Three questions were formulated, (1) What PVs are prioritized in the e-government policies of public administrations? (2) How are the PVs present in the e-government policies connected to a governance approach? and (3) How can the PVs prioritization be explained? On the basis of two existing PVs typologies a new typology has been developed, with PVs structured around three ideal-type governance approaches (hierarchy, market and network). The results indicate that market related PVs play an important and often dominant role in e-government documents, but so do network related PVs – although to a lower degree. Secondly, hierarchy related PVs are seldom dominant and are typically in the third category of PVs found in the documents.

At the national level four factors emerged as having a decisive effect on the balance of the PVs in the policy documents: The emphasis on a specific governance approach at a given time, the influence of politics, the specific topic of the e-government policy document and the role of the authors. The first two factors were crucial in the Belgian e-government policy documents, the latter two factors were decisive for the UK policy documents. At the EU level, the power distribution among the different actors seems to be of crucial importance. In conclusion, and contrary to what is often claimed, those public values that are associated with market related governance have not disappeared, but such values no longer dominate public values. The results clearly demonstrate that a plurality of different PVs and related governance approaches exist within e-government policies in public administrations. This is promising as e-government has the potential to influence and transform the entire public administration.

There is a number of potential future research avenues. In particular we would like to highlight three of them. At the beginning of this article, the difference between public values (plural) and public value (singular) was explained. This article focused on the importance of public values in the e-government policies pursued by public administrations. As mentioned in the discussion it is important for a public administration to create value. The approach applied in this study can serve as a stepping stone to build a framework to evaluate the use of ICT. Indeed, the pursued PVs in e-government policy documents can be used to evaluate the policy outcomes of an e-government policy.

A second potential research avenue is the connection between PVs and governance instruments. In this paper the relation between PVs and governance approaches has been researched. Governance approaches are applied in practice via the use of governance instruments as Bouckaert et al. (2010) make clear. The data show that the market related PVs do not dominate the others and that network related PVs have gained importance in recent years. A question to be asked now is the extent to which this is also becoming visible in the applied governance instruments.

A final and third research focus is more theoretical and relates to the limitations stated earlier in this paper. A further refinement of the typology is advisable as well as a broadening of the scope of the studied public administrations. Also understanding the relationship between the policy documents and the civil servants behind those documents, via in-depth interviews, would help in further clarifying the importance of PVs in e-government policy documents.

As a final note, we would like to underline the potential policy implications of this research. In the first place the research has shown the need for policy makers to be conscious about the PVs that are included in the e-government policies of public administrations. The PVs choices that are made have an important impact on the direction of the policies and the horizontal nature of the policies implies that there is a potential impact on other policy areas. Secondly, the rather eclectic presence of PVs, which are related to different governance approaches, is likely to influence the applied governance instruments. At both national and EU level it will be interesting to see how policy makers will deal with the relation between PVs on the one hand and the application of governance instruments on the other hand – especially in light of the future e-government policy development in the three studied public administrations.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) for their support. The research pertaining to these results received financial aid from the Belgian Federal Science Policy according to the agreement of subsidy no. [BR/154/A4/FLEXPUB]. BELSPO did not influence the study design, the data collection, the analysis or the interpretation of the data. BELSPO has also no influence on the writing process or in the decision to submit a paper to Information Polity. The authors would furthermore like to express their gratitude to Mr. Heath Pickering (KU Leuven Public Governance Institute) for correcting the English language used in the article.

Annex

Annex 1

List of selected and analysed Belgian federalised documents

Analysed	ID	Document title	Status	Author	Publication
			(legal $=$ L/		year
			non-legal $=$ NL)
Yes	BE2000	Algemene Toelichting Begroting voor 2001	NL	Government/Administration	2000
Yes	BE2001	Algemene Toelichting Begroting voor 2002	NL	Government/Administration	2001
No		Algemene Toelichting Begroting voor 2003	NL	Government/Administration	2002
No		Algemene Toelichting Begroting voor 2004	NL	Government/Administration	2003
Yes	BE2004	Algemene Toelichting Begroting voor 2005	NL	Government/Administration	2004
Yes	BE2004 (2)	Beleidsnota informatisering	NL	Cabinet/Administration	2004
Yes	BE2005	Beleidsnota informatisering	NL	Cabinet/Administration	2005
Yes	BE2006	Beleidsnota informatisering	NL	Cabinet/Administration	2006
No		Algemene Beleidsnota van de minister voor Ondernemen en	NL	Cabinet/Administration	2008
		Vereenvoudigen
No		Algemene Beleidsnota van de minister voor Ondernemen en	NL	Cabinet/Administration	2008
		Vereenvoudigen
No		Algemene Beleidsnota Ondernemen en Vereenvoudigen	NL	Cabinet/Administration	2009
Yes	BE2011	Verantwoording uitgaven FOD FEDICT	NL	Cabinet/Administration	2011
Yes	BE2011 (2)	Beleidsnota Administratieve Vereenvoudiging	NL	Cabinet/Administration	2011
Yes	BE2012	Beleidsnota Administratieve Vereenvoudiging	NL	Cabinet/Administration	2012
No		Algemene Beleidsnota Administratieve Vereenvoudiging	NL	Cabinet/Administration	2013
No		Algemene Beleidsnota Digitale Agenda, Telecommunicatie en Post	NL	Cabinet/Administration	2014
No		Algemene Beleidsnota Internationale Ontwikkeling – Digitale Agenda	NL	Cabinet/Administration	2015
No		Algemene Beleidsnota Digitale Agenda 2017	NL	Cabinet/Administration	2016
Yes	BE2017	Algemene Beleidsnota Digitale Agenda, Telecom en Post 2018	NL	Cabinet/Administration	2017

Annex 2

List of selected and analysed United Kingdom documents

Analysed	ID	Document title	Status	Author	Publication
			(legal $=$ L/		year
			non-legal $=$ NL)
Yes	UK2005	Connecting the UK: the Digital Strategy	NL	Government/Administration	2005
Yes	UK2005 (2)	Transformational Government Enabled by Technology	NL	Government/Administration	2005
No		Digital Britain – The Interim Report	NL	Government/Administration	2009
No		Working Together – Public Services on your side	NL	Government/Administration	2009
Yes	UK2011	Government ICT Strategy	NL	Government/Administration	2011
No		Government ICT Strategy – Cloud Strategy	NL	Government/Administration	2011
Yes	UK2011 (2)	Government ICT Strategy – Government End User Device Strategy	NL	Government/Administration	2011
No		Government ICT Strategy – Government ICT Capability Strategy	NL	Government/Administration	2011
No		Government ICT Strategy – Greening Government – ICT Strategy	NL	Government/Administration	2011
No		UK Open Goverment Action Plan 2011–2013 – Enhancing public service	NL	Government/Administration	2011
		delivery through open government
Yes	UK2013	Government Digital Strategy	NL	Government/Administration	2013
Yes	UK2013 (2)	Open Government Partnership UK National Action Plan 2013 to 2015	NL	Government/Administration	2013
Yes	UK2016	UK Open Government National Action Plan 2016–2018	NL	Government/Administration	2016

Annex 3

List of selected and analysed EU documents

Analysed	ID	Document title	Status	Author (European	Publication
				Commission $=$ EC/	year
				Council of Minister $=$ CoM/
				European Parliament $=$ EP)
No		Directive 2003/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 November 2003 on the re-use of public sector information	Legal	EC/CoM/EP	2003
No		Proposal for a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on Interoperable Delivery of pan-European eGovernment Services to Public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens (IDABC)	Non-legal	EC	2003
Yes	EU2004	Decision 2004/387/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 April 2004 on interoperable delivery of pan-European eGovernment services to public administrations, businesses and citizens (IDABC)	Legal	EC/CoM/EP	2004
Yes	EU2006	Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament Interoperability for Pan-European eGovernment Services	Non-legal	EC	2006
Yes	EU2007	Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2007 establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE)	Legal	EC/CoM/EP	2007
No		Proposal for a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on interoperability solutions for European public administrations (ISA)	Non-legal	EC	2008
No		Decision no 922/2009/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 September 2009 on interoperability solutions for European public administrations (ISA)	Legal	EC/CoM/EP	2009
No		Ministerial Declaration on eGovernment approved unanimously in Malmö, Sweden, on 18 November 2009	Non-legal	EU Member States	2009
Yes	EU2010	Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions – Towards interoperability for European public services ( $+$ Annex 1/Annex 2)	Non-legal	EC	2010
No		Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions – The European eGovernment Action Plan 2011–2015 – Harnessing ICT to promote smart, sustainable & innovative Government	Non-legal	EC	2010
Yes	EU2013	Directive 2003/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 November 2003 on the re-use of public sector information – Amended by: Directive 2013/37/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013	Legal	EC/CoM/EP	2013
Yes	EU2014	Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market and repealing Directive 1999/93/EC (eIDAS Regulation)	Legal	EC/CoM/EP	2014

Annex 3, continued
Analysed	ID	Document title	Status	Author (European	Publication
				Commission $=$ EC/	year
				Council of Minister $=$ CoM/
				European Parliament $=$ EP)
No		Decision (EU) 2015/2240 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2015 establishing a programme on interoperability solutions and common frameworks for European public administrations, businesses and citizens (ISA2 programme) as a means for modernising the public sector	Legal	EC/CoM/EP	2015
Yes	EU2016	Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions – EU eGovernment Action Plan 2016–2020 – Accelerating the digital transformation of government	Non-legal	EC	2016
No		Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation)	Legal	EC/CoM/EP	2016
Yes	EU2017	Tallinn Declaration on eGovernment at the ministerial meeting during Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU on 6 October 2017	Non-legal	EU Member States	2017

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Prioritizing public values in e-government policies: A document analysis

Abstract

Keywords

1. Introduction

2. Methodology

Table 1 Case study countries: Targeted administrative level and overall governance approach

Table 2 Number of selected document and analysed documents

Table 3 PVs typology according to governance approaches

2.5 Assumptions and limitations

3. PVs, governance approaches and e-government policies

3.2 Public governance approaches: Hierarchy, market and network

3.3 The relation between PVs and governance approaches

Table 4 PVs typology Bannister and Connolly (2014)

4. Results

4.1 Belgian and United Kingdom public administration

4.1.1 Belgian federal administration

4.2 European Union public administration

5. Discussion

6. Conclusion

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

Annex

References

Table 1
Case study countries: Targeted administrative level and overall governance approach

Table 2
Number of selected document and analysed documents

Table 3
PVs typology according to governance approaches

Table 4
PVs typology Bannister and Connolly (2014)