This document summarizes a research study that examined the key factors and generation mechanisms that influence the performance of open government data (OGD) programs in China. The study used a mixed methods approach, combining regression analysis and qualitative comparative analysis. The regression analysis found that organization arrangement, legal and policy factors, and horizontal pressure from other governments had direct positive effects on OGD performance. The qualitative comparative analysis identified different configuration paths or combinations of factors that could lead to better OGD performance for cities in different regions and of varying administrative ranks. The study provides insight into both the direct influences on OGD performance as well as the complex relationships and generation mechanisms involved.

1. Government Information Quarterly 39 (2022) 101717
Available online 3 June 2022
0740-624X/© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/).
Key factors and generation mechanisms of open government data
performance: A mixed methods study in the case of China
Yupan Zhao a,*
, Yunjuan Liang a
, Chen Yao b
, Xiao Han c
a
College of Humanities and Social Development, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
b
School of International and Public Affairs, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, China
c
School of Public Affairs and Administration, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China
A R T I C L E I N F O
Keywords:
OGD performance
Generation mechanism
Mixed research method
Regression analysis
QCA
A B S T R A C T
Open government data (OGD) has attracted widespread attention and has been widely carried out on a global
scale. With further promotion, OGD performance becomes a hot topic and meaningful enough for in-depth
exploration. This research focuses on the influential factors and generation mechanisms of OGD performance.
Based on the resource-based theory and institutional theory, this paper constructs a model from multiple di­
mensions of internal resources and external pressures. Subsequently, from the 122 cities in China that have
constructed OGD platforms, this study adopts a mixed research methods approach, which combines the
regression analysis method and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). The regression analysis results show that
the organization arrangement, legal and policy, and horizontal pressure have direct positive effects on OGD
performance. On this basis, this paper use QCA method to explore the configuration paths for the generation of
OGD performance of cities in different geographic regions and at different administrative ranks levels. The QCA
results provide different configuration paths to achieve better OGD performance, which verified the conclusions
drawn by the regression analysis, also provides alternative paths for governments with different characteristics.
This paper enriches the studies on OGD performance and provides more targeted paths together with references
for the implementation of OGD.
1. Introduction
Countries and districts around the world are increasingly interested
in adopting the Open Government paradigm, and significant importance
and attention have been attached to the implementation of Open Gov­
ernment Data (Zhao & Fan, 2021a). It is widely accepted by researchers
that the open government data (OGD) initiative inspired the Memo­
randum on Transparency and Open Government signed by U.S. Presi­
dent Barack Obama in 2009 (Kassen, 2013). Afterwards, in a short
period of time, OGD has been widely adopted and applied all over the
world. According to the UN E-Government Surveys Report, a total of 153
countries have constructed dedicated OGD portals or platforms to pro­
vide government data resource and service for various stakeholders in
society (United Nations, 2020). Inspired by the potential values of this
practice, a lot of importance has been attached to OGD. The imple­
mentation of OGD contributes to improving transparency and account­
ability of governments by publishing the data resources held by
governments, increasing public's trust in government and fine-tuning
policy making processes and enhance citizen's satisfaction with their
governments. Moreover, OGD allows external data developers and firms
to utilize government data resources to create new services and prod­
ucts, which encourage innovation and have positive impact on the
economic growth (Dawes, Vidiasova, & Parkhimovich, 2016; Janssen,
Charalabidis, & Zuiderwijk, 2012; Zhao & Fan, 2021b; Zhenbin, Kan­
kanhalli, Ha, & Tayi, 2020).
Inspired by the significant potential values of OGD initiative, gov­
ernments around the world have devoted large amounts of resources
into the implementation of OGD. However, not all OGD projects can
achieve excellent performance. With the rapid promotion of OGD
practice, the OGD performance becomes a vital and hot issue for aca­
demic research and practical application. Scholars have developed
various implementation models and measurement indexes from
different perspectives to investigate OGD performance (Lee & Kwak,
2012; Veljković, Bogdanović-Dinić, & Stoimenov, 2014; Zuiderwijk &
Janssen, 2014a, 2014b). More importantly, factors influencing the
implementation performance of OGD have been explored and identified,
* Corresponding author at: No. 22, Xinong Road, 6# Building, Room 313#, Yangling, Shaanxi province, China.
E-mail address: yupanzhao0402@163.com (Y. Zhao).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Government Information Quarterly
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/govinf
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2022.101717
Received 24 November 2021; Received in revised form 21 May 2022; Accepted 22 May 2022

2. Government Information Quarterly 39 (2022) 101717
2
such as policy and legal factors, technical capacity, organizational re­
sources and potential risks (Janssen et al., 2012; Martin, Foulonneau,
Turki, & Ihadjadene, 2013; Conradie & Choenni, 2014; Yang, Lo, &
Shiang, 2015; Wirtz, Piehler, Thomas, & Daiser, 2016; Yang & Wu,
2016; Fan & Zhao, 2017; Martin & Begany, 2017; Zhao & Fan, 2018;).
Although the previous studies have discussed the influencing factors of
OGD performance, we noted that existing studies have paid less atten­
tion to external environmental factors, especially the inter-government
relationship and pressures from external key stakeholders. Moreover,
some studies have analyzed and verified the effects of various influ­
encing factors on OGD performance; however, the generation mecha­
nism has not been thoroughly explored, such as whether different factors
can be combined to generate high level OGD performance, whether
there are different paths for OGD performance, and whether there exist
complex relationship between different factors. OGD is a complicated
project, and the generation of OGD performance is affected by multi­
dimensional factors. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct research from
different perspectives.
Based on practical exploration and theoretical studies, this manu­
script attempts to construct a comprehensive analysis framework of
OGD performance from internal resources and external environmental
factors; furthermore, to analyze the effect sizes of various factors and
explore the generation mechanisms of OGD performance from config­
uration perspective. Specially, the analysis framework is built on the
basis of resource-based theory and institutional theory. Then, the
quantitative analysis method is employed to verify the effective sizes of
various influencing factors. The qualitative comparative analysis
method is adopted to explore the complex relationships among different
factors as well as the configurational paths or mechanisms of the gen­
eration of OGD performance. This research paper is organized as fol­
lows. In section 2, we systematically review the existing studies on the
influencing factors of OGD performance and summarize research space.
Theoretical foundations and hypotheses development are introduced in
Section 3. Subsequently, Section 4 presents the methodology and Sec­
tion 5 conducts the analysis and describes the results. Finally, the con­
clusions are summarized and discussed in Section 6.
2. Literature review
2.1. Review on the factors influencing OGD
The adoption and implementation of OGD faces multiple challenges,
the factors influencing the implementation and OGD performance have
attracted the attention of scholars. Influencing factors with different
dimensions are explored and identified, in general, these various factors
can be roughly categorized into internal and external fields.
The internal factors refer to the resources within government orga­
nization, which includes technical capacity, financial resources, human
resources, organization culture, legal and policy. Necessary organization
resources are the basic foundation of the promotion and performance
generation of OGD. Technical factor is the first challenge that govern­
ments take in considerations. OGD is not simply publishing government
data, but more importantly, ensuring the quality of data (Attard,
Orlandi, Scerri, et al., 2015). Some data are stored in unstructured for­
mats and are not machine readable by agencies, which restricts the
implementation of OGD (Yang et al., 2015). The data characteristics and
metadata standards are the major obstacles for the implementation of
OGD (Conradie & Choenni, 2014; Hardy & Maurushat, 2017; Martin
et al., 2013). Moreover, personal privacy protection and data security
are vital factors which lead to the hesitation attitude of governments
toward OGD implementation (Weerakkody, Irani, Kapoor, Sivarajah, &
Dwivedi, 2017). All these issues pose challenges to technical capacity of
government; hence, government are required to equip with certain level
of technical capacity to meet the requirements of OGD (Weerakkody
et al., 2017; Wirtz et al., 2016).
The implementation of OGD needs the support of financial resource
(Nam, 2015). The cost of the promotion of OGD exerts impact on the
implementation of OGD, especially when the benefits of OGD are vague
and unobservable (Zhao & Fan, 2021b). As a relatively new practice,
OGD are considered as “extra” task, which requires devoted effort,
resource and time. Hence, there is an urgent necessity to allocate
financial resource for this purpose. Otherwise, priority may not be given
and then affect the implementation and performance of OGD (Attard
et al., 2015; Weerakkody et al., 2017).
Being a relatively new initiative, much effort needs to be devoted to
the implementation of OGD. Hence, many governments resist to make
changes. Meanwhile, the implementation of OGD may break the current
organization status (Yang et al., 2015). In most cases, the specific work
of OGD is assigned to staff that already have defined and clear re­
sponsibility, without establishing or reorganizing specific public entity
responsible for the implementation of OGD (Attard et al., 2015;
DulongdeRosnay & Janssen, 2014; Zuiderwijk & Janssen, 2014a,
2014b). Therefore, the adjustment of organization structure and the
reassignment of employees responsible for OGD will affect the imple­
mentation and performance of OGD (Safarov, 2019).
Organization culture is another challenge for the adoption and
implementation of OGD. On one hand, OGD means governments should
publish data resources held by each agency to the public, which trans­
forming the governments from data holders to data providers (Ubaldi,
2013). However, most governments perceive the data resources as the
symbol of power and asserts, especially when conducting negotiation
with other agencies during inter-agency information sharing (Kassen,
2013; Zhao & Fan, 2018). Moreover, the income from providing the
public with data is an important part of government revenues, therefore,
opening data to society free of charge will have great impact on the
incomes (Yang et al., 2015). On the other hand, the risk aversion culture
of governments also affects OGD implementation. As a new practice of
government, OGD also faces multiple risks, such as perceived liability
caused by data error, data misuse and data security, so the risk aversion
culture is not conductive to the implementation of OGD (Wirtz et al.,
2016). On the contrary, a government agency with an open, innovative
and risk-oriented culture is more likely to promote OGD practice and
have an excellent performance (Martin & Begany, 2017; Yang & Wu,
2016).
Legal and policy related on OGD play a vital role in the imple­
mentation and performance generation of OGD. OGD is a complicated
project, which involves data licensing, data reuse, data ownership,
personal privacy, data security protection as well as potential liability
caused by data usage, therefore, specific law and regulation established
are crucial to the implementation of OGD (World Bank, 2015). Some
studies hold the point that the legal and policy is the most crucial
perspective that government agencies take into consideration (Ruijer &
Meijer, 2020; Yang et al., 2015). Legal and policy provides guideline,
rules and operational regulations for OGD. It is considered as the pre­
requisite for the implementation of OGD. Hence, legal and policy plays a
foundational role in the generation of OGD performance (Susha, Zui­
derwijk, & Janssen, 2015).
External environment is a critical factor influencing the adoption and
implementation of OGD. Government behaviors are affected and
restricted by the environment and various stakeholders they embedded
(Lee, Chang, & Berry, 2011; Shipan & Volden, 2008), especially the
various categories of pressure from external environment. Institutional
theory points out that normative and coercive pressures are main factors
affecting the behavior and performance of OGD (Bearfield & Bowman,
2016; Ingrams, 2017). Grimmelikhuijsen and Feeney (2017) indicated
that external pressures such as competitive pressure from other gov­
ernments at the same levels, coercive pressure from coercive regulations
and vertical political mandates, normative pressure from relevant in­
tuitions or individuals both have effects on OGD. Yang et al. (2015)
found that public opinions from open data pioneer and the general
public become significant driver to make governments attach great
importance to OGD and push the progress of OGD implementation. With
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3. Government Information Quarterly 39 (2022) 101717
3
the promotion of OGD at different levels, the importance of external
factors has become more prominent; therefore, more attention should be
paid to the effect of various categories of external factors, especially
inter-government relations, on the adoption and implementation of
OGD.
2.2. Research gaps and directions
Previous studies have explored factors influencing the adoption and
implementation of OGD from multiple aspects and provided theoretical
foundation for this research. However, the following limitations still
exist and need to be further improved: (1) first, with regard to the
research topics, although studies have identified factors influencing the
adoption and implementation of OGD from external environment di­
mensions, it is still necessary to further explore the impact of various
external environmental factors, especially pressures from inter-
government relationship and key stakeholders on the implementation
and performance of OGD; (2) as for the research content, researchers
have conducted studies on the influencing factors and the mechanism of
performance generation separately, it is urgent to combine the two as­
pects systematically in order to make clear the specific effect of various
factors and the paths for the performance generation mechanism; (3) as
far as research methods, most of the existing studies only employ single
method, qualitative analysis is helpful to identify and analyze the
influencing factors, quantitative research method focus on the effect size
of various factors. There is no perfect research method, but mixed
method can be employed to support each other to obtain more reliable
conclusions.
Hence, based on resource-based theory and institutional theory, this
paper pays attention to the dimensions of internal resources and external
pressures and adopts mixed method to conduct research. Specifically,
quantitative method is used to test the effect of various factors and the
qualitative comparative analysis method is employed to conclude the
configurational paths of the generation of OGD performance. The pur­
pose of this research is to systematically combine the influencing factors
and the generation mechanism of OGD performance to draw conclusions
more reliable and comprehensive.
3. Theoretical foundation and hypotheses development
3.1. Theoretical foundations
3.1.1. Resource-based theory
Resource-based theory (RBT) is a foundational theory that has been
widely used in different fields, such as operation management, perfor­
mance management and information system management and so on
(Barney, 1991; Bryson, Ackermann, & Eden, 2007; Kozlenkova, Samaha,
& Palmatier, 2014). RBT provides a systematic theoretical framework to
understand how organization resources can be combined and utilized to
obtain enhanced outcomes, which constitutes the foundation to identify
and insight the relationships between internal organization resources
and organization performance (Palmatier, Dant, & Grewal, 2007; Wer­
nerfelt, 1984). RBT indicates that organization is a collection of various
resources and only the resources that are valuable, rare and inimitable
can generate advantage (Barney, 1991; Kozlenkova et al., 2014). The
resources are categorized into tangible, human and intangible resources
(Chae, Koh, & Prybutok, 2014; Grant, 2005). Of course, RBT has been
accepted and applied widely in public administration studies to explore
the effect of organization resources, attribute on organization perfor­
mance (Lee & Whitford, 2013; Zhao & Fan, 2018; Zhao & Fan, 2021a;
Zhao & Fan, 2021b).
(2) Institutional theory.
Institutional theory holds the point that pressure exerted by social
norms and institutional expectations poses challenges to organizations,
meanwhile, organizations should conform and respond in acceptable
ways for important societal constituents (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983).
External norms constitute the fundamental social legitimacy of organi­
zations and have great impact on the behaviors and structures of an
organization. Hence, the mission and value of an organization must be
consistent with the surrounding environment and key stakeholders in
order to reach the social expectation and make sure their political
legitimacy (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Jun & Weare, 2011). It is
generally accepted that institutional pressures are mainly classified into
coercive pressure, normative pressure and cognitive pressure (Scott,
2001). The institutional theory is valued by scholars and has been
widely employed to explore the effect of various external pressures on
organizational behaviors (Fan & Zhao, 2017; Kim & Lee, 2012; Liang,
Saraf, Hu, & Xue, 2007; Luna-Reyes & Gil-Garcia, 2011).
This research constructs research model based on resource-based
theory and institutional theory. Specifically, the internal resources
such as financial resource, organization arrangement, organization
culture and policy are studied based on resource-based theory; the
pressure from superior government, neighborhood governments as well
as social media are investigated on the grounds of institutional theory.
The concrete hypotheses are developed in the following section.
3.2. Hypotheses development
3.2.1. Internal resources
3.2.1.1. Financial resource (FR). Financial resource (FR) refers to all the
funds at the disposal of government departments, which reflects the
adequacy of capital that governments can devote in various public af­
fairs activities. Organization resource especially the financial resource
plays a foundational role in affecting organization behavior and per­
formance (Zhenbin et al., 2020). The characteristics of multi-tasking and
budget constraint of government agencies determine that the imple­
mentation of OGD has to compete for financial resource allocation with
other existing operations, but OGD is not the core obligation for gov­
ernments, therefore, priority is not given to OGD, which influences the
implementation and performance of OGD (Taylor, 2018; Yang et al.,
2015). Governments with sufficient financial resource are more likely to
conduct innovation, therefore, sufficient financial resource can either
promote the implementation of OGD practice or affect the performance
level (Attard et al., 2015; Berry & Berry, 1990; Zhao & Fan, 2021b). So,
we propose that:
H1. the more sufficient financial resource, the higher level of OGD
performance.
3.2.1.2. Organization arrangement (OA). Organization arrangement
(OA) refers to the deployment and adjustment of organization structure
in order to complete a certain task. Organization arrangement (OA) can
reflect the human resource allocation, authority and coordination
capability of government agency to complete a certain task. On one
hand, the implementation of OGD is a complex project with huge
workload, therefore, the extra workload of the implementation of OGD
will pose great challenges on the equipment of staffing of the organi­
zation. Hence, the establishment of specific agency provides sufficient
human resource for OGD (DulongdeRosnay & Janssen, 2014; Grimme­
likhuijsen & Feeney, 2017; Yang et al., 2015). On the other hand, or­
ganization adjustment represents the government support and leader
participation. Researches point out that leader participation especially
by the top manager will enhance the attention attached to OGD imple­
mentation (World Bank, 2015). Moreover, focused, reliable, strong and
sustainable leadership is indispensable to overcome obstacles and re­
sistances, the stronger leadership, the easier to open data to the public
(Askim, Johnsen, & Christophersen, 2008; Lee & Kwak, 2012; Zhang &
Chen, 2015). Consequently, we develop the following hypothesis:
H2. Organization Arrangement (OA) is positively associated with OGD
performance.
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4. Government Information Quarterly 39 (2022) 101717
4
3.2.1.3. Organization culture (OC). OGD is an innovative government
practice for most governments and it has certain risks; organization
culture greatly affects the attitude of government toward the imple­
mentation of OGD. On one hand, in OGD practice, governments may be
held accountable due to data errors, data misuse, personal privacy and
other issues (Yang & Wu, 2016); on the other hand, the value and
benefits of OGD are not clear, therefore, governments are hesitant to
implement OGD, or are unwilling to fully open the truly valuable data
resources (Conradie & Choenni, 2014). The organization culture of risk
aversion challenges the implementation and performance of OGD. In the
field of innovation diffusion study, the openness of government is
positively related to innovation adoption and diffusion (Wu & Zhang,
2016; Zhu & Zhang, 2015). Some scholars have pointed out that orga­
nization culture with the characteristics of innovative, openness and risk
preferences are benefit for the implementation and better OGD perfor­
mance (Martin & Begany, 2017; Yang & Wu, 2016; Zhao & Fan, 2021b).
Therefore, we believe that organization with opening organization
culture is more likely to accept innovation and tolerate potential risks
such as OGD. On this basis, we hypothesize that:
H3. The more openness of government, the higher level of OGD
performance.
3.2.1.4. Legal and policy (LP). Legal and policy (LP) in this study refers
specifically to the legal and policies issued by the government regarding
OGD. Organization behavior is restricted by the related rules and pol­
icies, which strictly stipulates the content, direction, and focus of gov­
ernment operations (Kassel, 2008). Studies have proved that rule and
policy affect government performance significantly and appealed for
government to pay more attention to institution construction (Lee &
Kwak, 2012). The legal and policy provides specifies of the scope, con­
tent, data format, data management, privacy and data security issues of
OGD, which provides guidelines or implementation frameworks and
helps to avoid obstacles for the implementation of OGD (Janssen et al.,
2012; Safarov, Meijer, & Grimmelikhuijsen, 2017). In the field of e-
government and OGD research, many studies have shown that legal and
policy of government organization has significant impact on the per­
formance of government informatization projects (Jun & Weare, 2011;
Tolbert, Mossberger, & McNeal, 2008; Yang et al., 2015; Zhao & Fan,
2021a). Hence, we put forward the following hypothesis:
H4. legal and policy exert positive effect on the performance of OGD.
3.2.2. External pressures
3.2.2.1. Vertical pressure (VP). Vertical pressure (VP) refers to the in­
fluence exerted by the actions of superior government on the lower-level
governments, including the specific measures taken, policy issued and
signals released by superior government. Vertical pressure (VP) high­
lights the pressure from superior government. The realization of vertical
influencing mechanism relies on the premise that local government is
perceived as the passive recipients in the hierarchy structure. Hence, the
superior government can affect the behavior and performance of sub­
ordinate governments through vertical leadership relations (Zhu, 2014;
Zhu & Zhang, 2019). The command or behavior of superior government
agency is a major driven force to promote governments to adopt and
implement OGD (Zuiderwijk, Janssen, & Dwivedi, 2015, Zuiderwijk,
Susha, Charalabidis, Parycek, & Janssen, 2015). Moreover, in countries
with authoritarian system, government officials are selected and
appointed by superior government, and the superior government
completely determines the political careers of subordinate government
officials, therefore, lower-level governments must comply with the
policy and behavior of superior government (Choi, 2012; Ma, 2013; Zhu
& Zhang, 2019). Prior research have proposed that regulation, policy
signals and behavior of superior authorities generate pressure on lower-
level government agency and further effect on its behavior(Fan & Zhao,
2017; Zheng, Chen, Huang, & Zhang, 2013). On this basis, we propose
that:
H5. vertical pressure is positively correlated with OGD performance.
3.2.2.2. Horizontal pressure (HP). Horizontal pressure (HP) refers to the
influence exerted by the government at the same level, especially the
adjacent governments or the governments at the same level under the
jurisdiction of the same administrative region. Among horizontal re­
lations of governments, the competition mechanism is the most con­
cerned by researchers, which emphasizes that government behavior is
affected by geographically adjacent areas, and scholars pay special
attention to the economic and political competition between neigh­
boring governments (Berry & Berry, 1990; Shipan & Volden, 2008;
Zhang & Zhu, 2019). For innovative practice such as OGD, in order to
maintain competitiveness, government agencies are reluctant to fall
behind other governments at the same level in the implementation of
OGD (Grimmelikhuijsen & Feeney, 2017). Ma (2013) verified that
horizontal completion affects the adoption and implementation of
government microblogging significantly in China. Similar, scholar also
pointed out that the level of government transparency is mainly divined
by government competition (Bearfield & Bowman, 2016). Therefore, we
also hold the idea that the implementation and performance generation
of OGD is affected by the competition of governments at the same level
or neighboring governments. Hence, the following hypothesis is put
forward:
H6. horizontal pressure affects OGD performance positively.
3.2.2.3. Media pressure (MP). Media pressure (MP) refers to the impact
imposed by media reports or commentary about certain issue on gov­
ernment behaviors. Governments should also comply with the normal
pressure which generated by the values and norms accepted widely by
vital stakeholders in the field (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983), such as in­
dustries association, authoritative research groups, and social media.
Prior studies have put forward that the reports and commentaries of the
media act as a vital role to impel governments to adopt and implement
OGD practice (Barry & Bannister, 2014; Fan & Zhao, 2017; Yang et al.,
2015; Yang & Wu, 2014; Yang & Wu, 2016). Many government agencies
are unfamiliar and confused with the contents and values of OGD, which
leads to poor attention and priority attached to the implementation of
OGD (DulongdeRosnay & Janssen, 2014; Hardy & Maurushat, 2017;
Zuiderwijk, Janssen, & Dwivedi, 2015; Zuiderwijk, Susha, et al., 2015).
Medias reports on the value and implementation of OGD can provide
information and references for governments, and at the same time, it
also brings pressure to government agencies and promotes governments
to realize the necessity and significance to adopt and implement OGD.
Hence, we hypothesize that:
H7. MP has a significant positive effect on OGD performance.
As shown in Fig. 1, we construct the research model based on the
hypotheses mentioned above.
4. Methodology
4.1. Sample and data collection
The report of E-Government Survey 2020 indicates that the e-gov­
ernment development index (EGDI) of China has increased from 0.6811
in 2018 to 0.7948 in 2020, and the ranking has increased by 20 places
over 2018. As a core content of e-government, OGD has been adopted
and implemented by most government agencies in China. According to
the China Open Data Index report issued by DMG Lab of Fudan Uni­
versity, 122 cities in China have built OGD platforms. Therefore, this
study takes these 122 municipal cities in China that have implemented
OGD practice as research samples.
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5. Government Information Quarterly 39 (2022) 101717
5
The China Open Data Index report issued by DMG Lab of Fudan
University combined international OGD evaluation projects and the
practice of OGD in China, constructed indicators system and adopted
scientific compute method to obtain the rank of OGD performance. This
index is the most authoritative and representative index to reflect the
OGD implementation performance in China that has been used by
governments, media and scholars. Hence, this index is employed to
measure the OGD performance in this study. China Open Data Index
provides the ranking of each city, that is, the smaller the value, the
higher its performance. In order to better interpret the results, we
convert the ranking data, employing the ratio of the number of other
cities whose performance ranking surpassed to the total number of cit­
ies. For example, there are a total of 120 cities with open data rankings,
and a certain city ranks 5, then the performance of this city can be
calculated as (120–5)/120 = 0.958.
Based on previous study (Ma, 2013), financial resource is measured
by the general public budget expenditure of each city, which can be
obtained from the China City Statistical Yearbook of 2020. The coordi­
nation and leadership capacity vary with the types of departments
responsible for the implementation of OGD, therefore, we use the type of
agency responsible for OGD to measure the variable of organization
arrangement. Specifically, this study assigns a value of 3 for component
agencies that are responsible for the implementation of OGD, which
have the strongest leadership; a value of 2 for the types of agencies that
directly affiliated of local government or specialized data management
agency, a value of 1 for the cities that have not assigned a specific
government agency to be responsible for OGD. Economic openness and
political openness are highly correlated (Friedman, 1962; North, Walls,
& Weingast, 2009), hence, based on existing research, the marketization
index is used as an indicator of the openness of government agency. The
values can be obtained from the China Marketization Index Report.
Legal and policy is measured by the policies and regulations issued by
government, which can be retrieved from the government websites. The
vertical pressure is measured by whether the provincial government
adopts OGD, and 1 denotes adopted and 0 not. We use the max value of
Open Data Index of cities in this province as indicator for horizontal
pressure; if there is only one city conduct OGD practice, the horizontal
pressure is represented by the maximum value of Open Data Index in the
neighboring provinces. We use the number of media reports on OGD of
this province to measure media pressure. The data comes from the
important Newspaper Databases of CNKI, which is an authoritative and
widely accepted database.
According to the existing research and the characteristics of munic­
ipal cities in China, we selected three control variables: geographical
distribution, administrative rank, economic development. The
geographical distribution of cities may affect the government behavior
(Ma, 2013). We introduce two dummies for central and easter regions
are controlled, using the western region as reference category. In addi­
tion, we also control the administrative rank of cities. We use the ordi­
nary municipal cities as reference, and set two dummies to represent the
other types of cities: municipalities with independent planning status or
sub-provincial cities, and ordinary capital cities. Finally, this research
controls the economic development level and the logarithm of GDP per
capita is used to gauge the economic development level. The data for
these control variables are obtained from the Statistical Yearbook of
2020 of each city. Variable description and measurement are summa­
rized in Appendix 1 at the end of this study.
4.2. Methods
Traditional regression analysis is useful in solving the linear re­
lationships between single variable and the dependent variable, espe­
cially the marginal effects on the independent variables. It is effective for
identifying and testing the relationships and effect size between inde­
pendent variables and dependent variable. However, regression analysis
is difficult to explore the fit relationship and configuration paths be­
tween different variables. Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is a
set analysis method which considers that the influence of variables on
results is not independent, and its significance and function depend on
its combination with other variables. QCA regards the cases studied as
the configuration of conditions and attributes. The configuration anal­
ysis is achieved through sets analysis, that is, QCA employ set theory to
conceptualize the causal conditions and results of the study, and analyze
the relationship between subsets. Specifically, sets research is to select
the calibration criterion for research object according to certain theo­
retical or practical knowledge, and to calibrate the research conditions
and outcome variables as the set membership of the case. And then,
revealing complex causal relationships by analyzing the sufficiency and
necessity of the condition or the combinations of conditions for outcome
(Ragin, 2008). In QCA analysis, researchers can find out the logical
relationship between the matching patterns of various conditions and
results through cross-case comparison, that is, which configuration of
condition variables can lead to the emergence of outcome variable. And
then, identifying the synergistic effects of multiple conditional variables
Geographical Distribution
Administrative Rank
Economic Development
Control Variables
Financial Resource (FR)
Organization Arrangement (OA)
Organization Culture (OC)
Legal and Policy (LP)
Resource-Based Theory
OGD Performance
(OGDP)
Vertical Pressure (VP)
Horizontal Pressure (HP)
Media Pressure (MP)
Institutional Theory
Fig. 1. Research model.
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6. Government Information Quarterly 39 (2022) 101717
6
on the premise of recognizing the complexity of causality. QCA method
can explain that different combinations of conditional variables may
produce the same results, focusing on the complex and interacting be­
tween different variables. Researcher can identify condition configura­
tions with equivalent outcomes, which can help to understand the
different driving mechanisms that lead to the same outcome in various
cases, thereby, discussing the matching and substitution relationship
between conditions. QCA has been employed to identify the configura­
tional paths and mechanism of the generation of performance. There­
fore, first, this study constructs theoretical model and employ regression
analysis method to test the influencing factors of OGD performance;
second, based on the analysis results, the QCA method is employed to
identify the configurational paths for high OGD performance and
conclude the mechanism for performance generation.
5. Analyses and results
5.1. Regression analysis
Before conducting regression analysis, we first carry out descriptive
statistical analysis to present the data distribution, as shown in Table 1.
The description results present that the value of independent variables
has significant differences among the research samples, which may
affect the ranking of OGD performance. Furthermore, we present the
correlation coefficient matrix of the variables, as shown in Table 2. We
find that the independent variables of financial resource (FR), organi­
zation culture (OC), legal and policy (LP) and horizontal pressure (HP)
are correlated with OGD performance significantly. These results pre­
liminarily verify the research hypotheses proposed in previous section.
Next, we use regression analysis method to test the effect and signifi­
cance of the independent variables on OGD performance. Tables 3 report
the collinearity test results. The VIF (Variation Inflation Factor) values of
all the independent variables. Based on previous studies (Lenart-Gan­
siniec, 2021; Arshad & Klurram, 2020; Hair, Black, Babin, & Anderson,
2010; Hair, Sarstedt, Pieper, & Ringle, 2012), the VIF values are all
lower than 5, indicating that there is no collinearity between the
variables and the following analysis can be conducted.
On this basis, this study employs the least squares regression analysis
to estimate the effect and significance of the independent variables on
OGD performance. The controls variables of geographic location,
administrative ranking and economic development are included in the
research model as control variables. Model 1 of Table 4 only contains
control variables, and internal resources variables are added in model 2,
finally, the model 3 includes all variables. The specific results are shown
in Table 4.
Based on the results presented in model 2 and model 3, we find that
the coefficient of FR is not significant (ß = 0.031, p > 0.05; ß = 0.009, p
> 0.05), indicating that H1 is not supported. Although financial resource
plays an important role in influencing government behaviors, it is not
the decisive factor in the generation of OGD performance. It is not
enough for government to have sufficient resource, the OGD perfor­
mance will also be affected by many other factors. Designating or setting
up a special agency to be responsible for the implementation of OGD is
vital for the generation of high OGD performance. Compared with the
fact that there is no special department responsible for the imple­
mentation of OGD, the coefficient of the affiliated agency responsible for
OGD are 0.362 and 0.341, the significance level is 0.001; the coefficient
of the component agency responsible for OGD are 0.331 and 0.315, the
significance level is 0.001. The results prove H2, that is, organization
Table 1
Data description.
Variable Observation Mean Std.
Dev.
Min Max
Dependent variable
OGD performance (OGDP) 122 0.50 0.29 0 0.99
Independent variables
Financial Resource (FR) 122 2.67 0.31 2.00 3.66
Organization Arrangement
(OA)
122 2.02 0.94 1 3
Component agency 55
Affiliated agency 15
None 52
Organization Culture (OC) 122 8.40 2.08 1.42 10.96
Legal and Policy (LP) 122 0.34 0.72 0 5
Vertical Pressure (VP) 122 0.86 0.35 0 1
Province adoption 105
No province adoption 17
Horizontal Pressure (HP) 122 0.84 0.21 0.20 0.99
Media Pressure (MP) 122 0.25 0.81 0 6
Control variables
Geographical Distribution 122 2.25 0.86 1 3
Eastern 63
Central 26
Western 33
Administrative Ranking 122 1.22 0.60 1 3
Vice-province city 11
Ordinary capital city 5
Prefecture level city 106
Economic Development 122 4.81 0.23 4.23 5.32
Table 2
Correlation coefficient.
OGDP FR OC PL HP MD
OGD performance (OGDP) 1.00
Financial Resource (FR) 0.39* 1.00
Organization Culture (OC) 0.40* 0.39* 1.00
Legal and Policy (LP) 0.46* 0.28* 0.07 1.00
Horizontal Pressure (HP) 0.51* 0.23 0.61* 0.15 1.00
Media Pressure (MP) 0.19 0.36* 0.05 0.38* 0.11 1.00
Note: *p < 0.05.
Table 3
Results of collinearity test.
Variables VIF
Financial Resource (FR) 2.54
Organization Culture (OC) 4.45
Legal and Policy (LP) 1.42
Horizontal Pressure (HP) 3.12
Media Pressure (MP) 1.44
Table 4
Regression analysis results.
Variables Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Financial Resource (FR) 0.031 0.009
Organization Arrangement (OA)
Affiliated agency 0.362*** 0.341***
Component agency 0.331*** 0.315***
Organization Culture (OC) − 0.014 − 0.027
Legal and Policy (LP) 0.105*** 0.099***
Vertical Pressure (VP) − 0.008
Horizontal Pressure (HP) 0.265*
Media Pressure (MP) − 0.003
Geographical distribution distribution
Central − 0.009 0.005 0.066
Eastern 0.288*** 0.152** 0.170**
Administrative raking
Ordinary capital city − 0.009 − 0.181* − 0.111
Vice province city 0.241** 0.140* 0.138*
Economic Development − 0.001 − 0.031 0.044
_cons 0.333 0.234 − 0.052
R2
0.347 0.742 0.754
F 12.31*** 31.99*** 25.49***
Note: * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.
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7. Government Information Quarterly 39 (2022) 101717
7
arrangement is positively associated with OGD performance. The co­
efficients of organization culture (OC) are not significant (ß = − 0.014, p
> 0.05; ß = − 0.027, p > 0.05), which indicates that H3 is not verified.
The openness of the organization culture does not affect OGD perfor­
mance. The coefficients of legal and policy (LP) (ß = 0.105, p < 0.001; ß
= 0.099, p < 0.001) show that legal and policy is positively associated
with OGD performance. The more laws and regulations related to OGD
issued by governments, the higher performance of the implementation
of OGD. As for the perspective of institutional pressures, the coefficient
of horizontal pressure (HP) (ß = 0.265, p < 0.05) indicates that hori­
zontal pressure affects the generation of OGD performance positively,
therefore, H6 is proven. The horizontal pressure increased by one unit,
the OGD performance increased by 0.265 unites. The coefficients of
vertical pressure (VP) and media pressure (MD) (ß = − 0.008, p > 0.05; ß
= − 0.003, p > 0.05) are not significant, which indicate that H5 and H7
are not verified. These results show that the pressure from vertical
government and media will not affect the generation of OGD perfor­
mance. In conclusion, the variables of organization arrangement (OA),
legal and policy (LP) and horizontal pressure (HP) have significant effect
on OGD performance, while the effect of financial resource (FR), orga­
nization culture (OC), vertical pressure (VP) and media pressure (MP)
are not significant. Hence, H2, H4 and H6 are supported.
5.2. Configuration analysis
Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) concentrates on the causal
relationship between various variables and specific result. Based on
cross-case analysis, QCA intends to conclude different configuration
conditions that lead to specific result and it is believed to be suitable for
small and medium size sample analysis (Bennett & Elman, 2006; Ragin,
1987). Taking into account the situation of sample values, we employ
the csQCA to explore the configuration paths for the generation of OGD
performance.
5.2.1. Data calibration
Data calibration is the first step for QCA method. Data calibration
refers to assign various cases to set membership (Schneider & Wage­
mann, 2012). Researchers calibrate different variables into sets based on
existing theoretical knowledge and variables values. For the variable of
organization arrangement (OA), value 1 is assigned if a specific agency is
established to responsible for the implementation of OGD, otherwise it is
0; if a provincial OGD platform is constructed, the vertical pressure (VP)
value of this city is assigned of 1, otherwise is 0; for the remaining
variables, take the average of the variable as the benchmark, and assign
a value of 1 if the value is higher than the benchmark, otherwise it is 0.
Taking into account of the layout, we take the calibration data for vice
province-capital cities as an example and add it as supplementary ma­
terial at the end of this manuscript.
5.2.2. QCA based on geographical distribution
Based on the regression analysis results in Table 4, we find that the
control variable of geographical distribution affects OGD performance.
Compared with the western region, the OGD performances of cities in
central region have no significant difference, while the OGD perfor­
mances of cities in the eastern region are significantly different. Hence,
we explore the configuration paths of the eastern region and the central-
western regions respectively.
Consistency measures how consistent the cases for a given combi­
nation of antecedents in showing specific results, that is, consistency
indicates how similar to complete subset relationship. Ragin (2008)
propose that variable of consistency greater than 0.9 is regarded as a
necessary condition, and this variable can explain the outcome variable
independently. Coverage evaluates the degree to which antecedent
conditions or combinations of antecedent conditions interpret instances
of result sets. On this basis, we can also use the coverage index to judge
the explanatory strength of the conditional variable to the outcome
variable. The necessary condition analysis results are presented in
Table 5. From the analysis results of eastern region, we find that the
consistency indexes for the organization arrangement (OA), organiza­
tion culture (OC), vertical pressure (VP) and horizontal pressure (HP)
are both than 0.9, which shows the strong explanatory power of these
variables for the OGD performance. Moreover, there are no necessary
conditions for the OGD performance in the analysis results of the central-
western region, which indicates that the implementation performance of
OGD is the result of multiple factors. Therefore, it is necessary to further
analyze the condition variable combination to obtain more information
on the generation of OGD performance.
Considering the simplicity and coverage of solutions, the interme­
diate solution is adopted. Table 6 shows the configurational paths for
OGD performance of eastern region and central-western regions
respectively. The solution consistency values are both 1, the solution
coverage are 0.85 and 0.64, which provide evidence for the reliability
and stability of these solution paths.
For the cities in eastern region, OA appears in all the four paths and
act as core condition, which indicating the vital role it plays in the
generation of OGD performance. World Bank (2015) calls on countries
to pay attention to organization construction, and many studies have
stressed the importance of OA on the implementation of OGD (Safarov,
2019; Yang et al., 2015; Zuiderwijk & Janssen, 2014a, 2014b). LP
usually appears in each configuration path as core conditions, which is
consistent with previous study conclusions that LP is indispensable to
OGD (Susha et al., 2015; Zhao & Fan, 2021b). Although the relationship
is not significant between FR and OGD performance in regression
analysis, we notice that FR also acts as a key role in QCA result, which
replenish previous conclusion. The implementation of OGD in China
began in cities of eastern region, accounting for 47.5% of the total
number of cities that have open government data at this stage.
Compared with cities in other regions, cities in eastern region have a
high level of economic development and sufficient financial resources,
which equipped them with adequate resources to conduct innovative
government practice. The degree of openness and innovative awareness
of eastern cities are relatively higher, which make it easy for them to
adopt and implement new innovative activities. Moreover, the imple­
mentation of OGD in eastern cities started earlier, forming a relatively
complete organization mechanism. Almost all cities have established or
reorganized specific agency responsible for the implementation. For
example, Guangdong province has begun to implement the chief data
officer (CDO) system, which is fully responsible for the opening and
utilization of government data resources. In addition, most eastern
provinces have constructed provincial OGD platform, and send a signal
to other cities in the province that the provincial government attaches
great importance to OGD, which would bring greater motivation and
pressure to the city government to make better performance on the
implementation of OGD (Zuiderwijk, Janssen, & Dwivedi, 2015; Zui­
derwijk, Susha, et al., 2015). Finally, the horizontal pressure also plays a
vital role in the generation of excellent OGD performance. The main
leaders of municipal cities are appointed by the provincial government,
and so the leaders of municipal cities will compete with each other for
the rare promotion opportunity (Zhang & Zhu, 2019). Therefore, the
Table 5
Necessary condition analysis.
Variables Eastern region Central-western region
Consistency Coverage Consistency Coverage
Financial Resource (FR) 0.700 0.667 0.545 0.414
Organization
Arrangement (OA)
1.000 0.588 0.773 0.850
Organization Culture (OC) 0.950 0.452 0.591 0.361
Legal and Policy (LP) 0.600 0.857 0.318 0.778
Vertical Pressure (VP) 1.000 0.465 0.636 0.318
Horizontal Pressure (HP) 0.900 0.563 0.591 0.448
Media Pressure (MP) 0.300 0.400 0.091 1
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8. Government Information Quarterly 39 (2022) 101717
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OGD performance of one city in the province will put pressure on other
cities, thereby affecting the implementation of OGD in other cities.
For the cities in central-western region, there are five paths for the
generation of excellent OGD performance. Organization arrangement
(OA) presents in all the five paths, which highlights the vital role it plays
in the generation of OGD performance (Attard et al., 2015; Zhao & Fan,
2021a). For the path 1, we find that in these cases, governments have not
issued legal or regulations on OGD and no introduction or report on OGD
from local media. However, these cities have set up special agency to be
responsible for the implementation of OGD. At the same time being
affected by higher level government and governments at the same level,
they can also achieve better performance. As for the path 2, we conclude
that for governments without sufficient financial resource, opened or­
ganization culture and few pressures from the same level governments
and the media, if the superior government attaches great importance to
OGD and puts pressure on the subordinate governments, and at the same
time established special agency responsible for the implementation of
OGD, better performance can also be obtained. The path 3 highlights the
important role of internal resources. These cases are not affected by
external pressures such as pressure from high level governments, the
same level governments and media. However, these governments have
relatively higher level of openness and sufficient financial resources. At
the same time, if special agency responsible for OGD has set up, they also
can achieve high level OGD performance. The important role of legal
and policy is proven in path 4. These cases do not have a high degree of
organization openness, nor do they face coercive pressure from higher
level government. In the face of competition at the same level govern­
ments, as long as they have basic financial resources and organization
arrangement, and by formulating regulations and policies to better
guide the implementation of OGD, higher OGD performance can be
achieved. Path 5 shows that these governments are well prepared in
almost all dimensions and can naturally achieve a higher level of OGD
performance. Overall, the generation of OGD depends on FR, OA, VP and
HP, which supports the previous discussion on these factors (Grimme­
likhuijsen & Feeney, 2017; Yang et al., 2015; Zhao & Fan, 2018; Zui­
derwijk & Janssen, 2014a, 2014b). However, organization culture for
OGD is absent, which is consistent with the regression analysis results.
Previous researches have indicated that organization culture exert great
impact on OGD (Conradie & Choenni, 2014; Kassen, 2013; Martin &
Begany, 2017), hence, the reconstruction of organization culture should
attract the attention of governments of China.
Finally, we compare the different configurational paths of eastern
region. The conclusion is that there is an alternative relationship be­
tween organization culture (OC) and horizontal pressure (HP), which
can be obtained from path 3 and path 4. If many local governments in a
certain region have opened government data resources, governments at
the same level will face tremendous competitive pressure. On one hand,
these governments will realize the importance of OGD, on the other
hand, the OGD practice of other governments will provide relevant
experience and help to dispel the worries about OGD, and then
encourage the governments to adopt greater inclusiveness and openness
in the implementation of OGD. Combining the configuration paths and
practical situation of eastern and central-western regions, we find that
vertical pressure and horizontal pressure play a more important role in
central-western regions. Cities in the central-western regions have
limited resources, and the willingness to adopt and accept innovations is
usually not high. That is to say, internal resources of governments
restrict their behaviors. Therefore, external pressure, especially the
compulsory pressure of the superior government and the competitive
pressure from the same level governments, are particularly important,
and have become the key driving force for the adoption and imple­
mentation of OGD.
5.2.3. QCA based on administrative ranking
Based on the regression analysis results in Table 4, we find that the
control variable of administrative ranking affects OGD performance.
Compared with municipal cities, the OGD performances of the vice
province cities and ordinary capital cities are significantly different.
Hence, we explore the configuration paths of the vice province –capital
cities and ordinary municipal cities respectively.
The necessary condition analysis results are presented in Table 7.
From the analysis results of vice province and capital cities, we find that
the consistency index for the organization arrangement (OA), vertical
pressure (VP) and horizontal pressure (HP) are both than 0.9, which
shows the strong explanatory power of these variables for the OGD
performance. As for the ordinary municipal cities, only the consistency
index of organization arrangement (OA) is more than 0.9. However, the
consistency indexes of vertical pressure (VP) and horizontal pressure
(HP) are range from 0.8 to 0.9. Therefore, it is urgent to further analyze
the configuration paths for the generation of OGD performance.
Table 8 presents the configurational paths for OGD performance of
Table 6
Configurational paths analysis.
Eastern region Central-western region
Path 1 Path 2 Path 3 Path 4 Path 1 Path 2 Path 3 Path 4 Path 5
Financial Resource (FR) ● ● ● ⊗ ● ● ●
Organization Arrangement (OA) ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Organization Culture (OC) ● ● ● ⊗ ● ⊗
Legal and Policy (LP) ● ● ● ⊗ ● ●
Vertical Pressure (VP) ● ● ● ● ● ● ⊗ ●
Horizontal Pressure (HP) ● ● ● ● ⊗ ⊗ ● ●
Media Pressure (MP) ⊗ ● ● ⊗ ⊗ ⊗ ⊗ ●
Raw coverage 0.55 0.45 0.10 0.10 0.23 0.09 0.14 0.09 0.09
Unique coverage 0.25 0.20 0.05 0.05 0.23 0.09 0.14 0.09 0.09
consistency 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Solution coverage 0.85 0.64
Solution consistency 1 1
Notes: black circles indicate the presence of a condition, and circles with “x” indicate its absence. Large circles indicate core conditions; small ones, peripheral
conditions; blank spaces indicate “don't care”.
Table 7
Necessary condition analysis.
Variables Vice province –capital
cities
Municipal cities
Consistency Coverage Consistency Coverage
Financial Resource (FR) 0.700 0.778 0.622 0.561
Organization
Arrangement (OA)
1.000 0.909 0.919 0.791
Organization Culture (OC) 0.700 0.778 0.676 0.676
Legal and Policy (LP) 0.700 0.778 0.324 0.857
Vertical Pressure (VP) 0.900 0.643 0.865 0.492
Horizontal Pressure (HP) 0.900 0.818 0.811 0.556
Media Pressure (MP) 0.300 1.000 0.135 0.455
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9. Government Information Quarterly 39 (2022) 101717
9
vice province –capital cities and ordinary municipal cities respectively.
The solution consistency values are more than 0.9, the solution coverage
are 1 and 0.62, which provide evidence for the reliability and stability of
these solution paths.
Generally speaking, the vice province cities and provincial capital
cities have strong political and economic independence, and their
administrative levels and status are higher than those ordinary munic­
ipal cities, and they are usually the cities with the highest level of eco­
nomic development in this region. Another important point is that these
cities have greater autonomy in promulgating laws and regulations, and
they are more likely to issue relevant rules and regulations specifically
for OGD. For example, as early as 2017, Guiyang issued the Guiyang
Municipal Government Data Sharing and Opening Measure, which is the
first regulation specifically for OGD in China, to guide the imple­
mentation of OGD in this region. The presence of legal and policy (LP)
four times in all five paths in Table 8 also proves once again the key role
of this factor in the generation of OGD performance (Janssen et al.,
2012; Ruijer & Meijer, 2020). Moreover, an interesting phenomenon is
discovered that the vice province cities and provincial capital cities also
affected by the pressure from province government and other municipal
governments in this province. The special status of these cities de­
termines that they should do their best in all aspects and becoming the
benchmarks for other cities in the province. Therefore, they will respond
more quickly to the policy signals of the provincial government. Once
the provincial government builds the provincial OGD platform, these
governments will follow up quickly and achieve better performance as
much as possible. In addition, some of the OGD practice of local gov­
ernments in China started from ordinary municipal cities rather than the
vice province cities and provincial capital cities, such as Guangdong and
Zhejiang province, which will challenge the status of these cities and
create tremendous pressure. In order to maintain their special position
and competitive advantage, these vice province cities and provincial
capital cities will do their best to open government data and achieve
excellent performance (Bearfield & Bowman, 2016; Ma, 2013).
As for the ordinary municipal cities, the variables of organization
arrangement (OA), financial resource (FR), legal and policy (LP), ver­
tical pressure (VP) and horizontal pressure (HP) all play important role
in the generation of OGD performance, especially the organization
arrangement (OA) and vertical pressure (VP) appear in almost all the
five configuration paths. Compared with other higher-level cities,
municipal cities have not equipped with sufficient financial resource,
the autonomy and legal effects of laws and regulations issued are rela­
tively weak. Meanwhile, they also need to deal with the significant
pressure from superior government and the horizontal level govern­
ments. It is a great challenge for these cities to generate high OGD
performance under limited resource constraints. Of course, for the cases
in path 1, path 3 and path 4, these cities have already made readiness on
OGD in many dimensions, the generation of high OGD performance is an
inevitable result. These cases are all equipped with sufficient financial
resource, have established agencies which are responsible for the
implementation of OGD, and meanwhile are faced pressures from the
superior government and horizontal government. The internal resources
and external environment support the adoption and implementation of
OGD. If these governments adopt an open and inclusive attitude or
attach great importance and issue special regulations and policies on
OGD, it is easy to achieve high OGD performance. There also exist two
paths for the cities that have not make better readiness for OGD. Path 3
only includes financial resource (FR) and organization arrangement
(OA) conditions, in which organization arrangement (OA) is the core
condition. The prerequisite for this path is that these cities have suffi­
cient financial resource. When the cities face less pressure from external
environmental, the organization culture is relative closed and conser­
vative, and there are no relevant regulations on OGD at the same time,
they only need to make efforts to devote more financial resource and
assign special agency to be in charge of OGD, and then the expected OGD
performance will also be generated. Path 5 includes organization
arrangement (OA) and vertical pressure (VP) conditions, in which they
all are core conditions. This path stresses the importance of vertical
pressure (VP), that is, the superior government has authority to ask
subordinate government to enforce OGD. The organization arrangement
(OA) is the basis condition and the vertical pressure (VP) is the main
driven force for the generation of OGD performance, which proving
previous study conclusion (World Bank, 2015; Zhang & Chen, 2015;
Zhao & Fan, 2018). VP provides impetus and stimulation for govern­
ment department to conduct OGD; OA provide labor and organizational
support for the implementation of OGD.
Finally, we compare the different paths to identify the relationship
between them. With regard to the paths for vice province-capital cities,
we identify that organization culture (OC) and legal and policy (LP) can
replace each other by path 1 and path 2, financial resource (FR) and
legal and policy (LP) can exchange each other by path 1 and path 3,
financial resource (FR) can take the place of organization culture (OC)
by path 2 and path 3. In other words, the introduction of special regu­
lations and policies on OGD can increase the government's awareness
toward OGD and reduce the concerns of government departments; on
the other hand, the regulations on OGD clarify the scope and related
requirements of OGD, which makes the implementation of OGD more
targeted and helpful for saving the investment of financial resources. In
addition, the combination of organization arrangement (OA) and legal
and policy (LP) is the core condition for the generation of OGD perfor­
mance by path 2, path 3, path 4 and path 5. The replaceable relationship
between financial resource (FR), organization culture (OC) and legal
and policy (LP) can also be observed in the configuration paths for
municipal cities. However, the combination of organization
Table 8
Configurational paths analysis.
Vice province –capital cities Municipal cities
Path 1 Path 2 Path 3 Path 4 Path 5 Path 1 Path 2 Path 3 Path 4 Path 5
Financial Resource (FR) ● ● ⊗ ⊗ ● ● ● ⊗
Organization Arrangement (OA) ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Organization Culture (OC) ● ● ⊗ ⊗ ● ⊗ ● ⊗
Legal and Policy (LP) ● ● ● ● ● ● ⊗
Vertical Pressure (VP) ● ● ● ⊗ ● ● ⊗ ● ● ●
Horizontal Pressure (HP) ● ● ● ⊗ ● ● ⊗ ● ● ⊗
Media Pressure (MP) ⊗ ⊗ ⊗ ● ⊗ ⊗ ⊗ ⊗
Raw coverage 0.60 0.30 0.30 0.10 0.10 0.46 0.08 0.22 0.22 0.03
Unique coverage 0.40 0.10 0.10 0.10 0.10 0.27 0.08 0.03 0.03 0.03
consistency 1 1 1 1 1 0.94 1 1 1 1
Solution coverage 1 0.62
Solution consistency 1 0.96
Notes: black circles indicate the presence of a condition, and circles with “x” indicate its absence. Large circles indicate core conditions; small ones, peripheral
conditions; blank spaces indicate “don't care”.
Y. Zhao et al.

10. Government Information Quarterly 39 (2022) 101717
10
arrangement (OA) and vertical pressure (VP) is the core condition for the
generation of OGD performance.
6. Conclusions and discussion
6.1. Conclusions
OGD performance is an important topic for theoretical research and
practical exploration. Based on existing research and OGD practice at
the city level in China, this study constructs theoretical model on the
basis of resource-based theory and institutional theory, employs a mixed
research method that combines regression analysis and qualitative
comparative analysis (QCA), to explore the influencing factors and
mechanism for the generation of OGD performance. The regression
analysis is used to identify influencing factors and their effect size, the
QCA is employed to conclude the configuration paths for cities in
different region and various administrative rankings. The main conclu­
sions are summarized as following:
(1) The regression analysis results show that organization arrange­
ment (OA), legal and policy (LP) and horizontal pressure (HP)
have direct positive effect on OGD performance. Establishing
special agency take for OGD is vital for the successful imple­
mentation of OGD, which is consistent to previous researches
(Safarov, 2019; Yang et al., 2015; Zhao & Fan, 2021b). Compared
with cities those have not established a special department
responsible for OGD, the assignment or establishment of a spe­
cific agency, whether it is a component agency or affiliated
agency, have significant impact on OGD performance. It has
become a consensus approach for all level government to pay
attention on organization construction of OGD. Legal and policy
(LP) plays a vital role for the generation of OGD performance,
which has been proved in previous studies (DulongdeRosnay &
Janssen, 2014; Ruijer & Meijer, 2020). With the promotion of
OGD, governments should pay more attention to the formulation
of relevant rules and regulations on OGD. On one hand, the
introduction of relevant regulations can attract the attention of
government to OGD; on the other hand, they provide framework
and guidance for the implementation of OGD. Horizontal pres­
sure (HP) is also an important factor that cannot be ignored for
the generation of OGD performance, especially under the politi­
cal promotion system based on performance evaluation in China
(Wang & Lo, 2019; Zhang & Zhu, 2019). The main leaders of the
horizontal governments will compete for the rare promotion
opportunities in all aspects, of course, including the imple­
mentation of OGD. The OGD performance of one city will affects
the implementation of OGD of other cities at the same level in the
same region. It is of great significance to form a well competitive
ecosystem of the horizontal government of OGD in the region.
(2) According to configuration paths based on geographical regions,
the conditions of organization arrangement (OA), legal and pol­
icy (LP) and horizontal pressure (HP) appear in almost all paths,
which supports the conclusion of regression analysis. We find that
there exist four different paths for excellent OGD performance in
eastern cities. It should be noted that each path includes at least
five conditions, that is to say, in order to achieve better OGD
performance; governments must make well preparation in more
than five dimensions. This is related to the current status of the
practice of OGD in China. OGD in eastern region started early,
with a sound system and mechanism, and the overall OGD per­
formance is relatively high. Therefore, in order to achieve better
performance, governments need to make efforts in all aspects at
the same time. With regard to the central-western cities, the
common features are that they have neither adequate financial
resources nor open organizational culture and regulations. We
find that organization arrangement (OA) is the prerequisites for
better OGD performance, which appears in all the five paths.
Meanwhile, we observed that vertical pressure (VP) and hori­
zontal pressure (HP) play important roles. In other words, the
OGD performance of cities in central-western regions is mainly
drive by the compulsory pressure from superior government and
the competitive pressure from horizontal governments.
(3) In regard to configuration paths based on administrative ranking,
the conditions of organization arrangement (OA), legal and pol­
icy (LP) vertical pressure (VP) and horizontal pressure (HP)
present in most paths, which proves the vital role they play in the
generation of OGD performance once again. Among the paths for
vice province and capital cities, we distinguish that the condition
of legal and policy (LP) appears four times in the five paths, which
indicates the significance of regulations and laws related to OGD.
This distinctive feature of the vice province-capital cities is
related to their political status. These cities have greater auton­
omy and legal effect in promulgating laws and regulations. As
long as government makes ready on organization arrangement
(OA) and legal and policy (LP), it can also achieve excellent OGD
performance. For the ordinary municipal cities, it is easy to un­
derstand that being prepared in most dimensions can support the
generation of better OGD performance. However, restricted by
resources allocation, there are also interesting paths for the
generation of OGD performance. The first model is named the
financial support type, which only includes the two conditions of
financial resource (FR) and organization arrangement (OA). The
financial resource of these cases is sufficient to support the
manpower, technology and awareness required in the imple­
mentation of OGD. The second model is named the vertical
pressure driven type, which only includes conditions of organi­
zation arrangement (OA) and vertical pressure (VP), which fully
highlights the influence of the actions or policy signals of the
superior government on the subordinate government. These two
models reflect the OGD implementation paths for the common
municipal cities.
6.2. Research implications
The OGD performance is a meaningful and hot topic that deserves in-
depth exploration. This study is significant for theoretical research and
practical implementation of OGD in China and other countries. The re­
sults of this study point out the focus and directions for improvement
and provide various paths to achieve excellent OGD performance.
The theoretical implications of this study are mainly as follows: (1)
based on RBT and institutional theory, this research proposes an inte­
grated model for OGD performance. Although previous studies have
pointed out that the external environment and external pressure affect
the adoption and implementation of OGD (Grimmelikhuijsen & Feeney,
2017; Zhao & Fan, 2021b), however, on one hand, there is a lack of
systematic theoretical foundation and analysis framework to study the
various dimensions of external pressures; on the other hand, there are
few empirical studies to verify the effect size of external pressure on
OGD performance. Hence, the research model of this study, which is
constructed on the basis of RBT and institutional theory, is conductive to
systematically explore the impact of internal resources and various di­
mensions of external pressures on OGD performance. (2) Mixed research
methods are employed to study the effect size of influencing factors and
configuration paths for OGD performance. Although existing studies
have discussed the factors that affect the adoption and implementation
of OGD and analyzed the paths for the generation of OGD performance
(Janssen et al., 2012; Yang & Wu, 2016; Zhao & Fan, 2018), few studies
have focused on how to combine the two aspects of verifying effects of
various factors and exploring how these factors are organized to
generate OGD performance systematically. Hence, the regression anal­
ysis method is used to identify the influencing factors and verify the
effect size of them on OGD performance; the QCA method is employed to
Y. Zhao et al.

11. Government Information Quarterly 39 (2022) 101717
11
obtain the configuration paths for the generation mechanism of OGD
performance. The hybrid research method that combines regression
analysis and QCA provides an effective tool to better understand the
generation of OGD performance.
The practical significance is presented as follows: (1) the OGD per­
formance is the result of the combination of internal resource elements
and various dimensions of external pressures. In order to achieve better
OGD performance and truly release the potential value of government
data resource, governments should not only attach importance to in­
ternal resources such as financial resource(FR), organization arrange­
ment(OA), organization culture(OC) and legal and policy(LP), but also
to construct a well external pressure ecosystem, improving various ac­
tors including high level governments, horizontal governments and
media; (2) government should continue to pay more attention of orga­
nization construction. As the most important and fundamental condi­
tion, organization arrangement (OA) plays a vital role in the adoption
and implementation of OGD. Government should further explore the
chief data officer (CDO) institution and improve the mechanism for
OGD; (3) the government should strengthen the evaluation of OGD
performance and incorporate the OGD performance into the evaluation
system of subordinate governments as much as possible. On one hand, it
sends a policy signal to subordinate governments that the implementa­
tion of OGD is highly valued, on the other hand, it stimulates competi­
tion among governments at the same level, and finally to obtain a higher
level of OGD performance; (4) the research results present various
configuration paths for government of different geographic regions and
administrative rankings. Government can choose a more targeted path
according to the resource allocation of the organization to achieve
excellent OGD performance. Results can provide more diversified and
precise directions and priorities for governments with different
characteristics.
6.3. Limitations and future studies
This study has several limitations. As for the sample size, this study
takes all the 122 cities in China that have constructed OGD platforms as
research samples. Although these cases are able to support the empirical
analysis, the sample size is slightly small. As the number of cities in
China adopting OGD has been increasing, we will continue to monitor
and collect more samples to supplement our conclusions. Moreover,
about the data of this study, first, the data comes from the statistical data
of authoritative organizations and government websites. We hope to
obtain more detailed information from internal government documents
and in-depth interviews. In addition, the measurement of some variables
may be related to the characteristics of the regions, such as horizontal
pressure (HP) and media pressure (MP), we will try our best to solve this
issue in follow-up studies as much as possible. Besides, we adopted in­
dicators of mean and Std. Dev. to describe and calibrate categorical
variables. In the following research, more accurate indicators should be
adopted as much as possible.
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.giq.2022.101717.
Funds
This research is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (No. 72104203), the Social Science Foundation of Shaanxi
Province (No. 2020R022), the National Social Science Foundation (No.
20CZZ034).
Author statement
Yupan Zhao designed and wrote the paper; Yujuan Liang improved
the English expression; Chen Yao and Xiao Han provide important
advice for this paper.
Conflicts of interest
We declare that the paper (Key factors and generation mechanisms of
open government data performance: a mixed methods study in the case
of China) is no conflict of interest.
Appendix 1. Variable description and measurement
Variable Measurement Data source Key indicators
OGD performance the China Open Data Index the China Open Data
Index Report
Readiness dimension: the effectiveness and content of laws
and policies, implementation, and standard formulation;
Platform dimension: data discovery, data acquisition,
application submit and display, interactive feedback, user
experience;
Data dimension: data quantity, data quality, data specification,
open scope;
Utilization level: data utilization promotion, data application
quantity, quality, application diversity.
Financial Resource
(FR)
General public budget expenditure China City Statistical
Yearbook of 2020
financial situation of each city
Organization
Arrangement (OA)
the status and type of agency
responsible for OGD
government websites value 3 for component agencies
value 2 for agencies that directly affiliated of local government;
value 1 for no specific agency responsible for OGD(as reference)
Organization Culture
(OC)
marketization index The China Marketization
Index Report
the marketization index of each province
Legal and Policy (LP) Number of policies issued by
government on OGD
government websites manual Retrieval government policies on OGD
Vertical Pressure (VP) whether the provincial government
adopts OGD
the China Open Data
Index Report;
government websites;
Value 1 denotes adopted; and 0 denotes not(as reference)
Horizontal Pressure
(HP)
Maximum value of Open Data Index
of neighboring cities or provinces
the China Open Data
Index Report
max value of Open Data Index of cities in this province; if there is only one city of this
province conduct OGD practice, the maximum value of Open Data Index in the
neighboring provinces is adopted;
Media Pressure (MP) media reports on OGD important Newspaper
Databases of CNKI
manual count of number of media reports on OGD
geographical location of city
(continued on next page)
Y. Zhao et al.

12. Government Information Quarterly 39 (2022) 101717
12
(continued)
Variable Measurement Data source Key indicators
Geographical
Distribution
China City Statistical
Yearbook of 2020
value 3 for easter region; value 2 for central region; value 1 for western region (as
reference);
Administrative Rank administrative level of city China City Statistical
Yearbook of 2020
ordinary municipal cities; municipalities with independent planning status or sub-
provincial cities; ordinary capital cities
Economic
Development
GDP per capita China City Statistical
Yearbook of 2020
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Yupan Zhao is an assistant Professor in College of Humanities and Social Development,
Northwest A&F University. He has received PhD degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong Uni­
versity, and his major is public management. His main research interests are e-government
and emergency management. He has published 3 papers in Government Information
Quarterly and 1 paper in Information & Management;
Yujuan Liang is an assistant Professor in College of Humanities and Social Development,
Northwest A&F University.She.
Chen Yao is a PHD student in School of International and Public Affairs, Shanghai Jiao
Tong University. His main research interests are e-government and emergency
management.
Xiao Han is an assistant Professor in School of Public Affairs and Administration, Uni­
versity of Electronic Science and Technology of China; He has received PhD degree from
Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His main research interests are e-government.
Y. Zhao et al.