This document discusses the barriers to the adoption of digital governance (d-governance) in Brazil, focusing on the role of collaborative governance. It highlights issues related to information access, service delivery, and citizen participation, identifying both structural and cultural obstacles that hinder effective implementation. The study emphasizes the importance of integrating citizen engagement and collaboration within public administration to enhance the success of digital governance initiatives.

1. The Role of Collaborative Governance in the Barriers to the Brazilian
Digital Governance Policy Adoption
Edimara Mezzomo Luciano - Presenting Author
Professor at Graduate Program in Management - Business School
Guilherme C. Wiedenhöft
Associate Professor at Polytech School
Fábio P. dos Santos
Master’s Student - Graduate Program in Management
Business
School

2. Motivation 1/2
• The emergence of digital technologies along with the changes in citizens’ profiles and the
opening of governments led to digital governance (d-governance)
• d-Governance is the use of ICTs by the public sector aiming to:
• Improve information and service delivery
• Attenuate the excessive dependence on the government intermediation between
services and citizens
• Encourage citizen participation in the decision-making process
• Increase governments’ transparency, accountability and effectiveness
• The underlying principle of the use of ICTs to promote citizen engagement is the idea that it
is not technology alone that will determine the success of these initiatives but rather how
the ICT artifacts will be employed to achieve government strategic objectives
Greenberg and Newell (2012); Panagiotopoulos et al. (2012); Tassabehji et al. (2016)

3. Motivation 2/2
• The Brazilian Federal Government launched its Digital Governance Policy (DGP) in 2016
aiming to guide all initiatives related to the use of ICT in the relationship between the federal
government and citizens
• This Policy seeks to be a way to increase initiatives effectiveness and the generation of
benefits for the whole society by expanding access to government information, improving
public services and increasing social participation
Brazil (2016)

4. Brazilian Federal Government Digital Governance Policy
Axis Strategic goals
Information access
To foster availability and the use of open data
To broaden ICT use to promote transparency and publicize the use of public resources
To guarantee information security and State communication as well as the citizens’ data confidentiality
Delivery of services
To expand and innovate digital services delivery
To improve governance and management through ICT use
To facilitate and universalize the use and access to digital services
To share and integrate data, processes, systems, services and infrastructure
Social participation
To foster the collaboration in the public policies cycle
To increase and stimulate the social participation in public services creation and improvement
To improve direct and indirect interaction between government and society

5. Research Problem
• The scarcity of researches aiming to understand the citizen participation difficulties in the
government policies conception (Saxena, 2005) through the lens of collaborative governance
is a motivation for this study
• The absence of Collaborative Governance might prevent Digital Governance initiatives and
hinder their effectiveness
• The research gap that drives this study is the necessity to understand the barriers to d-
governance adoption in public organizations, which can hinder the DGP results and also its
continuity
What is the role of Collaborative Governance in the barriers to the Digital Governance
adoption?
Meijer (2015); Saxena (2005)

6. Research Goal
The goal of this study is to understand the barriers for Digital Governance adoption in
the Brazilian Public Administration, in light of Collaborative Governance.

7. Theoretical Background: Digital Governance Definitions
Digital Governance Definition Author
Use of ICT to create public value through the collaboration of society. Chen
Use of ICT to support public services, government administration,
democratic processes and relations among citizens, civil society, the private
sector and the state.
Bannister and Dawes
Use of ICTs to provide convenient information, government services and
citizen participation.
Kalsi and Kiran
Use of ICTs by public managers to carry out their activities of supervision,
planning, organization and coordination on various government levels.
Nawafleh
Use of ICTs by the government to promote improvements in service delivery,
transparency and public accountability in order to guarantee the quality of
life of citizens.
Zamora, Barahona
and Palaco
Use of ICTs by the public sector aiming to improve information and service
delivery, encouraging citizen participation in the decision-making process
and making governments more responsible, transparent and effective.
UNESCO

8. Theoretical Background: barriers to e-Governance (Meijer, 2015)
Barrier Government Citizens
Structural Legal restrictions, lack of funding, lack
of staff and technical skills, lack of
support from managers, and top
management and technological
constraints
Lack of technological facilities, limited
knowledge and skills, lack of time, and
lack of integration with innovation in
daily routines
Cultural Resistance to change, fear that
innovation will weaken the robustness
of government, and attachment to
bureaucracy
Lack of interest, little confidence and
negative image of the government,
and resistance to technologies
Verify the original text

9. Theoretical Background
Barriers to Digital Governance (Melitski, 2011)
Individual Organizational Strategic
Lack of training
Personnel without proper
qualification
Understaffed government
Lack of support from
managers
Lack of planning
Lack of internal
communication plan
High complexity projects
Lack of political support
Lack of infrastructure

10. • Strategy: Exploratory
• Focus: Qualitative
• Data collection
techniques: document
analysis and semi-
structured interviews
• Data collection
Interviews script: based
on the results of the
document analysis
• Analysis: categorial
content analysis through
NVIVO®
Research Method
• Cross-sectional exploratory research
• Qualitative focus due to its data collection and analysis techniques
• Data collection techniques:
• Document analysis to understand the Digital Governance Policy
• Semi-structured interviews with 11 civil servants (identified as R1 to R11) in charge
of IT Management in several government offices or state-run companies in one
Brazilian State (Rio Grande do Sul)

11. Results Highlights
Barriers to Information Access
16 barriers mentioned 73 times (barriers, number of evidences, respondents)
• Institutional – organizational structure, bureaucracy, misunderstanding on the data property (15 -
R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6, R7, R8, R9, R11)
• Lack of information quality and concerns on Information Security (10 - R1, R4, R10)
• Lack of managerial leadership and political support within the local government (9 - R1, R5, R7)
• Lack of proper data classification and traceability (7 - R1, R2, R3, R4, R8, R10)
• Resistance to the use of ICT by civil servants (6 - R3, R6, R7, R2)
• Task Complexity (5 - R2, R3, R5, R6)
• Lack of proper coordination and governance (5 - R2, R6, R7)
• Lack of trust on social institutions (5 - R1, R2, R3, R4)
• Lack of financial, technical, or personnel capacities (5 - R4, R5, R9, R11)
• Lack of proper investments (3 - R6, R7, R11)
• Lack of efficient use (2 - R5, R9)
• Lack of proper legislation (1 - R3)

12. Federal Treasury recommends that Serenata de
Amor Operation (from Open Knowledge Brazil)
pays € 150,000 to access public data

13. Results Highlights
Barriers to the Delivery of Services
11 barriers mentioned 61 times (barriers, number of evidences, respondents)
• Lack of e-services planning and strategy (15 - R1, R2, R5, R7, R8, R9, R11)
• Conservatism and absence of a culture of digital services (8 - R1, R2, R3, R5, R10)
• Lack of proper governance and integration among government offices (7 - R2, R3, R5, R9)
• Unfamiliarity with ICT applications and benefits (7 - R5, R6, R7, R8, R9)
• Lack of focus on citizens or on public value creation (4 - R2, R7, R11)
• Insufficient understanding and application of processes, services, and the responsibility
matrix (4 - R4, R6, R10)
• Insufficient civil servants (4 - R1, R5, R11)
• IT company delays in attending requests (4 - R2, R3, R7)
• Resistance to changes by civil servants (3 - R7)
• High financial costs (3 - R5, R9, R10)
• Lack of proper data classification and traceability (2 - R5, R10)
“We never ask citizens at the other end what he/she needs to make things easier or faster, in short, what
he/she is looking for.” (R6)

14. Results Highlights
Barriers to Social Participation
8 barriers mentioned 46 times (barriers, number of evidences, respondents)
• Lack of citizens’ involvement by government (12 - R1, R3, R6, R7, R10, R11)
• Lack of citizens’ involvement in government (10 - R1, R2, R3, R5, R9, R10, R11);
• Lack of participation initiatives by government (6 - R2, R3, R4, R5, R9, R10)
• Inadequate communication between government and citizens (4 - R4, R7).
• Government focused on itself (4 - R5, R9, R11)
• Lack of proper understanding of the state functions and responsibilities (4 - R2, R8, R9, R10);
• Lack of proper disclosure of information (3 - R4, R7, R11)
• Lack of adequate number of civil servants and also their limitations to deal with the digital era
(3 - R4, R7, R11)
• “The state has to be a hand that goes to the citizen and not the contrary. Without efforts from part to
part, digital governance is not going to happen”. (Respondent 6)
• “Citizens do not feel part of the government”. (Respondent 3)

15. Synthesis of Results 1/3 – some quotes
“Public administration is far from the citizen, not giving space for the manifestation of citizens needs,
what they effectively need and what they effectively expect from the government” (R9)
“We need to open up space to citizens in several ways: surveys, ombudsman, forums, panels, and so on.
We have to listen to them, show our ideas and ask for feedback in order to verify if we are reaching the
goal, which is the citizens’ needs.” (R1)
“[…] I believe that society would participate if government asked for that, if the government went to the
streets to understand the other end.” (R6)
“[…] Government is so focused internally [related to data] and the biggest barrier is to change the point
of view from internal to external, which is the citizens, the reason for the existence of a government.”
(R1)

16. Synthesis of Results 2/3 – some quotes
“People have lost their confidence in any level of government in Brazil. It is not possible for just one
organization to solve this lack of trust, which hinders participation.” (R2)
“Citizens don’t feel they are heard by the governments. Governments do not have an easy and agile way
to talk with citizens, and this turns things a lot more difficult…” (R10) (to let citizens have a voice ≠ to
hear the voice they already had)
“In a digital world, citizens feel they are not part of a digital government because governments are not
properly present in the digital world.” (R4)
“Government is a lot more bureaucratic in the eyes of those who are present in the digital world and use
digital technology to do everything.” (R3)
“We need to find effective ways of discussion that reach the majority of the citizens so they can show
what they are interested in and express their opinions, therefore they can feel part of the society.” (R3)

17. Synthesis of Results 3/3
The codes identified through content analyses were categorized following the kind of
barriers proposed by Meijer (2015), namely structural and cultural, and also to the
dimensions of barriers proposed by Melitski et al. (2011), namely individual, organizational
e strategic.
Dimensions
of Barriers
Kind of Barriers
Individual Organizational Strategic Total
Structural 16
47
42 105
Cultural 17 33 31 81
Total 33 80 73 186

18. “We need to involve several areas to do anything. It only gets worse considering our
culture of management where every department is isolated from the others. These
two things combined is a source of a great barrier” (R2).
“We have important difficulties when we need to use data from the database of
‘another department’. But would the state not own the data?” (R5)
“When data sharing uses data from more than one institution, we can see the nefarious
effect of departmentalization: each department thinks it is the owner of its data”. (R2)
“Digital Government Barriers is a matter of power, resources and, more than that,
it is a matter of everyone's involvement, which is not easy” (R1)
Working
relationships
The categories of barriers and their evidences were analysed in light of the dimensions of Collaborative
Governance structural complexity proposed by Huxham et al. (2000).
Could the barriers be a result of the lack of proper Collaborative Governance?
Working relationships – Organizational Membership - Governance and task structures – Pluralism – Ambiguity – Dynamics

19. “When it comes to creating means of access to users, each office wants to create
their own to be the protagonist and to generate publicity. But should the civil
servant not serve the public?” (R8)
“Several colleagues do not like sharing data. […] They may think they are
going to lose the control over them” (R8)
“If I need some information related to a civil servant profile, I need to call HR and
explain the reason in detail” (R5)
“Governance needs a broader viewpoint. It is not a single manager’s decision.
This is perhaps the main barrier for digital governance adoption because the lack
of governance weakens the middle management civil servants’ power”. (R2)
Organizational
membership
Working relationships – Organizational Membership - Governance and task structures – Pluralism – Ambiguity – Dynamics

20. “One of the most important barriers is that departments do not work well
together in projects and tasks, and activities planning does not consider it
true. Departments need to work as a whole state” (R2)
“Governance is part of the government concept and should be part of
governments' decision-making in order to be closer to society” (R3)
“The government has to define the problem and bring society to work together to
develop solutions. Or, more than that, also bring society to identify the problem.”
(R8)
“Departments do not work together in a good manner and there is not
proper coordination of efforts.” (R1)
Governance and
task structures
Working relationships – Organizational Membership - Governance and task structures – Pluralism – Ambiguity – Dynamics

21. “Integration is the key. Integration and cooperation. Work together, as a
state.” (R9)
“Sometimes the focus of our activity is not clear. The focus is the citizen, not the
government itself.” (R10)
“In many initiatives people from different groups do not freely cooperate
due to political or conceptual differences.” (R3)
Pluralism
Working relationships – Organizational Membership - Governance and task structures – Pluralism – Ambiguity – Dynamics

22. “I took part in projects when things were happening very slowly. But
sometimes there was so much pressure to accomplish a project that we did
not have enough time to do things properly.” (R7)
“The roles and responsibilities matrix is not clear” (R10)
Ambiguity
Working relationships – Organizational Membership - Governance and task structures – Pluralism – Ambiguity – Dynamics

23. “The day-by-day problems are so common and big that affect the dynamics of
the departments. This hinders both innovation and focus on citizens.” (R5)
“Most of the time we continue trying, but sometimes we give up because it is
so difficult!” (R11)
Dynamics
Working relationships – Organizational Membership - Governance and task structures – Pluralism – Ambiguity – Dynamics

24. Final Remarks
• The main academic contribution is the identification of the relations between Digital and
Collaborative Governance, as well as the structural and cultural barriers that influence the
relations between the strategies and the adoption of digital governance.
• The main contribution to practitioners is to better understand the aspects involving the
adoption of Digital Governance throughout public agents. Moreover, the results obtained can
serve as a reference for the definition of strategies that can mitigate the effects of structural
and cultural barriers that influence the effectiveness of Digital Governance practices in
governments.
• The interviews were conducted exclusively with the public administration agents of the direct
administration in Brazil, which can be considered a limitation.
• Further researches might include other branches of the Brazilian public administration or other
cultural contexts to evaluate the impact of the national culture in relation to the digital
governance strategies and barriers.

25. Obrigada!

26. The Role of Collaborative Governance in the Barriers to the Brazilian
Digital Governance Policy Adoption
Edimara Mezzomo Luciano - Presenting Author
Professor at Graduate Program in Management - Business School
eluciano@pucrs.br
Guilherme C. Wiedenhöft
Associate Professor at Polytech School
Fábio P. dos Santos
Master’s Student - Graduate Program in Management
Business
School