Inf Syst Front (2017) 19:285–300
Table 15

Frequencies for risk

Risk

Extremely Disagree

297

Disagree

Slightly Disagree

Neutral

Slightly Agree

Agree

Extremely Agree

R1

4

28

62

216

117

65

24

R2

5

21

45

187

153

77

28

R3

22

41

92

186

108

45

22

Notwithstanding, these conclusions can contribute towards a
deeper, more international study, where their significance can
be evaluated for scalability. The findings suggest that UK citizens are only likely to use open data if there is clear evidence of
an advantage in doing so, relative to current practice. The current practice of promoting open data as a means to improve
transparency in government seems to be working, especially
when it comes to citizens’ perception on risk regarding the
potential use of open data, as most citizens seem to have no
concerns regarding the use of open data. As such, the government needs to ensure that useful data that is open to public
offers clear benefits to the citizens to entice potential users.

7 Conclusions, limitations and future research
directions
Review of both the normative literature and secondary information sources suggest that public sector open data are
intended to offer the business community and citizens
a multitude of benefits. However, a careful analysis of
publically available open data resources in the UK, such as the
data.gov.uk website and other local government websites that
offer access to open data, reveal that this domain is still in its
nascent stage. As a result, there is a disconnection between
potential and realistic impact of open data.
Available open data is not linked/well structured.
Consequently, the data cannot easily be interrogated using
even rudimentary analytics to structure it [data] that can then
form the basis of information. It is this information that empowers the user to draw meaningful conclusions and therefore
contribute to the policy making process. The rawness of open
data appears to discourage extrapolation of data clusters to
construct meaningful information. In its current form, citizens
are unable to use the data for any meaningful purpose relating
to their life events or decisions. However, there is no doubt
that public sector open data in the UK offers the business
Table 16

community and local government agencies several opportunities for improved decision-making, service optimization and
cost savings. Previously closed or limited by distribution, data
that were stored in internal systems and too complex to understand by front line workers and managers, are now available in
a more simplified format. In part, facilitated by better data
analytics now allows better decision making at both central
and local government levels. These observations are supported through evidence collected in this study, which surveys
over 500 citizens.
The genesis extrapolated from the analysis conducted within this paper concludes that the empirical findings suggest that
relative advantage was the strongest predictor of behavioural
intention relating to citizens’ perception of open data and its
potential use. Secondly, relative advantage, compatibility, and
observability positively and significantly predicted behavioural intentions of citizens to use open data. Thirdly, and interestingly, risk had no significant influence on citizens’ use intentions, as respondents clearly did not believe that there was any
significant risk associated with open data, perhaps mitigated
by the benefits of data transparency. Implicitly, this may suggest that most citizens have no concerns about trusting public
sector open data.
We acknowledge that the findings in this paper have to be
interpreted in the light of several limitations. In particular, the
low reliability of complexity in our survey sample meant that
this construct had to be excluded from the analysis, resulting
in no revelations on how citizens perceived this component in
relation to open data. In addition, due to the embryonic nature
of public sector open data, as well as its limited relevance and
benefits to citizens at present, the attributes were only examined for their influence on intention and not on adoption.
Nevertheless, the opportunity afforded to the citizen is now
considered far reaching and empowering, with adoption ripe
for examined in future studies. Notwithstanding, another limitation is recognized by the fact that although care was taken to
gather data from citizens who have knowledge of open data,

Frequencies for behavioral intention

Behavioral Intention

Extremely Disagree

Disagree

Slightly Disagree

Neutral

Slightly Agree

Agree

Extremely Agree

BI1
BI2
BI3

3
2
14

15
9
48

15
36
67

180
142
146

150
163
123

114
122
88

39
42
30

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