Unveiling the Coordination Between Governmental Resources and Citizen Engagement in Open Government Data: A Citizen-centric Investigation using the Resource-based Theory

The application of governmental resources for OGD and citizen engagement is often assumed to be interdependent, yet empirical investigation has been lacking. This study examines the reciprocal influence between the use of resources and OGD by quantifying both government resources and citizen engagement within the framework of resource-based theory. The significance of these metrics is determined using the entropy method. Data from 337 Chinese municipalities was gathered to explore the dependency between government resources and citizen engagement in OGD. The findings reveal that while there is a robust interaction between governmental resources and citizen engagement in OGD across 337 Chinese municipalities, the coordination between these elements is generally low, with most areas showing a coordination degree below 0.3. This discrepancy indicates a lack of alignment in the effective use of resources for public engagement. Cities on the eastern coast display moderately better coordination, which can be attributed to their advanced economies and infrastructure. Conversely, regions with lower coordination degrees highlight the urgent need for developing policy interventions to improve the synergy between OGD and citizen engagement.