Opening Moves – Drivers, Enablers and Barriers of Open Data in a Semi-public Organization

Governments around the world are opening up their data to increase transparency and stimulate re-use of their data. Semi-public organizations follow, but often for different purposes as they also aim to realize commercial gains with their data. Many organizations, however, find the process of opening up data cumbersome as changes need to be made to different organizational layers. This paper identifies drivers, enablers, and barriers of open data, by reviewing literature and by conducting a case study of open data in a semi-public organization in the Netherlands. We found that while the drivers for opening up data remain the same in every phase of the process, the enablers and barriers shift between the different phases. While in the beginning of the process, organizational factors such as having an implementation strategy and ensuring data quality gained much attention, this attention shifted to factors related to re-use of data. Further research should thus focus on how to develop valuable open data business models, how to foster re-use and build strategic partnerships with users.