A model for measuring the willingness of policy makers to open government in Iran

Open government is expanding around the world as a policy to enhance transparency, participation and collaboration. Since the level of policy makers' willingness to open government is crucial for moving towards policy making of open government and development of those policies, the purpose of this paper is to provide a model for measuring policy makers’ willingness of open government and examine the differences in the level of willingness in policy-makers' groups.

Design/Methodology/Approach:

In this research, an exploratory mixed method has been used which in qualitative stage, synthesis method and in the quantitative stage, the survey and analysis of the data of the 116 policy makers’ questionnaires has been applied.

"open government willingness" is a multidimensional construct, including the willingness of the policymaker towards transparency, citizen participation, collaboration, government accountability, and support for innovation and help business development. In addition, the results indicate that the level of policy makers' willingness to open government in Iran is high and the rate of willingness to open government among different age groups, status and levels of awareness of open government is different.

 The impossibility of generalizing the research results to all communities and the inherent limitations of the questionnaire are among the limitations of the current study.

The need for an efficient, transparent, accountable, and participatory governance system cannot be denied. Given the challenges in the aforementioned issues in our country, this research will help to design a favorable model of open government for Iran and realize that values.

Open government and open data are new concepts, and research in these fields are scarce in Iran. Therefore, this research could initiate a new chapter in the production of science in the country in this field and fills the research gap by providing the aforementioned model as the first model in this field.