Cultural Factors Influencing the Data Science Challenge in a Municipality

Dutch municipalities as public organizations do have a challenge on more data-driven policies and strategies. Although they have access to a lot of data, its use depends on the values and skills of employees in the public administration, CPO/CISO officers, policy-makers and politicians. Based on the research model, 15 exploratory interviews were conducted with the various stakeholder groups to identify critical factors in terms of data science, open strategy and organizational culture. Also, the research examined if optimal data-driven cultural factors are available in the municipal organization through a questionnaire with 27 respondents. There is evidence that the cross-sections in a municipality are interpreting data science challenges and topics differently. These different cultural characteristics could result in certain biases and heuristics in the importance of data-drivenness, use and interpretation of data. Thus far, only a few studies investigated the factors influencing the data science challenge in a municipal organization. This research specified four stakeholder groups. The findings demonstrate the differences and prioritization in factors among the influencing systems in a municipal organization. Municipal organizations could benefit from knowing these discrepancies along with introducing and eventually implementing a particular data-driven culture.