How to Foster Prosumption for Value Co-Creation? The Open Government Development Plan

The emergence of the Web 2.0 with vibrant online communities has shifted the governmental perspective from an administration with closed doors and one-directional communication to a transparent interaction and two-way communication urge. The challenges of our current society report citizen expectations for open data, e-participation and social media campaigns. The world wide usage of social media tools has opened new possibilities for authorities to engage their citizens in governmental work. In the mean time, citizens prove to be increasingly interested in engaging creatively as prosumers with the governmental agencies as long as they are offered the means to prosume. Like in the business world, they need an open platform which offers knowledge sharing, interaction, and the opportunity for creative initiatives, but these characteristics depend upon the level of governmental openness towards them through adequate tools and a transparency oriented culture. The literature proposes stage models for developing e-government, but they all lack the connection with the degree of citizen participation and the value it provides for government activities. We must state the fact that there is a difference between usual citizen passive activity, a low involvement degree and prosumer creative engagement, the last demanding an increased organizational effort and loss of power for more valuable outcomes. Therefore, the present paper proposes an open government development plan to foster presumption on different levels of citizen engagement for value co-creation and government innovation.