Adopting Information Technologies for Open Government in Dutch Municipalities: A TOMIE Framework Analysis of Organisational-Level IT Adoption Under the Dutch Open Government Act (Woo)

The 2022 Dutch Open Government Act (Woo) seeks to promote transparency and proactive public information disclosure by Dutch government bodies. However, despite its intent to modernise public information access, the Act’s rollout has challenged municipalities, many of which have yet to determine effective compliance strategies. In this regard, given information technology’s (IT) emergence as a catalyst for open government, organisational-level IT adoption offers municipalities a promising avenue to support Woo implementation and alleviate associated burdens. Yet, to date, research has lacked systematic investigation into influential factors of IT adoption in local (i.e., municipal) government contexts, particularly for the purpose of open government. Therefore, to investigate factors influencing IT adoption for open government by Dutch municipal organisations operating under the legislative framework of the Woo, this study applied the Technological-Organisational-Managerial-Individual-Environmental (TOMIE) framework – a theoretical framework for studying organisational technology adoption. Employing an exploratory, cross-sectional qualitative research design, it drew on fifteen semi-structured interviews with sixteen professionals. Thematic analysis revealed that municipal Woo-related IT adoption appears to be influenced by an interplay of 55 factors – exerting varying degrees of influence – distributed across all five dimensions of TOMIE. This suggests that advancing open government through organisational-level IT adoption is not a purely technical endeavour, but rather a multidimensional institutional process. By empirically validating TOMIE’s theoretical applicability within the Dutch municipal open government (i.e., Woo) context, this study advances theoretical understanding of organisational-level IT adoption in local government contexts and provides practical insights for strengthening municipal Woo compliance through such IT adoption.