The effects of institutional factors on public value position prioritization: proposing and validating a measurement scale in the Brazilian digital government context: proposing and validating a measurement scale in the Brazilian digital government context

Abstract

Previous research suggests that institutional factors influence the prioritization of digital government initiatives. This study aims to develop and validate a scale to measure institutional factors’ impact on a specific public value position choice. Based on the public value theory and a conceptual model from a previous qualitative study, this quantitative research was conducted by surveying 451 state public managers from several Brazilian state governments. A questionnaire was developed and validated to test the influence of four institutional factors (political, financial, personnel, and legal) on prioritizing public value positions. Most hypotheses were confirmed through a structural equation model analysis (PLS-SEM). Findings show that political and financial factors are the most influential ones. The former influences the administrative efficiency value, as well as citizen engagement. The latter is also affecting organizational efficiency and service improvement. Personnel factors influence citizen engagement, whereas legal factors influence service improvement. The main contribution is the development and validation of a new public value scale to measure the influence of political, financial, personnel, and legal factors when prioritizing concurrent public value positions.