The Outcomes of the Implementation of Internet of Things: A Public Value Perspective

Abstract

In recent years, Internet of Things (IoT) has gained presence in all areas of life. Whilst private sector is the forerunner in the adoption of these devices, public sector usage has been lagging. With the rise of smart initiatives, public organizations are increasingly implementing IoT. The necessity to know in which areas of public sector IoT has been implemented and what public value has been derived, has gained importance as reporting of the cost efficiency and benefits of these initiatives has gained attention. This paper seeks to determine the importance of IoT in the public sector from the perspective of public value. IoT implementation in Estonian municipalities was studied to provide concrete data on the use of IoT. Next to efficiency, which is a known goal of IT implementation, the research findings suggest that while IoT has generated public value, there has been a shift in value creation with other outcomes such as effectiveness, transparency and collaboration gaining increased presence. While IoT shows great promise for public value creation, more research is needed to study how public sector can leverage these devices to harvest more benefits than the simple automatization of work processes.

Success Factors Influencing Citizens’ Adoption of IoT Service Orchestration for Public Value Creation in Smart Government

“…Service collaboration should be closely evaluated to decide whether external stakeholders should be engaged in IoT operations. These results are consistent with the study of Velsberg [143], which identifies the factors for public value creation in municipal government services. Service transparency can be used by a public organization in broader interactions with its stakeholders for service collaboration on public value creation [149].…”

Exploring smartness in public sector innovation - creating smart public services with the Internet of Things

“…The application of IoT to create smart city services is an example of IT-enabled public sector innovation that affects each branch of city government, e.g. administration, transport and healthcare (Velsberg, 2018).…”

“…Data from sensor-based systems can be integrated and synthesised with public services (Kankanhalli et al, 2019;Saarikko et al, 2020), ultimately culminating in the provision of services that are more responsive and accessible to citizens. The public sector can integrate IoT into a vast array of services, such as traffic solutions, effective waste management, optimised administration, and efficient healthcare (Chatfield & Reddick, 2019;Velsberg, 2018). Indeed, recent research has predicted that IoT technology, if extended to the public sector, will affect almost every public service and significantly improve processes and human efficiency (Tomar & Kaur, 2019).…”

The Municipality’s Role in a Smart Internet of Things Ecosystem

“…Here the goal is to provide intelligent and complicated services in a multitude of areas, enabling the transparent and seamless integration of a variety of end systems (Mekki, Bajic, Chaxel, & Meyer, 2019;Abualese, Al-Rousan, & Al-Shargabi, 2019). Among others, IoT can be used to improve or create new public services, improve efficiency of internal management and service delivery, and drive collaboration with various actors (Velsberg, 2019).…”

“…However, due to the dynamic nature of public services, the requirements for IoT devices vary significantly. For example, IoT devices that quickly and accurately transmit information can be crucial for winter road maintenance, while speed would not be a requirement for water quality monitoring (Velsberg, 2019).…”