Lean government and platform-based governance—Doing more with less Marijn Janssen a, ⁎, Elsa Estevez b, 1 a Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, PO Box 5015, 2600 GA Delft, Jaffalaan 5, 2628 BX Delft, The Netherlands b Center for Electronic Governance, United Nations University International Institute for Software Technology, P.O. Box 3058, Macao abstract article info Available online 6 December 2012 Keywords: e-Government Open government Public sector reform Platform Government as a platform Infrastructure Orchestration Governments from all over the world are looking for ways to reduce costs while at the same time to stimulate innovation. While pursuing both objectives, governments face a major challenge—to operate in a connected environment, engage stakeholders and solve societal problems by utilizing new methods, tools, practices and governance models. As result, fundamental changes are taking place on how government operates. Such changes are under the larger umbrella of ‘lean government’ (l-Government). Lean government is a new wave which is appearing as a response to traditional approaches—like electronic government (e-Government) and transforma- tional government (t-Government), and aims at reducing the complexity of the public sector by simplifying and streamlining organizational structures and processes, at the same time at stimulating innovation by mobilizing stakeholders. In l-Government, public organizations introduce platforms facilitating innovation and interactions with other public organizations, business and citizens, and focus on their orchestration role. Experimentation, assessment and gradual improvement based on user requirements are key factors for realizing l-Government. © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Governments find themselves in a situation where budgets are re- duced and at the same time innovation is necessary to stimulate eco- nomic growth. In such scenario, politicians and legislators aim to reduce the administrative burden for businesses and governments, in- crease customer-centricity and at the same time they are challenged to innovate. Process standardization, providing services (only) online, open data, social media, participative innovation and reducing the size and complexity of the public sector are some of the developments con- tributing to this aim. As an example, the opening of data is a way of stimulating innovation, utilizing the wisdom of the crowds providing access to knowledge out of reach (Surowiecki, 2004). While by adopting these practices, governments expect that they can reduce their administration. Most citizens agree to have a smaller government, but also that governments should still have the ability and capacity to solve socie- tal problems. These seemingly contradicting requirements result in the rise of a concept we label as ‘lean government’ (l-Government for short). l-Government is about ‘doing more with less’ and is about the changing role of government in responding to complex po- litical, managerial, and democratic challenges. An example of lean government is the XBRL-based business-to-government reporting in the Netherlands in which both companies and businesses benefit and do more with less (Bharosa, Winne, Wijk, & Janssen, 2012). Driv- en by the financial crisis government have to reduce their spending and reduce the size of their administration, whereas the web enables to engage with citizens and businesses, to build online relationships and involve them in the tackling of societal problems. Governments are getting smaller, but at the same time try to innovate and extend by creating ties within society. In a lean government, responsibilities are assigned to a single government agency, which is held account- able, however, with the key understanding that such responsibilities can only be fulfilled by collaboration among multiple stakeholders— including citizens, businesses, and NGOs. Societal problems pay little or no attention to boundaries and transcend the boundaries of the public sector. The public and private organizations form an eco-system in which the various actors play a certain role in solving societal problems. Web technologies and social media support collaboration beyond the boundaries of government and are used in l-Government to tackle societal problems. The devel- opment and deployment of collaborative solutions require govern- ments to embrace an orchestration role, monitoring and steering what is happening in the collaborative eco-system, introducing a shift in governments' role, and introducing roles that are different from their traditional ones. l-Government focuses on the coordination of information flows, mobilization of actors to stimulate collaboration and innovation, and on monitoring what is happening. In this way, governments aim to deliver the same value or more to its constituen- cies with less staff. The character of lean government is under development and not yet a full-fledged concept. The rise of the web has undermined the traditional relationships between governments and the public. Such Government Information Quarterly 30 (2013) S1–S8 ⁎ Corresponding author. Fax: +31 15 278 3741. E-mail addresses: m.f.w.h.a.janssen@tudelft.nl (M. Janssen), elsa@iist.unu.edu (E. Estevez). 1 Fax: +853 28712940. 0740-624X/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2012.11.003 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Government Information Quarterly journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/govinf