DOI: 10.4018/IJPADA.2016100102 Copyright © 2016, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. International Journal of Public Administration in the Digital Age Volume 3 • Issue 4 • October-December 2016 A Synthesised Stage Model for Collaborative Public Service Platforms Aulia Zulfa, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands Bram Klievink, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands Mark de Reuver, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands Marijn Janssen, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands ABSTRACT Collaboration between government, the private sector and citizens is deemed critical to further improve the quality and effectiveness of public services. However, the stage models describing and guiding the development of e-government do not or only rarely cover external collaboration for improving public services. The authors argue that this gap can be filled by including insights from literature on the evolution of platforms, which can serve as a medium for collaboration between public and private parties. This paper aims to synthesise e-government maturity models and platform development models to act as a guide to move from government-centred public service improvement to collaborative innovations by government, businesses and citizens. The result is a platform development model with five stages. To see how the model holds in practice, three cases are investigated. The authors find that their model shows promise but also requires further evaluation and refinement. KeywoRDS Citizens, Collaboration, E-Government, Government, Platform, Private Sector, Public E-Service Provision, Stage Models 1. INTRoDUCTIoN Over the past two decades, there has been a rapid transformation in government functions (Devadoss, Pan, & Huang, 2002). All over the world, government organizations are looking for ways to improve public service delivery and move towards electronic service provisioning (Layne & Lee, 2001; Reddick, 2004). For instance, they aim to work towards offering integrated and executable services in a “one stop shop” (West, 2004; Wimmer, 2002). One way of doing this is through a combination of efforts by actors from the public sector, the private sector, and citizens in innovating and delivering services (Brinkerhoff & Brinkerhoff, 2011). However, although collaboration among multiple parties has been a growing topic in the literature, government institutions often still work in “silos” and address issues from a sectorial perspective (UN, 2014). For this reason, development models that apply the concept of collaboration among multiple parties could be of help for governments to serve as a guide to move from government-centred public service innovations to innovations driven by government, businesses and citizens, in collaboration. However, this type of collaboration is hardly discussed in the existing stage models that provide a guide in public e-service development and that regularly fail to help in achieving real transformation (Klievink, Van Veenstra, & Janssen, 2009). 10