Diffusion of Big Open Data Policy Innovation in Government and Public Bodies in Pakistan

Governmental entities are one of the producers of voluminous data. Proactive release of big open data (BOD) by the governmental entities is on the way around the globe. Pakistan’s Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2013 has been considered the compelling cause of big open data policy innovation adoption among governmental entities. Taking big open data from the viewpoint of policy innovation, this study draws on both Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) theory and its application to public policy innovation research to examine Pakistan’s BOD policy diffusion patterns at government and public bodies’ level. These patterns are based on policy declaration timing by the governments, policy adoption timing, development of technological applications, and proactively released datasets statistics in public bodies. An Event History Analysis is carried out to examine BOD policy innovation diffusion. Results shows that Federal government is the innovator for the policy innovation diffusion across different governments and subsequent public bodies. We have also found that efficacy ranking of public bodies is quite low in terms of developing BOD technological platforms and proactive release of datasets in large quantities. Politicians, policy-makers and policy-practitioners should focus on effective implementation of big open data policy in Pakistan to stand with world.