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Given the various benefits of social media for governments, municipalities are increasingly attempting to institutionalize their use of social media. This article looks at the use of middleware that is observed on municipal Twitter accounts in Dutch municipalities in 2018 and 2021 (N= 724), which provide a set of APIs that specify input and output modalities. It is observed that the use of subscription-based customer relationship management (CRM) tools, developed mostly in a corporate context, has grown considerably, with an uptake of 89.0% of Dutch municipalities in 2021, whereas the use of free CRM tools appears to be declining. Middleware were studied and linked to three models of social media institutionalization (informal experimentation, centralization, and distribution). Municipalities in the informal experimentation model were observed to have smaller population sizes and generally had fewer IT professionals in their constituencies. Larger municipalities with more IT professionals were mostly observed to have a centralized model of institutionalization. Although municipalities with a distributed institutionalization model were larger, they were generally less urbanized. Finally, more technologically advanced municipalities were only observed to make more use of the distributed model.

This study addresses and compares the adoption rate of three technologies by Dutch municipalities: the adoption of websites between 1994 and 2000, the adoption of Twitter between 2008 and 2018, and the adoption of YouTube between 2006 and 2018. It analyses the municipal adoption curves of websites, Twitter, and YouTube, relating to DOI theory. Survival analysis is conducted of Twitter and YouTube adoption by municipalities, assessing the relationship between technology adoption and organizational and environmental factors. Additional survival analysis is conducted of the relationship between municipal adoption, media coverage of the technology, and user engagement with the technology. Media coverage appears to be a strong predictor for municipal adoption of websites, Twitter, and YouTube, as well as the level of user engagement. Twitter was adopted the fastest by municipalities, followed at a greater distance by website and YouTube adoption. Other findings include that municipalities already using YouTube were quicker to adopt Twitter, but not the other way around. Recently amalgamated municipalities were slower to adopt Twitter, as well as municipalities with a relatively larger presence of IT professionals.

PurposeAlthough the topic of performance budgeting has received considerable attention in the literature, it is mainly explored in the field of public management and administration, and little research exists in the field of public sector accounting. The purpose of this paper is to provide more insight into how non-performance indicators are integrated in budget documents, thereby bridging the gap between the literature in both fields. Furthermore, the influence of potential drivers of differences in the incorporation of non-financial performance indicators are explored.Design/methodology/approachThis study starts with an overview of historical developments in Dutch local government for a period of 50 years. This is followed by an empirical assessment of the current incorporation of non-financial performance indicators based on a dataset of 107 municipal budget documents for FY2019.FindingsThe authors' historical overview shows that several initiatives were employed to encourage municipalities to integrate non-financial performance indicators in their budget documents. A search to connect policy and means can be observed, which has not developed linearly over time, but mostly in reaction to major changes in national legislation. The authors find a large variation among the municipalities in their current incorporation of non-financial performance indicators. Contrary to theoretical expectations, output indicators (and not outcome indicators) are most frequently incorporated. Furthermore, the authors find that more indicators are incorporated if a municipality is larger, more willing to innovate and if it has less financial resources.Originality/valueThis article contributes to the understanding of how to incorporate non-financial performance indicators in public sector financial statements. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is an area that is not explored before.

Recent literature calls for more research on the context and drivers of information use, and how this affects the information-seeking behaviour of politicians. This article addresses this gap by exploring antecedents of politicians’ accounting and other types of information use. It looks at parliamentary debates in the Dutch central government linked to the budget cycle—how accounting information is balanced with other sources of information. Political roles (for example being member of a coalition or opposition party, or being a party’s financial spokesperson), as well as personal characteristics (age and experience), were found to have an impact on the extent of accounting and other types of information use.

Social media enables public sector organizations to connect with citizens. Next to this, it can help organizations provide more detailed and useful information. But to what extent is social media used by local governments for interaction purposes, and what factors influence this? In this article, we study how Dutch local governments use Twitter for interaction, linking this to political, institutional, and socio-economic determinants. We find that politically fragmented municipalities use Twitter more for interaction, suggesting that political multiplicity forms a stimulus for more online engagement. Moreover, municipalities that have a Twitter account for a longer time make more advanced use of its functions, implying that municipalities with longer experience are better acquainted with a platform's strengths and weaknesses. Finally, municipalities with a higher presence of people in the age group 20–65 as well as municipalities with more higher-educated people use their social media more for interaction. The same counts for municipalities with more ICT workers.

Al geruime tijd zoekt de rijksoverheid naar het zichtbaar maken van de effecten van gevoerd beleid. Een van de instrumenten die hiervoor is ontwikkeld, is de beleidsconclusie. In dit sinds 2013 verplichte onderdeel van het rijksjaarverslag wordt per beleidsartikel een oordeel gegeven over de uitvoering van het beleid in het afgelopen jaar. In hoeverre slaagt de beleidsconclusie hier tot nu toe in? En op wat voor manier wordt er door de verschillende vakdepartementen invulling aan gegeven? Voor dit artikel is gekeken naar alle beleidsconclusies die zijn opgesteld voor het verslagjaar 2017. Uit onze analyse blijkt onder meer dat departementen sterk verschillen in de wijze waarop de beleidsconclusie wordt uitgewerkt, bijvoorbeeld op het gebied van brongebruik en in de manier waarop beoogde resultaten worden geadresseerd. Daarnaast wordt geconstateerd dat in beleidsconclusies de neiging lijkt te bestaan om het zwaartepunt bij positieve uitkomsten te leggen.

Nederlandse promovendi werken veelal niet onder aanvaardbare arbeidsvoorwaarden en voor promovendi uit het buitenland is de situatie vaak nog erger. Bram Faber en Lucille Mattijssen doen voorstellen voor betere bescherming van deze sandwichpromovendi.

In the Netherlands, electronic service delivery has become an important issue in many municipalities. Using the Internet for service delivery is seen as an important element of e-government. Based on 2014–2016 panel data for all Dutch municipalities, we show that there is a large variety among the municipalities in the extent to which they offer their service delivery digitally. By exploring the factors that may explain the differences among the municipalities, some trends can be discerned. Most notably is the strong relationship of e-government adoption with demographic characteristics, such as population, population density and both older age and younger age groups. Remarkably, we did not find an influence of education and income. Finally, we did not observe a relation between municipal allocated costs and level of e-maturity, hereby leaving the question open if and how e-government can lead to cost reductions.

In recent years, social media has become a major venue for the interplay between citizens and public sector organizations, in order to facilitate corporate dialog. However, not much comprehensive research has been done on how interactivity between local governments and citizens takes shape. Building on earlier work that addresses municipal e-government adoption, this article does empirical work on the ways in which social media is used by all 380 Dutch municipalities. It focuses on social media usage by means of a quantitative assessment through five social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. In doing so, it sheds light on the interrelations between e-government adoption, social media deployment, and sophistication of use from a local government perspective. Furthermore we identify determinants for the types of social media usage by means of a stages of an e-government model consisting of three phases. We find that more densely populated municipalities with a larger and a higher-educated population use their Twitter account significantly different from their counterparts.

In the Netherlands, electronic service delivery has become an important issue in many municipalities. Using the Internet for service delivery is seen as an important element of e-government. Based on 2014-2016 panel-data of ICT service delivery for all Dutch municipalities, we show that there is a large variety among the municipalities in the extent to which they offer their service delivery digitally. We explore the factors that may explain the differences among the municipalities. Some trends can be discerned, most notably the strong relationship of e-government adoption with demographic characteristics, such as population, population density and both older age and younger age groups. Remarkably, we did not find an influence of educa-tion and income. Finally, we did not observe a relation between municipal allocated costs and level of e-maturity, hereby leaving the question open if and how e-government can lead to cost reductions.

Beleidsvrijheid is een van de drijvende krachten achter de mate waarin burgers reageren op gemeentelijke berichten op sociale media. Beleidsterreinen waar lokale overheden meer beleidsvrijheid ervaren lijken méér reacties te ontlokken. Doordat gemeenten de vrijheid hebben om beleid te bepalen op deze terreinen, zouden burgers zich gesterkt kunnen voelen om juist op deze beleidsterreinen contact te zoeken met gemeenten.

Een gemeente moet haar dienstverlening zo inrichten dat alle inwoners er gebruik van kunnen maken. Het is de kunst om daarbij goed aan te sluiten bij de wensen en verwachtingen van inwoners. Maar met welke inwoners precies? Wij deden onderzoek naar de waarde van sociale media in relatie tot de dienstverlening van gemeenten.

Voor burgers is het belangrijk dat de gemeentelijke dienstverlening snel en goed verloopt. Digitalisering is een middel om dat bereiken. Sommige gemeenten zijn echter een stuk verder dan andere met het digitaliseren van hun dienstverlening. Wat verklaart dat onderlinge verschil?