Abstract/Summary

Data adoption in decision-making has been identified as a primary solution for the increasing challenges confronted by local government authorities in the United Kingdom, thus contributing to the improvement of public service provision. Consequently, numerous research is conducted to investigate data adoption in the UK local government. However, little is known about the impact of the dual leadership hierarchies on the adoption of data-supported decision-making (DSDM) within the specified context. Therefore, this thesis aims to investigate the role of dual leadership in the adoption DSDM in the UK local government. To achieve this, the thesis conducts an inductive qualitative comparative approach, where data is collected from 13 local authorities in the form of documentation and semi-structured interviews. As thematic analysis and constant comparative analysis methods are applied to analyse the data, it is found that there are three coexisting decision-making logics in the UK local government. Moreover, based on the Institutional Logics Perspective, it is found that the higher the instantiation of the profession institutional order in the decision-making logics, the higher the adoption of data-supported decision-making in local authorities. Furthermore, based on the Diffusion of Innovation in Organizations, it is found that the dual leadership schemes manifesting as a result of interactions occurring among the decision-making logics significantly impact the level of data-supported decision-making adoption within local authorities. In addition, five leadership-related factors are found to influence a local authority’s level of DSDM adoption: level of delegation, dual leadership relationship direction, political arrangement and stability of a local authority, and the political experience of local authorities’ leading councillors. These results contribute empirically to the research context by exploring the different dual leadership schemes and explaining each’s influence on the adoption of the phenomenon. Moreover, this thesis contributes theoretically to literature by extending the Diffusion of Innovation in Organizations theory to include organizations with multiple leadership hierarchies by adding the multiple leadership schemes as a construct under the leadership dimension. Practical implication of the research is presented by proposing an enhancement to a data maturity model for local government.