Arkus

Legal Aspects of Digital Business Licensing: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of the OSS-RBA in Indonesia's Batam Free Trade Zone

Fadlan — 2025-07-04

The global trend of digital transformation in public administration has prompted significant legal and institutional reforms aimed at enhancing economic competitiveness. In Indonesia, this is exemplified by the 2021 launch of the Online Single Submission Risk-Based Approach (OSS-RBA), a centralized digital platform for business licensing. This study investigates the implementation of this system within the complex legal environment of the Batam Free Trade Zone (FTZ), a strategic economic hub characterized by regulatory dualism. The aim of this research is to critically evaluate the legal and commercial implications of the OSS-RBA's implementation in a Special Economic Zone. Its novelty lies in employing a rigorous mixed-methods approach to move beyond a simple efficiency analysis, providing a nuanced examination of the tensions between digital administrative reform and the foundational commercial law principles of legal certainty, procedural justice, and regulatory harmonization. This study utilized a convergent parallel mixed-methods design. The doctrinal legal analysis involved a systematic content analysis of Indonesia’s 1945 Constitution, Law No. 11 of 2020 (Omnibus Law), and Batam-specific regulations. The empirical component included a quantitative analysis of 245 licensing applications (2022-2023), three distinct surveys of business representatives and applicants (n=156, n=189, n=198), and qualitative data from structured interviews with 56 regulatory officials and legal practitioners, alongside focus groups with 45 business actors. A novel Business Legal Certainty Index (BLCI) was constructed and validated to measure regulatory predictability. The findings demonstrate that the OSS-RBA has yielded significant administrative efficiencies, reducing licensing processing times by up to 83.9% and increasing approval rates to 92.7%. This correlates with a 67.3% increase in Foreign Direct Investment in Batam post-implementation. However, the system is fraught with challenges. The study identified 23 specific legal inconsistencies between national and FTZ regulations, leading to jurisdictional ambiguity. Furthermore, the opacity of algorithmic decision-making raises significant administrative justice concerns, with only 45% of automated decisions providing a clear rationale, thereby limiting access to effective legal remedies. In conclusion, the OSS-RBA represents a critical step toward modernizing Indonesia's investment climate, but its success is contingent on substantial legal and institutional reform. To realize the full potential of digital governance, policymakers must prioritize comprehensive regulatory harmonization, amend administrative procedure laws to safeguard due process in an automated era, and strengthen institutional capacity.

The Implementation Gap of Urban Green Space Policy: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Political Will and Spatial Inequity in Indonesia’s Decentralized Governance

Ulfah Nur Hakimah — 2025-12-17

Rapid urbanization in emerging economies frequently outpaces environmental planning, creating severe ecological deficits. In Indonesia, Law Number 26 of 2007 mandates that local governments maintain at least 30% of their urban area as green open space (RTH). However, compliance remains critically low in secondary cities. This study employs a Sequential Explanatory Mixed-Methods design to evaluate the implementation gap in Banyumas Regency, Indonesia. Utilizing longitudinal policy data from 2019 to 2023, a stratified random survey of 300 residents, Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), this research quantifies the divergence between statutory targets and spatial reality. Results indicate a critical implementation gap, with Public RTH covering only 2.23% of the urban area, far below the 20% public target. While the total RTH area increased by 11.05% over five years, the growth rate is insufficient. Spatial analysis reveals a Gini coefficient of 0.65, highlighting severe inequality where green space is concentrated in administrative cores while peri-urban districts remain green deserts. Structural Equation Modeling confirms that Political Will (beta = 0.62) significantly influences implementation success, while Resource Constraints (beta = -0.48) act as a critical inhibitor. Qualitative analysis identifies a resource trap, where decentralized governance incentivizes revenue-generating infrastructure over environmental assets. The study concludes that achieving the 30% target requires a paradigm shift from state-centric planning to collaborative governance and the establishment of a municipal Land Banking Agency.

Navigating the Iron Triangle: A Systematic Mixed-Methods Review of Equity and Quality Trade-offs in Indonesia’s National Health Insurance Reform

Sutrisni — 2026-01-06

As Indonesia’s Jaminan Kesehatan Nasional (JKN) transitions from an expansionary phase to maturity, it faces the classic iron triangle of health policy: the tension between expanding access, containing costs, and maintaining quality. While coverage rates have soared, critical questions remain regarding the equitable distribution of these benefits in a post-pandemic landscape. This study employs an Integrative Systematic Review design, synthesizing high-impact quantitative and qualitative evidence published between 2021 and 2024. Data were extracted from six primary studies utilizing large-scale national datasets (SUSENAS, IFLS) and policy reviews. The analysis moves beyond simple pooling to perform a narrative synthesis of adjusted Odds Ratios (aOR) for utilization and benefit incidence, assessing the structural determinants of effective coverage. The synthesis reveals a distinct inverse equity trade-off. While JKN ownership significantly increases the probability of inpatient utilization (aOR: 2.35), the benefits are unevenly distributed. A middle-class capture phenomenon is evident, where upper-middle-income groups experience a 41% reduction in out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditure compared to 38% for the poorest quintile. Furthermore, a quality gap persists, with non-poor populations seeing a greater reduction in unmet needs (10.4%) than the poor (7.7%), largely driven by supply-side rigidities in remote areas and administrative literacy barriers. In conclusion, JKN has successfully dismantled financial entry barriers but has not yet resolved structural inequities. The system currently functions as a regressive subsidy where the urban middle class extracts disproportionate value. Future policy must pivot from coverage expansion to supply-side equity, implementing geographic capitation differentials and targeted non-medical benefits for vulnerable populations to close the gap between legal entitlement and effective access.

Real-Time Cost Control in State-Owned Construction Enterprises: Deconstructing Control Latency through the Integration of Internal Audit and AIS

Nurlillah Dwinda Wicaksono — 2026-01-13

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) operating within the construction sector face a unique and precarious ecosystem characterized by high financial complexity, intense public accountability pressures, and significant exposure to chronic cost overrun risks. While internal audit (IA) and accounting information systems (AIS) function as established control mechanisms within these entities, they frequently operate in bureaucratic isolation—IA serving as a retrospective compliance function and AIS acting as a passive transaction repository. This functional disconnection creates a critical control latency gap where financial deviations materialize, compound, and metastasize before detection. This study employed a single holistic case study design grounded in a sociotechnical systems paradigm to explore the integration of IA and AIS at PT MM, a subsidiary of a prominent Indonesian construction SOE. Data were collected over a six-month period through eighteen in-depth semi-structured interviews, extensive participatory observation of audit cycles, and comprehensive documentation analysis. Thematic analysis was rigorously applied to deconstruct the socio-technical dynamics of integration. The investigation revealed that prior to integration, IA functions were hindered by a compliance trap, detecting financial anomalies only after 80-90% of project completion. The strategic integration of real-time AIS data into audit workflows transformed the IA function from a policing role to a strategic digital assurance partner. Specifically, a pilot integration in the dock maintenance 2024 project enabled continuous variance analysis, resulting in an 8% reduction in total project costs through the early detection of material price deviations. In conclusion, the synergy between risk-based internal audit (RBIA) and AIS transforms financial control from reactive verification to proactive mitigation. Success depends not merely on technical connectivity but on a cultural shift towards collaborative governance, positioning digital assurance as a critical driver of resilience.

Technical Precision as the Guardian of Governance: The Independent Roles of Budget Accuracy and Enterprise Risk Management in Mitigating Budgetary Slack

Donny Arif Kurniawan — 2026-01-15

In the complex governance landscape of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), budgetary slack represents a significant agency cost that undermines public resource efficiency. While behavioral determinants of slack are well-documented, the mitigating roles of technical budget quality and formalized risk controls remain under-explored in emerging markets. Adopting a quantitative explanatory design, this study collected data from 50 key personnel, including management accountants, risk officers, and internal auditors, across five subsidiaries of a prominent Indonesian Marine Service SOE. To address the sample size limitation, a post-hoc G*Power analysis (alpha = 0.05, Power = 0.99) confirmed sufficient sensitivity for the observed effect sizes. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM-PLS) with a full collinearity assessment to rule out common method bias. The empirical analysis reveals that budget accuracy (p = 0.014, f-square = 0.32) and risk management (p = 0.022, f-square = 0.28) exert a significant negative influence on budgetary slack. Conversely, budget clarity and evaluation demonstrated no significant effect. Crucially, risk management did not moderate the relationship between budget quality and slack (p > 0.05), functioning instead as a powerful, independent determinant. In conclusion, reducing slack in SOEs relies less on soft goal clarity and more on the ex-ante precision of financial estimates and the parallel integration of risk protocols. SOEs are advised to transition from historical-based budgeting to driver-based forecasting models to reduce information asymmetry.