Inter-organisational electronic information sharing in local G2G settings: A socio-technical issue

Local Government Authorities (LGAs) are information-intensive organisations. To satisfy their information requirements effective information sharing within and among LGAs is necessary (internally among departments and externally with other authorities). The problem of Inter-Organisational Information Sharing (IOIS) has been regarded as inevitable for the public sector. Despite a decade of active research and practice in this complex problem area, the field lacks a comprehensive framework to examine the factors affecting Electronic Information Sharing (EIS) among government bodies at the local level. The research presented in this paper contributes toward resolving this problem by developing a conceptual framework of factors affecting EIS in Government-to-Government (G2G) collaboration. By presenting this framework, we attempt to clarify that information sharing in LGAs is a combination of environmental, organisational, business process and technological factors and should not be scrutinised from merely a technical perspective. To validate our conceptual findings, a multiple case study based research strategy was adopted. From an analysis of the empirical data collected from two case organisations, this paper exemplifies the importance of these factors in influencing EIS and offering LGA officials with specific advice on how to better interpret EIS and its underlying problems. The paper should be of interest to both academics and practitioners who are interested in IOIS, in general, and collaborative e-Government, in particular.