Identifying mechanisms for achieving voluntary data sharing in cross-sector partnerships for public good

Abstract

It has been advocated that sharing business data can generate public value. Still this information sharing often needs to be done on voluntary basis and that often poses major challenges. The main research question addressed in this paper is: How is voluntary information sharing to create public value achieved and what are the drivers and mechanisms to achieve that? While voluntary information sharing to achieve public value is recognized in the eGovernment literature, this literature is limited to understand how such information sharing can be achieved. To address the research question, we borrow a framework of platforms for cross sector social partnerships from organization studies and use it as a conceptual lens to structure the analysis of three case studies where voluntary information sharing was achieved in different domains. Building on the framework and our case analysis, we distinguish three types of information sharing collaborations, namely Resource-dependence platform, Social Issue platform, and Societal Sector platform which allow to distinguish the motivations why parties enter into voluntary information sharing collaborations. Our analysis suggests that while the higher goal of the voluntary information sharing may be the same (i.e. to create public value), parties are driven by different motivations of why they enter into the information sharing collaborations. Furthermore, in each of these different types of collaborations the mechanisms of how the information sharing was achieved, as well as the role the government can play, differ.