Inter-organisational information sharing in the public sector: A longitudinal case study on the reshaping of success factors

Today, public organisations need to share information in order to complete their tasks. Over the years, scholars have mapped out the social and organisational factors that affect the success or failure of these kinds of endeavours. However, few of the suggested models have sought to address the temporal aspect of inter-organisational information sharing. The aim of this paper is to investigate the reshaping of social and organisational factors of inter-organisational information sharing in the public sector over time. We analysed four years' worth of information sharing in an inter-organisational reference group on copper corrosion in the context of nuclear waste management. We could trace how factors in the model proposed by Yang and Maxwell (2011) were reshaped over time. Two factors in the model - concerns of information misuse and trust - are frequently assessed by organisations and are the most likely to change. In the long run we also found that legislation and policies can change.