Research On The Influencing Factors Of Local Officials' Willingness In Inter-Organizational Data Sharing

The construction of digital government has become an important innovation of local governments in China,but the insufficient inter-organizational data sharing has restricted the digital transformation process in local governments.Promoting inter-organizational data sharing requires not only the improvement of systems at the organizational level,but also the active cooperation of officials.Therefore,to explore the factors influencing the willingness of local officials in inter-organizational data sharing,is important for optimizing the inter-organizational data sharing mechanism in local governments and promoting the construction of digital government.Many scholars have widely discussed the influencing factors of inter-organizational data sharing from the organizational and individual levels which provides multiple perspectives for the future research.However,most of the studies have considered the interorganizational data sharing as an organizational behavior,seldom focused on the willingness of individuals.The potential influence of the capability evaluation of data receiving unit has also been neglected.Based on the case analysis of Zhejiang province,this study finds that under the policy requirements of data source units to uniformly share data with the Big Data Bureau,the capability evaluation of the Big Data Bureau from local officials will affect their data sharing willingness.It verifies that the capability evaluation of data receiving unit has an effect on individuals' willingness in inter-organizational data sharing.This study also uses ordinal regression and post-estimation to analyze 661 questionnaires from local officials in Zhejiang province.The results show that the lower the level of government,the higher the frequency of communication software usage in daily work,and the more willing to exchange personal data for convenience in life,the better understanding about the data misuse of other departments,the higher evaluation of the capability of the Big Data Bureau in data management and development as well as data security,the officials are more inclined to conduct inter-organizational data sharing.The conclusions are as follows: Firstly,local officials' willingness in inter-organizational data sharing has been shaped by individual preference as well as external environment.Secondly,under the policy requirements of government departments to centralize data into the Big Data Bureau,the establishment of the Big Data Bureau does not necessarily enhance the willingness of officials in inter-organizational data sharing.Gaining excellent data governance capability is an important prerequisite for them to obtain officials' approval.Thirdly,local officials evaluate the data governance capability from two dimensions——data management and development as well as data security.Officials value more about the data management and development capacity than data security capacity.In view of this,we give some policy suggestions: the government should(1)strengthen the construction of internal online collaboration platform;(2)promote the data governance capability of the Big Data Bureau;(3)accelerate the ownership protection and development of data resources;(4)explore a flexible mechanism that adapts to the data sharing needs of different levels of government,so as to increase the willingness of local officials in interorganizational data sharing and promote the construction of digital government.