Clarity of Roles and Responsibilities in Government Cross-Boundary Information Sharing Initiatives: Identifying the Determinants

Research has shown that clarity of roles and responsibilities (CRR) influences the effectiveness and performance of individual organizations as well as cross-boundary or interorganizational group efforts. Role clarity increases job satisfaction, commitment, and involvement and reduces tension and anxiety among organizational members, which results in lower staff turnover rates in organizations. In addition, CRR has been found to enable other important determinants of success in cross-boundary information sharing (CBI), such as building trust among members of CBI initiatives. However, few studies attempt to understand the determinants of CRR in a CBI initiative. Using data from semi-structured interviews from eight U.S. state and local government public health and criminal justice information sharing cases, this paper seeks to fill this gap by examining these determinants. The analysis of the public health and criminal justice information sharing efforts supported the identification of a set of determinants of CRR. In general, these determinants involved different types of knowledge participants had or gained about each other through the course of the initiative; others involved participants' views on how their needs and concerns were being addressed by initiative participants and sponsors. Overall, this study contributes to the existing literature by identifying several of these determinants and explaining how they affect CRR in government CBI initiatives.