When Local Governments Request Access to Data: Power and Coordination Mechanisms across Stakeholders

Abstract

There are ongoing efforts to encourage public organizations to use data to enhance their performance and design public policies. Among barriers to data use, public managers report low access to data owned by stakeholders—other city departments, other public agencies, and nongovernmental organizations. A critical research question is how public organizations can design incentives and structures that decrease the time and resources spent to request and obtain access to data. Drawing from resource dependency theory and a contingency‐based approach, this research examines how routinized, formal nonroutinized, and informal coordination mechanisms facilitate access to data from influential groups of stakeholders. Hypotheses are tested using 2016 survey data from a nationally representative sample of 2,500 departments in 500 US cities. Results show that formal nonroutinized coordination facilitates access to data requested from governmental actors, while informal coordination decreases access to data requested from nongovernmental organizations.

Socio-Technical Challenges Towards Data-Driven and Integrated Urban Water Management: A Socio-Technical Network Approach

“…There, social actors with access to data on many technical elements were also more likely to forward information. From the perspective of data-driven UWM, this finding is crucial, as social actors with access to data of many technical elements potentially can achieve a higher impact by sharing this data and derived information with many other social actors in the catchment area (Fusi 2020;Hoolohan et al, 2021;Yang and Maxwell 2011). In case studies 1 and 3, the same effect was not significant, probably due to very few data transfer edges being overall present (s. Appendix F).…”

“…Data access is necessary to fully exploit the value of real-time monitoring data, to achieve data-driven management, to control elements in a catchment area, and thus to establish integrated management (Ingildsen and Olsson 2016). Another socio-technical challenge is recognized in the lack of access to real-time monitoring data across a catchment area of an UWS (Fusi 2020;Hoolohan et al, 2021). For example, not every social actor who could potentially utilize such data may, in fact, have access to it.…”

“…First, at a theoretical level, I argue that social interactions, such as information exchange between social actors in the context of managing an infrastructure system, not only depend on social factors alone but also are potentially affected by underlying socio-technical dependencies. However, data-driven and integrated UWM, relying on information exchange among social actors, may be impeded by socio-technical challenges, such as organizational fragmentation (Ighodaro et al, 2017;Kim et al, 2015;Lienert et al, 2013), access to data (Fusi 2020;Araya and Vasquez 2022;Reisi et al, 2020), or diverging perceptions (Cousins 2017;Pahl-Wostl 2007;Hommes et al, 2008). Second, this article, therefore, analyzes three specific hypotheses related to these challenges.…”

Pandemic-era Participation in Public Lands Governance: Lessons From the USDA Forest Service

“…Access is the opportunity to not only participate in the process but also "to access sufficient and appropriate support, for instance, education, information, so that [one] can understand the process in an informed, active capacity, not as a reactionary, " (Senecah, 2004, p. 23). Generally, stakeholder participation trends have increased access to information (Fusi, 2020) but may not ensure information literacy-the access and skills needed to assess and use information (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2021). Indeed, UNESCO believes that ".…”

Governance: Struggle and Strife—Or Synergy and Success—In the Trans‐COVID Era

“…Guul, Pedersen and Petersen (2021) utilize a survey experimental vignette design to explore how two generic nondemographic client attributes—competence and motivation—shape frontline employees’ willingness to help their clients; they find that clients who appear motivated and competent are the ones caseworkers are most willing to help. Fusi (2021) uses survey data from 2500 departments in 500 U.S. cities to examine how routinized, formal nonroutinized, and informal coordination mechanisms facilitate access to influential stakeholder data. Results indicate that formal nonroutinized coordination facilitates access to data requested from governmental actors, while informal coordination decreases access to data requested from nongovernmental organizations.…”