Designing and implementing data collaboratives: A governance perspective

Abstract

Recently, attention has been paid to the opportunities of data sharing across government sectors for complex public problems. These so-called ‘data collaboratives’ are seen as a novel way of leveraging different sources of data and expertise for societal impact. Data collaboratives come with new challenges that might require new governance structures and processes. So far, scant attention has been paid in the literature to data collaborative governance. This study aims to fill that gap. Building upon the collaborative governance and information sharing literature, a framework for Data Collaborative Governance is developed. This framework was tested in a living lab that focused on the public problem of anti-social behavior. Empirical data was collected over a period of one and a half years and analyzed based on an abductive research approach. The findings show that data sharing adds new elements to collaborative governance theory and practice. This study also demonstrates that a living lab is a promising methodology for studying data collaboratives. Finally, it shows that working across boundaries of organizations and sharing data to address complex problems in more collaborative ways has the potential to generate insights for complex public problems.