The formation and evolution of cross-boundary digital government knowledge networks

Abstract

The field of e-government has grown and matured as a distinct study domain for the past two decades. It seems clear that research collaborations across disciplinary, geographical, and institutional boundaries have played a critical role in the growth of knowledge on e-government and that it can become a powerful driving force for future advances in this field. Using a multi-method approach and longitudinal data, combining archival research, conventional statistics, and social network analysis, this paper explores how individuals who had joined the North American Digital Government Working Group from different disciplines, countries, and organizations form a research-oriented collaboration group and how the group evolves into an integrated and productive e-Gov knowledge network. The results show that interpersonal face-to-face communication relationships that had been sustained for a long time played a critical role in building and maintaining network ties for collaborative knowledge creation and resource sharing and that sharing research resources and creating knowledge through collaborative efforts at dyadic levels were closely intertwined in this transnational interdisciplinary knowledge-sharing network.