Participants' Expectations and the Success of Knowledge Networking in the Public Sector

This paper reports a study of how participants' expectations of interorganizational knowledge sharing are related to the success of information technology projects that require such sharing. Survey data was collected from 478 participants in the six cases in New York State. The study identified four dimensions of participants' expectations of knowledge sharing. They are benefits in providing more effective services, organizational barriers, technological incompatibility, and legal and policy constraints. Furthermore, we find that the participants' expectations regarding organizational barriers are associated with success of knowledge networking. The less positive participants' expectations are about the inter-organizational structure and implementation processes, the less likely their efforts succeed.

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