Strength of Strong Ties in Intercity Government Information Sharing and County Jurisdictional Boundaries

Abstract

Studies have found that information sharing between city governments can be easily observed within the same county jurisdiction, but less attention has been paid to the reasons why the jurisdictional boundary matters. This article fills this lacuna, drawing on the insight of the "strength of strong ties" argument that "people help their friends first." The analysis reveals that city governments in the Orlando, Florida, metropolitan area are more likely to share economic development information (EDI) with governments in the same county as the collective demand for such information in that area increases. This study additionally finds that the greater the demand for EDI, the more likely it is that city governments will seek the information from their county members. As a result, as the demand for information increases among city governments in a metropolitan area, the likelihood that it will be shared by all members of the area beyond the county boundaries decreases. Evidence for Practice• When there is a high collective demand for information sharing from other cities, municipal governments and their officials are more likely to provide information to governments within the same county jurisdictional boundary. • As municipal governments' information needs increase, they will have a greater tendency to contact same-county members for that information. • This research suggests a strong need for policy entrepreneurs who can bond weak-tied city governments across county jurisdictional boundaries and facilitate intergovernmental information sharing beyond jurisdictional boundaries.

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

“…Resources dependence theory (RDT) is widely used to explain why power affects the exchange of resources, including data, across organizations (Blau 1955; Pfeffer and Salancik 1978). From an RDT perspective, data are a strategic and political resource for organizations, which use their power to access data from others while preventing access to data that might erode their competitive position (Ki, Kwak, and Song 2020; Kornberger et al 2017).…”

“…Meijer (2018) describes city governments’ struggle to access data from private companies, such as Uber and Airbnb. The Pew Charitable Trust (2018) finds that one‐third of state leaders cannot persuade other public agencies to provide access to data, while Ki, Kwak, and Song (2020) show that local governments are less likely to share their economic data with organizations in other counties. A critical question for public management is what barriers prevent access to data and how public organizations can reduce the time and resources they spend to request and obtain data from stakeholders.…”

“…Results make three contributions to scholarship on data access and sharing. First, prior research mainly focuses on collaborative initiatives, reciprocal exchange of data, and citizen requests (Chen and Lee 2018; Gil‐Garcia and Sayogo 2016; Susha, Janssen, and Verhulst 2017); only a few studies examine data access in unilateral relationships where public organizations are the ones requesting data (Fusi and Feeney 2020; Ki, Kwak, and Song 2020). This gap is significant as data are a critical input for policymaking and service delivery.…”

What Determines Where Public Investment Goes? Regional Governance and the Role of Institutional Rules and Power

“…Local governments in the United States and elsewhere are increasingly choosing collaborative approaches to resolve institutional collective action problems and to achieve better regional policy outcomes. Much of the recent research on interlocal collaboration asks what rules, incentives, and resources are available to local jurisdictions so that public managers can overcome transaction costs embedded in joint actions and maximize benefits (Hansen, Mullin, and Riggs 2019; Ki, Song, and Kwak 2020; Klok et al 2018; Lubell et al 2017; Song, Park, and Jung 2018; Yi et al 2018). One strand of scholarly inquiry focuses on what forms of governance should be adopted to integrate institutional collective action problems.…”

Exploring the Frontiers of Administrative Behavior

“…Their results suggest that implementing organizations perceive top‐down mechanisms as ineffective for coordination and that they prefer adaptive arrangements, active involvement, and deliberative processes to facilitate collaboration. Ki, Kwak, and Song () examine the collaborative effects of strong ties among cities within counties in the sharing of economic development information, finding that, as demand for such information increases within a metro area, the less likely it is to be shared by participants beyond their home county. Finally, Su () examines traffic fine patterns in California counties from 2004 to 2015, finding asymmetrical responses to revenue changes.…”