Trust in Government Cross-Boundary Information Sharing Initiatives: Identifying the Determinants

This paper identifies a set of determinants of trust in government cross-boundary information sharing (CBI) initiatives. Although there are some studies that identify the antecedents of trust in collaboration, research about trust relationships in government interorganizational initiatives is lacking. Little attention, in particular, has been paid to the determinants of trust in government CBI. To fill this gap in the literature, our study analyzes eight separate case studies of information sharing initiatives from criminal justice and public health organizations to identify new determinants of trust. Drawing from the case analysis we present three propositions related to trust determinants in the context of CBI initiatives, specifically, clarity of roles and responsibilities, knowledge of participating organizations, and exercise of authority.