Inter-agency information sharing for Chinese e-government development: a comparison between vertical and horizontal dimensions

Effective inter-agency information sharing can facilitate the internal administration and external service delivery of government agencies, as well as help them address some complex social issues and then promote social development. Thus, how to promote the success of inter-agency information sharing has attracted the attention of researchers and public administrators. A lot of research has investigated the influential factors of inter-agency information sharing; however, few studies have taken account of the governmental administrative systems, which may influence the collaborations among agencies. Given the composition of the Chinese governmental administrative systems, this study investigated and compared the factors that influence the inter-agency information sharing in vertical and horizontal dimensions. An extended technology–organization–environment (TOE) framework was used to organize the influential factors. The results show that marked differences in influential factors between vertical and horizontal inter-agency information sharing indeed exist.