The Impact of Interoperability Standards Adoption on Organisations in Government Information Networks.

The past decade has seen a steady rise of the phenomenon of ICT-enabled governance networks, also called Government Information Networks. Such networks essentially rely on electronic information sharing across organisations, and thus rest on interoperability (IOP). However, whilst previous research has argued that expected impacts from IOP standard are a central factor for organisations' motivation to adopt them, not much research has been done on the actual impacts from adopting IOP standards for organisations. This paper aims to provide a better understanding of the impacts from the adoption of IOP standards on partner organisations in Government Information Networks. To this end, it combines a literature study with data from stakeholder interviews from two cases in the Netherlands in order to i) identify the relevant main impact categories and dimensions; ii) assess their relative relevance to stakeholders; and iii) draw recommendations for IOP governance from this analysis. The study thus fills a relevant gap in existing research on IOP, and contributes a guiding framework with key dimensions that practitioners can use for assessing the impacts and feasibility of IOP standards adoption.