ABSTRACT
Abstract: It is extremely difficult to have a fruitful conversation between researchers and practitioners as well as between disciplinary traditions without common and solid definitions. In the case of interorganizational information integration (III), a great number of definitions exist, but very few efforts have attempted to develop one that is clearly based on previous research and appropriately grounded in empirical data. Many of them are based on either anecdotal evidence or the interpretation of researchers studying this phenomenon. The lack of a common and sound definition of III also limits our understanding of the components, variables, processes, and resources that III involves, including its main success measures and factors. Based on the existing literature and eight cases from the public health and criminal justice arenas, this chapter proposes a comprehensive and empirically grounded definition of interorganizational information integration in government. The definition integrates the social and technical aspects of previous definitions and expands them with components systematically derived from empirical data. Our definition is not technical or social, but acknowledges the important intersection between these two aspects and revises the interpretation of a dichotomy between technical and social aspects by integrating them into a continuum of four interrelated components.
