“What is mine is not thine”: Understanding barriers to China's interagency government data sharing from existing literature

Abstract The lack of interagency government data sharing (IDS) has emerged as a central problem for the development of China's Internet Plus Government Services (IPGS). To identify, explain, and understand barriers to IDS in China, a total of 1495 articles were retrieved from the China Academic Journal Network Publishing Database (CAJD) and China Science Periodical Database (CSPD). After screening, 55 articles were analyzed using a thematic analysis approach. The analysis pointed at 19 barriers to IDS in four themes: External environmental barriers, interagency partnership barriers, organizational readiness barriers, and individual motivation barriers. The conceptualization of the research findings revealed five trans-barrier conceptual dimensions (political and structural, territorial, leadership, financial, and IT), from which further, more in-depth investigations should be performed. Also, the conceptualization indicated that territoriality is possibly the main barrier to China's IDS development. Territoriality offers a novel prospective for studying IDS. This research presents a robust theoretical basis for future study. Also, it provides an overview on IDS development in China and offers useful insights for similar efforts in different countries.