When Local Governments Request Access to Data: Power and Coordination Mechanisms across Stakeholders

There are ongoing efforts to encourage public organizations to use data to enhance their performance and design public policies. Among barriers to data use, public managers report low access to data owned by stakeholders—other city departments, other public agencies, and nongovernmental organizations. A critical research question is how public organizations can design incentives and structures that decrease the time and resources spent to request and obtain access to data. Drawing from resource dependency theory and a contingency-based approach, this research examines how routinized, formal nonroutinized, and informal coordination mechanisms facilitate access to data from influential groups of stakeholders. Hypotheses are tested using 2016 survey data from a nationally representative sample of 2,500 departments in 500 US cities. Results show that formal nonroutinized coordination facilitates access to data requested from governmental actors, while informal coordination decreases access to data requested from nongovernmental organizations.