Understanding Public-Private Collaboration Configurations for International Information Infrastructures

Collaboration between the public and the private sector is seen as an instrument to make governance smarter, more effective, and more efficient. However, whereas there is literature on public-private collaboration, very little of it addresses how these collaborations can be shaped to make use of the huge potential that technological innovations in ICT may offer. To address this gap, this paper addresses public-private collaborative development of digital information infrastructures (IIs). Drawing on a combination of literature on public-private partnerships and on digital information systems or infrastructures, this paper studies an initiative for exchanging information among international trade supply chain partners and between the businesses and government (e.g. for declarations, compliance, border control). Specifically, it explores what would be the Dutch end of such an II, to understand the interplay between the technological innovation and partnerships that form the social context thereof.