The Emperor with No Clothes – Inter-Organizational ICT Cooperation within Municipal Regions

ICT has a significant role in the development and production of municipal services, and in the daily work of municipal civil servants. Yet, munici­palities typically develop and operate their ICT activities independently with limited ICT re­sources, both money and people. Limited resources are the key incentive for inter-municipal ICT cooperation. This article investigates how ICT cooperation is carried out within 20 municipal re­gions. As the theoretical basis we review transaction cost economics (TCE), re­source based view (RBV) and the constructs of Granovetter’s social network the­ory. They are used to outline potential economic and social benefits emerging from ICT cooperation and to describe social mechanisms that influence the realiza­tion of such benefits. Our empirical data reveals that there are distinct differences in the effec­tiveness of ICT activities, in the amount of ICT cooperation and in the govern­ance of ICT cooperation. Our analysis reveals that the emperor will not have clothes – ICT coopera­tion benefits – unless the cooperation is properly organized and gov­erned.