Having the right leaders in place is one of the key factors in establishing and operating collaborative structures. Effective leadership can facilitate partners from diverse sectors working together, frame the vision of the initiative in terms that resonate with partners, mediate conflict, and provide technical expertise. Leadership issues, such as lack of management skills, often create more problems for an initiative than technical issues. The success of data sharing partnerships can depend on the institutional leadership of the initiative. The operations of a data-sharing initiative can be greatly enhanced by having an institutional owner with the right resources and leadership.
But identifying and gaining support from the right people to form a partnership is often a challenge. Given the sensitivity with which organizations guard their data, along with additional costs of data sharing in terms of investment in staff and funding, it can be difficult to secure buy-in from organizations. Understanding stakeholders’ motivation and resistance to sharing data is key as sharing data often requires a cultural shift in the mindset of top leadership.
In addition to the resistance to risk based on policy environments discussed in the previous section, stakeholders’ resistance may vary based on their characteristics and role in the partnership. The example in the preceding section of InBloom demonstrates the power that the public has in voicing resistance to data sharing when their concerns of privacy and safety are not addressed. In many multi-party data sharing initiatives, broad stakeholder groups include public agencies that seek to access data for policy-making, producing statistics, or targeting programs focused on social good, and companies that hold data on the public, making the public a key stakeholder group as well.
Understanding the resistance of each group of stakeholders in a data sharing initiative and the risks they face by participating in the partnership is the first step to engaging potential chefs. For example, the chart below lists some of the potential motivations and concerns that might differ among stakeholder groups in a situation in which a public agency is seeking access to privately-held data.
| Stakeholder group | Motivation | Concerns |
|---|---|---|
| Private companies | Seeking to monetize data | Reputational risks, financial costs, protection of clients’/consumers’ data, and potential loss of revenue from sharing data, including through competitors gaining access to trade secrets |
| Public entities | Gaining access to and using privately-held data | Reputational risks, concerns about the sustainability of these efforts in comparison to the level of work required, limited resources to access, process, and analyze data |
| The public | Seeking to share in the benefits of uses of data and technology | Loss of privacy, data misuse, lack of transparency around data decisions, distrust of data decision makers in the public and private sector, safety concerns |