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coordination requirements, and by deriving perceptions and reasons for the discretions
in a comparable way as for the Cadastral case, it was possible to derive different scores
for each indicator in each case. These values are summarized in Table 9.3. Overall, the
values in Table 9.3 exhibit the following characteristics.
The aspect of “cognitive filter to the environment” is relatively high in three cases
but relatively low for the AHN case. In the AHN case, it is increasing only for strategic
staff members. The AHN case is distinctive from other cases because the collabora-
tion in AHN does not involve municipalities but involves only national and regional
agencies dealing with water management. This would suggest that AHN partners are
relatively confined in their views of alternative geoICT requirements (namely, only
those relevant for water) and as a result do not aim to expand their geoICT application
beyond the limits of this water management (visible in the low score on the aspect of
“cognitive filter to the environment”). Hence, in cases where the geoICT is deliberately
applied by geoICT professionals in a single sector only, it seems unlikely that discretions
occur on the basis of alternative ICT requirements but occur only as a reaction to the
specific geoICT requirements in that field.
The aspect of “personal access to resources” is consistently low in all cases. Staff
members in geoICT-related projects have a common perception of having no influ-
ence on resource allocations of the organizations they work for. They tend to feel
uninvolved in strategic organizational, financial, and political deliberations or deci-
sions. Reversely, those who set requirements on geoICT apparently do not provide
enough freedom to operational staff members to alter their environment according
to their own needs and wishes. The consistently low scores in “personal access to
resources” relate to the findings that, in all cases, there is a rather tight and heavily
regulated budget available for the geoICT activities. The geoICT staff members
claim to have limited financial responsibilities for their individual tasks. As a result,
they feel little incentive or obligation to look for alternative funds.
The degree that individual staff members—at any level within the geoG2G—
show the ability to formulate alternative solutions for given problems reflects
another aspect of discretions. The score for this aspect is high for all cases but
is different for staff members at different organizational levels. In the Cadastral
case, it was particularly high for strategic staff members, whereas in all other
cases, there are mainly discretions of alignment staff members. This difference
is likely to relate to the size of the organizational unit. The Kadaster is by far
the largest organizational partner engaging in a partnership when comparing
with the partners within AHN, Dataland, and Sabimos. Although in some cases
municipal organizations of larger cities may have more staff than the Kadaster
organization, they are seldom a single partner but part of an umbrella partner-
ship. Therefore, the one-to-many organizational relation of the Kadaster is unique
and might therefore also explain the exception when it comes to the emergence
strategic discretions. Strategic staff needs to be more aware of possible strategic
bottlenecks. That is why in the Cadastral case, they choose to be actively involved
in the new interorganizational service developments.
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