Important Issues for Evaluating Inter-Organizational Data Integration Configurations

Partnering companies can share data via various configurations. Typically problems become evident as partnering companies seek to exchange data. These problems take a different form for different data integration configurations and are thus of great relevance when evaluating different configurations. This paper identifies issues to be taken into account when evaluating inter-organizational data integration configurations. Eight problems are discussed: difficulties to identify which information flows to automate; to relate different viewpoints on boundary objects; to agree on data formats; to distribute investments among the parties; to deliver appropriate service levels; to preserve the value of the data sharing; to clarify data ownership and to do all of this in the frame of changing relationships. For several problems it is illustrated how they surface in a completely centralized and in a completely decentralized interorganizational data-integration scenario.