This report describes how a diverse mix of individuals and organizations representing two countries, three states, multiple levels of government, private industry, academia, and the public were able to successfully organize and then respond to improve air quality along the U.S. and Mexican border. The focal point of this study is the Joint Advisory Committee for the Improvement of Air Quality in the Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua/El Paso, Texas/Doña Ana County, New Mexico Air Basin (the JAC). It was through the JAC that this diverse mix of key actors were able to navigate the complex web of political, cultural, legal, and economic factors that posed challenges to developing a unified response to this shared air quality problem. The JAC’s strategies and methods were powerfully shaped by the characteristics of the physical setting and the organizational and political context. Many of these strategies and methods have considerable promise for other air shed regions, but must be tailored to the unique physical and social situations of each one.

Today, digital government (DG) research is being conducted all over the world. Most of this work is focused within the geographic and political contexts of individual countries. However, given the growing influence of global economic, social, technical, and political forces, the questions embedded in digital government research are now expanding to international dimensions. A reconnaissance study such as this one focuses on the defining characteristics of a topic rather an in-depth analysis. In this report, we describe the size, scope, variety, and trajectory of the field illustrated with selected studies and organizational profiles. This study is part of a multi-year effort funded by the United States (US) National Science Foundation (NSF) to create a framework for a sustainable global community of digital government researchers and research sponsors.

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Mohammed A. Gharawi and Sharon S. Dawes

Proceedings of the 46th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2013, January 9, 2013, >Download PDF

Sharon S. Dawes, Mohammed Gharawi, and G. Brian Burke

Government Information Quarterly, Volume 29, Issue 1, Pages 112-120, January (special issue) 2012, >Download PDF

Sharing of knowledge, information, and practices across cultural and national boundaries has become a means to address critical global problems. As government agencies increasingly collaborate with international counterparts on these issues, transnational knowledge and information sharing networks grow in importance as mechanisms for collaboration. This paper explores the nature of Transnational Public Sector Knowledge Networks (TPSKNs) and identifies critical contextual factors that shape their performance. In these networks, each participating organization operates within complex national, organizational, and information contexts. The contextual differences between participants produce distances in culture, politics, intentions, organizational factors, relationships, knowledge, resources, geography, and technology. These distances influence their ability to engage in the processes and interactions that are essential to network performance. The paper concludes with a conceptual dynamic model that accounts for the relationships among these factors which can guide further research in understanding knowledge and information sharing across national and cultural boundaries.

Sharon S. Dawes, Mohammed A. Gharawi, and Brian Burke

Proceedings of the 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2011, February 15, 2011, >Download PDF

As government agencies increasingly collaborate with international counterparts on critical global issues, transnational knowledge and information sharing grow in importance. This paper explores the nature of Transnational Knowledge Networks (TKNs) and identifies critical contextual factors that hinder or enhance their performance. We explore a set of contextual distances that separate the participating organizations and discuss their potential influence on the success of TKNs. The paper concludes with a conceptual framework and a set of testable hypotheses to guide the next phase of our research in understanding knowledge and information sharing across national and cultural boundaries.

Mohammed Gharawi and Sharon Dawes

ICEGOV2010, October 25-28, 2010,, >Download PDF

In the era of globalization, sharing of knowledge, information, and practices across cultural and national boundaries has been recognized as a key for handling the most critical problems. Consequently, the number of Transnational Knowledge Networks (TKNs) that aim to address critical global issues and problems continue to increase. As exchanging knowledge and information represent core components of these networks, this paper provides the foundations to study knowledge and information sharing in these emerging organizations. The paper starts by describing the structures, goals, and objectives of TKNs and presents a simplified conceptual model to demonstrate the main characteristics of these networks. Then, we review the pertinent egovernment literature and argue the need to include findings from two additional research areas, cross-boundary information sharing and knowledge transfer. The paper discusses the ways in which contributions from these areas can enhance our understanding of the complexity surrounding the exchange process in these networks. The paper concludes with a summary of the elements of complexity and an overview of future research to empirically test these concepts.

Mohammed A. Gharawi, Theresa A. Pardo, and Santiago Guerrero

3rd International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV2009), Bogotá, Colombia, November 10-13, 2009, >Download PDF

This paper addresses and discusses the central issues that researchers have to deal with when conducting cross-national comparative research within the area of e-government. The issues are classified into two main categories. The first category represents the issues and challenges that may affect the reliability and the quality of data being collected for comparative studies. The second category represents the remaining issues related to the research objective, the selection process of countries and the analytical strategy. The paper discusses the major alternatives of these issues and provides a rationale for the selection process among them. The paper concludes by discussing the interrelations between the identified issues and clarifying the main decisions that researchers have to take when conducting cross-national comparative research.

Celene Navarrete A., Sehl Mellouli, Theresa A. Pardo, and J. Ramon Gil-Garcia

Proceedings of the 42nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2009, February 15, 2009, >Download PDF

Ophelia Eglene and Sharon S. Dawes

Administration & Society, Vol. 38, No. 5, Wed, 01 Nov 2006, pp 596-622 >Download PDF

Cross-cultural management research is a valuable but complex and error-prone endeavor. The main challenges the authors encountered in conducting a multinational research project included nonequivalence of key concepts, cultural stereotypes, assumptions of universality, and difficulties in comparative analysis. The authors identified crucial questions that need to be asked at each stage of the research for it to be both reliable and valid. These questions address such pitfalls as the importance of focusing on culture as an independent variable, the cultural dynamics of the research team, and the importance of translation and of finding culturally equivalent definitions of key concepts.