The bilateral effects of collaboration: How can digital platforms facilitate collaboration across government departments?: The Semi-Negative Case Comparison of “One net for all” in China

Why is there a difference in the performance of the two cities in terms of departmental collaboration when they are also building the "One net for all" platform? This paper reveals the mechanisms by which digital platforms can improve collaboration between government departments through a semi-negative comparative case study. Digital platforms can generate bilateral collaborative effects and form collaborative networks by establishing platform-department and department-department reciprocal relationships. However, reciprocal relationships are generated and extended with the platform as the intermediary, which requires the platform management department to have a comparative advantage in capacity. In the two cities, because of the different management systems, the platform management departments have/do not have the capacity advantage to trigger/cannot trigger the bilateral collaboration effect, resulting in different collaboration performance.