Understanding Interoperability in Collaborative Network Management: the Case of Metro High School

Abstract

The increasing importance of interoperability (IOp)—reciprocal communication and accommodation among government organizations and NGOs to develop interactive policy and programming—has become an integral part of networked organizations, now utilized beyond IOps’s emergency management origins in public administration. Using a mixed methods approach, this paper empirically examines IOp in a networked STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) secondary school that includes 16 school districts and their public agency and NGO partners, particularly in its planning and operational phases. It also identifies the growing use of IOp in a number of non-emergency management settings and raises the prospects for utilizing this type of interorganizational management in the public arena. Key