Optimizing government resources through collaborative consumption in resource-constrained countries: The need for creative thinking skills

Investments in national Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure in low-income-countries provide a digital government platform that could facilitate the maximization of limited resources through a collaborative consumption (CC) model. In this study, an interpretive multi-case research method was used to investigate how limited government-to-government resources in Ethiopia could enable the effective utilization of inter-government resources using the CC paradigm. Four government administrative districts (woredas) in the Amhara Region were purposively sampled. The findings revealed that Government officials could only identify intangible digital services and shared learning as shareable, but did not consider any tangible artifacts until prompted. Overall, the findings contribute to Information Systems discourse and digital government practice by providing insights into the role of CC models in maximizing limited government to government resources in low-income countries like Ethiopia. A creativity process to identify other shareable resources and prompt digital innovation is recommended. This is because there are few to no studies that investigate government to government resource sharing through a CC approach in such countries. The study also showed that in light of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, there is a further reason for low-income countries to share whatever limited resources are available.