Call for Papers

CfP special issue on "Designing Data Ecosystems: Foundations, configurations and value"

No longer accepting submissions

Guest Editors

* Frederik Möller (Primary Contact), Technical University Braunschweig and Fraunhofer ISST, Germany, Frederik.Moeller(at)tu-braunschweig.de
* Christine Legner, University of Lausanne, Switzerland christine.legner(at)unil.ch
* Gero Strobel, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, Gero.Strobel(at)paluno.uni-due.de
* Thorsten Schoormann, University of Hildesheim and Fraunhofer ISST, Germany, thorsten.schoormann(at)uni-hildesheim.de
* Cinzia Cappiello, Politecnico di Milano, Italy, cinzia.cappiello(at)polimi.it
* Bernadette Farias Lóscio, Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil, bfl(at)cin.ufpe.br
* Boris Otto, TU Dortmund University and Fraunhofer ISST, Germany, Boris.Otto(at)tu-dortmund.de

Theme

As data becomes more available in all areas of society and industry, organizations increasingly share data beyond their boundaries with external parties. Data ecosystems are among the most promising concepts that facilitate data sharing between data providers and consumers to create value for individual actors but also for larger collaborations (Oliveira et al. 2019; Oliveira and Lóscio 2018). The transformation towards data ecosystems is evident across domains and in novel use cases benefiting from using more data ranging from personalized medicine to industrial manufacturing.

Promoting this type of data-driven innovation has led to political and legislative initiatives in many parts of the world that seek to make data usable beyond the internal boundaries of an organization: For example, the European Commission formulated the European Data Strategy that aims to generate a European data ecosystem that acts as a single market for free-flowing data (European Commission 2023). The goal is to leverage previously unused data and, for instance, share industrial data between companies to enable new business models and increase organizational efficiency (European Commission 2020). In Europe, the Data Act (DA) and Data Governance Act (DGA) mandate how data is shared by using so-called "data intermediation services" that act as neutral intermediaries between data providers and data consumers. In Asia, Singapore has published a "Trusted Data Sharing Framework" to help companies overcome challenges in addressing digital trust between data providers and develop "trusted data".

The emerging phenomena related to data sharing and data ecosystems have attracted great attention in Information Systems (IS) research. Initial studies conceptualize data ecosystems proposing roles (e.g., Oliveira et al. 2019; Oliveira and Lóscio 2018), explore research streams (e.g., Fassnacht et al. 2023), investigate how data ecosystems emerge (e.g., Gelhaar and Otto 2020) or how they are organized and governed (e.g., Lefebvre et al. 2023). Data ecosystems rely on technological infrastructure around which they evolve as inter-organizational socio-technical systems with specific governance and institutional arrangements (e.g., van den Broek and van Veenstra 2015). Examples are data marketplaces, data trusts, or data spaces. This results in promising opportunities for IS research to explore data ecosystems as a novel phenomenon enabling data-driven innovation on multiple levels. For example, while data ecosystem operationalization has a technological component, organizations also require sound institutional setups and business models to take part in them and leverage them fully. In this context, companies must master the tensions in participating in data ecosystems (e.g., weighing whether or not to share data depending on the potential value that can be generated from it, Jussen et al. 2023). This is only one example of potentially many decisions organizations, and individuals face when engaging with data ecosystems.

Central issues and topics

This call for papers extends on the special issue on "Data economy in a globalized world: Opportunities and challenges for public and private organizations" (de Reuver et al. 2022) and welcomes papers that explore various facets of data ecosystems. It intends to advance our understanding of this emerging phenomenon and invites a broad range of research approaches, including empirical work, case studies, and design-oriented research. Topics relevant to the special issue/topical collection include, but are not limited to:

  • Real-world data ecosystem scenarios and their implications for research
  • Decisions associated with the peculiarities of inter-organizational data sharing
  • Multilateral relationships between one or more data providers and one or more data consumers
  • New business models and services based on organizations acting in data ecosystems
  • Data sovereignty in data ecosystems, especially different levels of data sovereignty
  • Emerging organizational forms and infrastructures for data sharing, such as data marketplaces, data trusts, or data spaces
  • Governance of data ecosystems and data sharing
  • Theories to explain facets of data ecosystems

Submission

Electronic Markets is a Social Science Citation Index (SSCI)-listed journal (IF 8.5 in 2022) in the area of information systems. Authors are invited to submit their original manuscripts electronically through the Electronic Markets online submission system (elma.edmgr.com). All submissions should fit the journal scope (for more information, see www.electronicmarkets.org/about-em/scope/) and will undergo a double-blind peer-review process. Manuscripts should adhere to the journal's formatting guidelines. The preferred average article length is approximately 10,000 words, excluding references. Instructions, templates and general information are available at www.electronicmarkets.org/authors/general-information/. If you would like to discuss any aspect of this special issue, you may either contact the guest editors or the Editorial Office.

Keywords

Data sharing, data ecosystems, data economy, data sovereignty

Important deadline

March 22, 2024

References

De Reuver, M., Ofe, H., Gasco, M., Rukanova, B., Gil-Garcia, J. R., & Tan, Y.-H. (2022). Data economy in a globalized world: Opportunities and challenges for public and private organizations, available at www.electronicmarkets.org/call-for-papers/single-view-for-cfp/datum/2022/07/18/cfp-special-issue-on-data-economy-in-a-globalized-world-opportunities-and-challenges-for-public-an/, accessed on June 20 2023.

European Commission (2020). A European strategy for data. COM (66). available at https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-a-europe-fit-for-the-digital-age/file-european-data-strategy, accessed on June 20, 2023.

European Commission (2023). European Data Strategy: Making the EU a role model for a society empowered by data, available at https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/european-data-strategy_en, accessed on April 4, 2023.

Fassnacht, M., Benz, C., Heinz, D., Leimstoll, J., & Satzger, G. (2023). Analyzing Barriers to Data Sharing among Private Sector Organizations: Combined Insights from Research and Practice. Proceedings of the 56th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Hawaii: USA.

Gelhaar, J., & Otto, B. (2020). Challenges in the Emergence of Data Ecosystems. Proceedings of the 24th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems, Dubai: UAE.

Jussen, I., Schweihoff, J., & Möller, F. (2023): Tensions in Inter-Organizational Data Sharing: Findings from Literature and Practice. IEEE 25th Conference on Business Informatics (CBI), Prague: Czech Republic.

Lefebvre, H., Flourac, G., Krasikov, P., & Legner, C. (2023). Toward Cross-Company Value Generation from Data: Design Principles for Developing and Operating Data Sharing Communities. In: Gerber, A., Baskerville, R. (eds) Design Science Research for a New Society: Society 5.0. DESRIST 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13873. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32808-4_3

Oliveira, M. I. S., Barros Lima, G. d. F., & Farias Lóscio, B. (2019). Investigations into Data Ecosystems: a systematic mapping study. Knowledge and Information Systems, 61(2), pp. 589-630. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10115-018-1323-6.

Oliveira, M. I. S., & Lóscio, B. F. (2018). What is a Data Ecosystem? Proceedings of the 19th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research: Governance in the Data Age, New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3209281.3209335.

van den Broek, T., & van Veenstra, A. F. (2015). Modes of governance in inter-organizational data collaborations. Proceedings of the 23rd European Conference on Information Systems, Münster: Germany.