Paper by Vera Djakonoff: “Datafication penetrates all levels of society. In order to harness public value from an expanding pool of private-produced data, there has been growing interest in facilitating business-to-government (B2G) data-sharing. This research examines the development of B2G data-sharing within the data ecosystem of the City of Helsinki. The research has identified expectations ecosystem actors have for B2G data-sharing and factors that influence the city’s ability to unlock public value from private-produced data.
The research context is smart cities, with a specific focus on the City of Helsinki. Smart cities are in an advantageous position to develop novel public-private collaborations. Helsinki, on the international stage, stands out as a pioneer in the realm of data-driven smart city development. For this research, nine data ecosystem actors representing the city and companies participated in semi-structured thematic interviews through which their perceptions and experiences were mapped.
The theoretical framework of this research draws from the public value management (PVM) approach in examining the smart city data ecosystem and alignment of diverse interests for a shared purpose. Additionally, the research transcends the examination of the interests in isolation and looks at how technological artefacts shape the social context and interests surrounding them. Here, the focus is on the properties of data as an artefact with anti-rival value-generation potential.
The findings of this research reveal that while ecosystem actors recognise that more value can be drawn from data through collaboration, this is not apparent at the level of individual initiatives and transactions. This research shows that the city’s commitment to and facilitation of a long-term shared sense of direction and purpose among ecosystem actors is central to developing B2G data-sharing for public value outcomes. Here, participatory experimentation is key, promoting an understanding of the value of data and rendering visible the diverse motivations and concerns of ecosystem actors, enabling learning for wise, data-driven development…(More)”.