Designing and Evaluating Control Mechanisms for Sovereign Data Sharing through a Meta-Platform for Data Marketplaces

As the data economy is growing, businesses increasingly utilize data marketplaces to share data with external parties. Due to the specialized nature of data products, data marketplaces exhibit a high degree of heterogeneity, often focusing on specific countries and industries. This specialization results in high transaction costs when sharing data in data marketplaces. Additionally, multi-homing costs are high, making it difficult for users to participate in multiple data marketplaces to expand their reach. The existing literature recognizes meta-platforms as a potential measure to reconcile highly heterogeneous digital platforms, thereby reducing transaction and multi-homing costs. Nevertheless, while sharing business data on a data marketplace is already difficult due to data sovereignty concerns, these concerns will likely intensify in a meta-platform setting because data may flow from one data marketplace to another. Control mechanisms can enhance data sovereignty; however, due to the novel and intricate nature of meta-platforms, existing knowledge on designing such mechanisms may not be directly transferable to this complex setting. Therefore, this research aims to create design knowledge for developing and evaluating control mechanisms for data sharing through meta-platforms for data marketplaces, focusing on investigating their efficacy in enhancing data sovereignty in the societal context of the data economy. To achieve the objective, this study employs the Design Science Research (DSR) approach. This study is structured based on the three DSR domains: the problem space, the solution space, and the evaluation space.

We find that data providers have different views on the efficacy of control mechanisms (i.e., smart contracts and certifications) to enhance data sovereignty facets in the context of business data sharing via data marketplace constellations federated by a meta-platform. Our research finds no significant differences in data providers’ perception of their ability to retain ownership and maintain control over shared data products in meta-platforms, regardless of the presence of smart contracts. In addition, our findings suggest that data providers using meta-platforms with certifications feel more confident in meeting data sharing compliance requirements compared to those using meta-platforms without certifications. Additionally, these data providers perceive a clearer division of responsibility between meta-platform and data marketplace operators. When combined with smart contracts, the responsibility divisions become even clearer. Contrary to our expectations, however, we find no significant difference in the perceived security of data providers when sharing data on meta-platforms with certifications compared to those without.

Considering the impacts of data sovereignty on the broader societal context of the data economy, we find that when data providers feel sovereign over their data products, they are more likely to trust both a) meta-platform operators facilitating data sharing and b) data consumers with whom they share data. Surprisingly, we do not identify a correlation between the trust and their willingness to share data. This suggests that when data providers possess data sovereignty, trust in platform operators and data consumers becomes a less important factor for data sharing. In addition, we discover that data providers, feeling sovereign over their data products, perceive lower risks in sharing their data. The reduced perceived risks subsequently increase their willingness to share data through meta-platforms. Therefore, our study emphasizes the significance of data sovereignty in the growth of the data economy by a) promoting trust toward meta-platform operators and data consumers, b) reducing perceived risks, and c) increasing the willingness to share business data through meta-platforms.

Our study contributes to the Information Systems literature, particularly in the intersection between data sharing and digital platform literature. We contribute by being among the first to create design knowledge to develop and evaluate control mechanisms for business data sharing through meta-platforms for data marketplaces, focusing on investigating their efficacy in enhancing data sovereignty in the societal context of the data economy. Specifically, our primary contributions are four-fold: 1) theorizing the potential impact of control mechanisms on data sovereignty, 2) outlining design options and principles as prescriptive knowledge, 3) defining goodness criteria to enhance data sovereignty, and 4) advancing context understanding of a meta-platform as a business data sharing setting. In addition, our secondary contributions are 1) providing evidence on the potential impact of data sovereignty on the broader data economy and 2) extending the applicability of theories employed in this research in the market-based data sharing context.

In conclusion, this study resolves the tensions in the European policy-making agendas that promote a single market for data and interoperable data sharing (e.g., in EU Data strategy, Data Act) while, at the same time, pushing sector-specific data marketplaces to exist (e.g., the eight verticals in the Digital Europe program). Furthermore, policy agendas also emphasize adherence to data sovereignty principles. As data sovereignty is vital for data providers to share their data via meta-platforms, addressing this concern may increase meta-platform adoptions. Hence, we hope a meta-platform can realize its potential to be one distinguished instrument to fulfill what we hope (and are optimistic) for in the data economy: a single European Data Market in 2030.