ABSTRACT

This paper studies the process by which data are generated, managed, and assembled into tradable objects we call data commodities. We link the making of such objects to the open and editable nature of digital data and to the emerging big data industry in which they are diffused items of exchange, repurposing, and aggregation. We empirically investigate the making of data commodities in the context of an innovative telecommunications operator, analyzing its efforts to produce advertising audiences by repurposing data from the network infrastructure. The analysis unpacks the processes by which data are repurposed and aggregated into novel data-based objects that acquire organizational and industry relevance through carefully maintained metrics and practices of data management and interpretation. Building from our findings, we develop a process theory that explains the transformations data undergo on their way to becoming commodities and shows how these transformations are related to organizational practices and to the editable, portable, and recontextualizable attributes of data. The theory complements the standard picture of data encountered in data science and analytics, and renews and extends the promise of a constructivist Information Systems (IS) research into the age of datafication. The results provide practitioners, regulators included, vital insights concerning data management practices that produce commodities from data.

摘要

本文研究了数据生成、管理和组合成我们称为数据商品的可交易对象的过程。. 我们将这些对象的制作与数字数据的开放和可编辑性质以及新兴的大数据行业联系起来，在这些行业中，它们是分散的交换、再利用和聚合项目。我们在创新电信运营商的背景下实证研究了数据商品的制作，分析了其通过重新利用网络基础设施中的数据来生产广告受众的努力。该分析将数据重新利用并聚合成新的基于数据的对象的过程解包，这些对象通过精心维护的数据管理和解释的指标和实践获得组织和行业相关性。根据我们的发现，我们开发了一个过程理论，解释了数据在成为商品的过程中所经历的转换，并展示了这些转换如何与组织实践以及数据的可编辑、可移植和可重新关联的属性相关联。该理论补充了数据科学和分析中遇到的数据标准图，并将建构主义信息系统 (IS) 研究的前景更新和扩展到数据化时代。结果为从业者（包括监管机构）提供了有关从数据生产商品的数据管理实践的重要见解。并将建构主义信息系统 (IS) 研究的前景更新并扩展到数据化时代。结果为从业者（包括监管机构）提供了有关从数据生产商品的数据管理实践的重要见解。并将建构主义信息系统 (IS) 研究的前景更新并扩展到数据化时代。结果为从业者（包括监管机构）提供了有关从数据生产商品的数据管理实践的重要见解。