Your purpose or mine? Perspectives on data in innovation ecosystems

Innovation in ecosystems becomes increasingly attractive for incumbents as the technical complexity increases and complementarities play an increasingly important role for global competition. Digital platforms are becoming one of the primary means to that end, where incumbents can gain scale effects and reap the benefits of the creative crowd while maintaining ownership of the core product. But a lion's share of these platforms hinges on the accessibility of data, and the view of the value of this data differs among actors in the system. This paper accounts for a case study of two type actors in an innovation ecosystem: the core actor (OEM) and the peripheral actor (third party service provider). From interviews with representatives of these actors, we find that their perspectives on the data and its usefulness outside its intended context differ. We label the perspectives purposive and multi-contextual; we formulate their descriptions and outline managerial implications. We argue that these differing perspectives are at the crux of establishing innovation capabilities in ecosystems based on digital platforms.