Towards a Governance Framework for Data Platform Ecosystems in the Construction Industry

Abstract

In today’s digital economy, the potential of using data platforms for secure and trusted business data exchange between distinct user groups within a data ecosystem becomes extremely significant. The construction industry is not exempted from the potential benefits of data platform ecosystems (DPEs). While for the effective orchestration of DPEs, appropriate governance is required, due to specific features of the construction industry, existing insights on the governance of DPEs may not be directly applicable to the data platforms in this industry. In this paper, we contribute to our understanding of this phenomenon by developing a governance framework for DPEs in the construction industry. To this end, we develop a governance framework by identifying governance mechanisms from the platform literature and investigating if and why these mechanisms are relevant in the construction industry by conducting a case study. The proposed framework offers an outline for the analysis of data platform governance and provides first insights about governance mechanisms that practitioners of the construction industry need to consider especially during the early stage of the DPEs development.