Critical Factors for Dynamic Capabilities in Open Government Data Enabled Organizations

Abstract

Open data (OD) is increasingly considered as a core resource for many organizations in the emerging data economy. Open data-driven organizations (ODDOs) like any other organizations must develop capabilities for competitiveness and agility in addition to processes for creating value from OD to survive. While questions about the extent to which OD could be used for competitive advantage has been raised in past studies, no previous study has investigated the salient factors for agility in a dynamic data ecosystem. This paper bridges the knowledge gap by developing an operationalization of the Dynamic Capability Theory for ODDOs. As a first step towards determining the critical factors for developing dynamic capabilities (DCs) in these organizations, we analyzed the information gathered from an expert interview on the saliency of the different aspects and stages of dynamic capability in developing the agility of an up-stream organization or OD supplier in the data ecosystem. Our findings suggest that critical factors for DCs differ for organizations in the upstream and downstream sectors, albeit some core elements are shared across sectors in data ecosystem.