Data are in the Eye of the Beholder: Co-creating the Value of Personal Data

Abstract

The value of personal data has traditionally been understood in economic terms, but recent scholarship casts the value of data as multi-faceted, dynamic, emergent and co-created by stakeholders. The dynamics of the co-creation of value with personal data lacks empirical study. We conduct a case study of the development of a personalised e-book and find different perceptions of the value of personal data exist from the firm, intermediary and customer perspective: means to an end, medium of exchange and net benefit. The different data perspectives highlight ontological differences in the perception of what data are. This creates epistemological tension and different expectations of the data characteristics embedded in the process of value co-creation. The findings contribute to the growing data-in-practice literature, showing how different epistemological stances can create opposing expectations of what data should be, leading to ontological, policy and managerial tensions.