Creating a Taxonomy of Business Models for Data Marketplaces

Abstract

With the amount of available data growing and data posing as a strategic asset to firms, the data economy has started to evolve. Data marketplaces can fulfil a key role in realizing the data economy. The way a data marketplace operates and conducts business can be mapped and managed using a business model. As data marketplaces are a new area of research, not much research has been conducted on this type of digital platforms yet, nor on the business models of data marketplaces. Existing taxonomies of data marketplace business models mainly focus on the classification of multilateral data marketplaces and are developed from a single firm perspective on business models. This study aims to go beyond the state of the art by developing a taxonomy of data marketplaces business models from a multi-stakeholder perspective on business models. The term data marketplace is broadly interpreted in this research to also allow the inclusion of atypical forms of data marketplaces. A design science approach is employed and a standard taxonomy development method by Nickerson et al. (2013) is followed to develop the taxonomy. The final taxonomy comprises of 4 meta-dimensions, 17 business model dimensions and 59 business model characteristics. The results of this study contribute to the literature by improving the understanding of the notion of data marketplace business models and by providing a framework that can be utilized for the classification of data marketplace business models and for the analysis of business model patterns and business model archetypes.