Data governance and the secondary use of data: The board influence

Abstract

The business analytics and strategic management literatures suggest that organizations should seek to exploit data as a key mechanism for competitive advantage. However, the rules of engagement are evolving, the regulatory landscape is becoming increasingly complex, and examples of poor outcomes are increasingly common. The board – in its role of setting and monitoring risk appetite – needs to be able to govern the risk/reward trade-off of the data asset. Contemporary data governance approaches are inadequate: they are overly rigid and risk oriented, limited in scope to an organization's self-interest rather than considering the broad set of stakeholders, and do not provide a platform for the board to manage this critical risk. This paper uses a unique set of informants – 41 board directors – to demonstrate that differences in board perspectives influence how organizations explore the secondary use of data. Furthermore, this paper identifies a set of relevant individual, organizational and environmental factors and presents empirically based configurations of these factors that lead organizations to consider (or neglect) the secondary use of data as a critical enabler of competitive advantage.