Value of spatial data: networked performance beyond economic rhetoric

Abstract

Assessing the economic value of spatial data is problematic for various reasons – conceptual as well as operational. The paper argues that understanding the value of spatial data will benefit from the market discourse and salient conditions can be identified when viewed in terms of market transactions rather than in terms of neoclassical economic rhetoric. Therefore, spatial data markets can best be understood as socio-technical actor networks. Moreover, spatial data are multifaceted and are likely understood differently by different people. Space matters but differently at different spatial levels, and different decision-making contexts and styles may require different types of data and information. Hence, the paper argues that the value of spatial data is added through a complex value network rather than a sequential value chain. Consequently, the SDI-assessment discourse is of particular relevance for assessing the value of spatial data when understood as networked performance; specifically, the multi-view approach. In conclusion, the paper recommends a deliberative, pragmatic and actor-network focus on spatial data and transdisciplinary framing of assessing their value.