Research Model Estimation

and positively influence the generation of sustainable value. The impact of shared content dissemination on sustainable value is, using a similar logic, suggested to be less pronounced in countries where companies already adhere to various standards and regulations, as those companies are already held accountable by shareholders and other stakeholders. To rephrase more clearly: the positive impact of increased content sharing (via transparency and civic engagement) on sustainable value is stronger in countries with less accountable private institutions.

H8: The positive effect of shared digital content on sustainable value decreases with increased accountability of private sector institutions

Secondly, I argue that while the generation of commercial digital products and services is positively related to sustainable value, this effect will be more prominent in countries with more accountable private sectors. When companies in general adhere to standards and regulations that hold them accountable for their actions, they are more likely to conform to social responsibility. Thus, the positive impact of new digital products and services (via innovation and efficiency) on sustainable value is stronger in countries with more accountable private institutions.

H9: The positive effect of commercial digital products and services on sustainable value increases with increased accountability of private sector institutions

Figure 11: Results from PLS Estimation

The overarching conclusion from the estimated model is that both digital content sharing and new digital products and services contribute significantly to the generation of sustainable value. Surprisingly however, the path through digital content sharing is considerably more relevant. The case of climate data is a demonstrative example of how such value generation might happen. Government-released open climate data is at present pioneering countless discoveries within the environmental sustainability field.

Today’s climate data partnerships are creating unique ventures that cross boundaries between business, government and academia. For instance, IBM offers free super-computing hours on its World Community Grid for researchers who are studying climate change, utilizing and generating mass quantities of open data. One of the projects making use of the grid, Harvard University’s Clean Energy Project, has screened and publicly catalogued 2.3m compounds in its search for new materials that could potentially double the efficiency of current carbon-based solar cells. The findings of the Clean Energy Project’s Database are open to the public to help further the discovery of new materials. While the value of such initiatives is not easily measured using traditional methods, it seems plausible that these synergistic network-relationships have contributed to sustainable value.

Adopting the configurational perspective (Henfridsson and Bygstad, 2013), I conclude the following: shared digital content dissemination is enabled by liquid open data, a robust regulatory data protection framework and cost of high-speed networks, as those

are the only significant relationships. Similarly, new digital products and services are enabled by liquid open data, digital leadership of government, cost of high-speed networks and ease of reaching a skilled workforce. A more complete discussion on the individual relationships is presented in Paper VII. There it is proposed that the non-significance of the relationship between a robust regulatory data protection framework and new digital products and services could indicate a two-sided relationship, through increased trust on the one hand (positive) and perceived burden of government regulation on the other hand (negative).

Liquid open data contributes to both shared digital content and new digital products and services. The parameter that indicates the indirect effect of liquid open data on sustainable value is 0.312 and highly significant, as well as fully mediated via the shared digital content and new digital product and services variables.

The hypothesis that private sector accountability influences the relationship between the mediating variables and sustainable value is supported. The relationship between shared digital content and sustainable value is stronger in countries with less accountable private organizations. The relationship between new digital products and services and sustainable value is stronger in countries with more accountable private organizations, see figure 12.

Figure 12: Moderating Relationships

I checked the effect of each of the mediating and moderating variables on sustainable value by comparing the R2 of the sustainable value construct with, and without, the variable in question, using Cohen´s f2 measure, as is shown in table 3.

Table 3: Effect Sizes Measured with Cohen’s f2 Impact on

Impact from

Sustainable value

Shared digital content

Digital products and services Shared digital content 0.254

(medium/high) New digital products

and services

0.075

(weak/medium) Interaction:

Accountab. / Content

0.264

(medium/high) Interaction:

Accountab. / Products 0.174 (medium)

Liquid open data 0.434 (high) 0.216 (medium)

I can conclude that both mediating variables are important for explaining the variance of the sustainable value construct, but the effect of shared content is much stronger than the effect of digital products and services. Moreover, both interaction effects are important, but the effect of interaction between private sector accountability and shared digital content dissemination is stronger than the effect of interaction between private sector accountability and digital product and service innovation. Additionally, I checked the effect of the liquid open data construct on the mediating variables. Liquid open data is highly important to the configuration of variables that explain shared digital content dissemination and moderately important for the configuration of variables that explain new digital product and services.

Figure 13 shows the relationships between standardized results of the latent variables from the estimated model.

Figure 13: Liquid Open Data, Shared Digital Content, New Digital Products and Services and Sustainable Value

The x-axis in figure 13 shows the measured extent of new digital products and services. The y-axis shows the measured extent of shared digital content across the seventy-six countries included in the study. The color of each circle shows the extent of liquid open data in the country (red is low, green is high) and the size of each circle reflects the degree of sustainable value (bigger circle indicates higher levels of sustainable value). Figure 13 indicates that countries that score disproportionally high in content sharing also tend to generate more sustainable value. The outliers, which score very low content sharing mechanisms but high in new products and services, do worse in terms of sustainable value than other countries who have similar scores in the latter. The same goes for the outliers who score very low in terms of new products and services. Figure 13 indicates that there could be synergies between the two underlying mechanisms.

The high score in shared digital content dissemination is not explained by a high score in liquid open data. A low level of new digital products and services indicates lack of innovation and efficiency

High engagement with liquid open data, high value generation

High score in new digital products and services – but low in liquid open data and digital content dissemination, indicating a lack of transparency and civic engagement

Low overall engagement with liquid open data and low value

Figures 14 and 15 show the relationship between the liquid open data latent variable on the one x-axis and the latent variables that measure shared digital content dissemination and digital product and service innovation on the y-axis, respectively.

Figure 14: Extent of Shared Digital Content as a Function of Liquid Open Data (Color indicates Sustainable Value)

In both cases the figure illustrates a strong correlation between the two latent variables, but again, there are outliers that indicate that there could indeed be a somewhat synergetic relationship between the two underlying value generating mechanisms. For instance, United Kingdom comes across as an outlier if we only look at the relationship between liquid open data and shared digital content. However, the UK is directly on the trend-line in the case of new digital products and services where they are also the clear leader. Other countries like Qatar and Saudi-Arabia are scoring disproportionally high in digital innovation but are laggards when it comes to liquid open data and content sharing. Overall, they rank number 29 and 30 out of 76 countries in sustainable value as measured by this model. Hence, it is tempting to conclude that they could see positive results if they could activate both mechanisms through a more open approach to data and information sharing.

Figure 15: Extent of New Digital Products and Services as a Function of Liquid Open Data