Exploring the Factors that Influence the Diffusion of Open Data for New Service Development: An Interpretive Case Study

Information Systems research on Open Data has been primarily focused on its contribution to egovernment inquiries, government transparency, and open government. Recently, Open Data has been explored as a catalyser for service innovation as a consequence of big claims around the potential of such initiatives in terms of additional value that can be injected into the worldwide economy. Subsequently, the Open Data Services academic conversation was structured (Lindman et al. 2013a). The research project presented in this paper is an interpretive case study that was carried out to explore the factors that influence the diffusion of Open Data Services. This paper contributes to this debate by providing both a systematic literature review study that structures research efforts available to date in this topic, and an interpretive case study (Walsham, 1995) of a successful initiative that turned several city authorities’ raw open datasets into a set of valuable services. Results demonstrate that 12 factors and 56 related variables are the most relevant in the process of diffusion of open data for new service development. Furthermore, this paper demonstrates the suitability of Social Constructionism and interpretive case study research to inductively generate knowledge in this field.