IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/cposxx/v41y2020i5p468-487.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The problem of innovation in technoscientific capitalism: data rentiership and the policy implications of turning personal digital data into a private asset

Author

Listed:
  • Kean Birch
  • Margaret Chiappetta
  • Anna Artyushina

Abstract

A spate of recent scandals concerning personal digital data illustrates the extent to which innovation and finance are thoroughly entangled with one another. The innovation-finance nexus is an example of an emerging dynamic in technoscientific capitalism in which innovation is increasingly driven by the pursuit of “economic rents”. Unlike innovation that delivers new products, services, and markets, innovation as rentiership is defined by the extraction and capture of value through different modes of ownership and control over resources and assets. This shift towards rentiership is evident in the transformation of personal digital data into a private asset. In light of this assetization, it is necessary to unpack how innovation itself might be a problem, rather than a solution to a range of global challenges. Our aim in this paper is to conceptualize this relationship between innovation, finance, and data rentiership, and examine the policy implications of this pursuit of economic rents as a deliberate research and innovation strategy in data-driven technology sectors.

Suggested Citation

  • Kean Birch & Margaret Chiappetta & Anna Artyushina, 2020. "The problem of innovation in technoscientific capitalism: data rentiership and the policy implications of turning personal digital data into a private asset," Policy Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(5), pages 468-487, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:cposxx:v:41:y:2020:i:5:p:468-487
    DOI: 10.1080/01442872.2020.1748264
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01442872.2020.1748264
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/01442872.2020.1748264?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nani, Albi, 2023. "Valuing big data: An analysis of current regulations and proposal of frameworks," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:cposxx:v:41:y:2020:i:5:p:468-487. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/cpos .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.