This article extends property-owning democracy to the digital realm and introduces “data-owning democracy,” a new political economic regime characterized by the wide distribution of data as capital among citizens. Drawing on republican theory and acknowledging data's unique role in the digital economy, it proposes a two-tier model that combines different modes of data ownership and corresponding rights. The first layer of “data-owning democracy” is characterized by a digital public infrastructure that enables citizens to collectively (...) generate data and have a say in how their citizen data are used. In the second layer, individuals automatically receive machine-readable copies of their data whenever they are generated—a slightly more advanced form of the European Union's existing right to data portability (Art. 20). With its focus on empowerment, data-owning democracy is designed to be complementary to existing data protection regulations. It also illustrates how political theory more broadly, and republican theory specifically, can be instructive for specifying the normative components of a new political economy dealing with questions of empowerment and digital rights. (shrink)

The practice of modern craniomaxillofacial surgery has been defined by emergent technologies allowing for the acquisition, storage, utilization, and transfer of massive amounts of sensitive and identifiable patient data. This alone has thrust providers into an unlikely and unprecedented role as the stewards of vast databases of digital information. This data powers the potent surgical tool of virtual surgical planning, a method by which craniomaxillofacial surgeons plan and simulate procedural outcomes in a digital environment. Further complicating this new (...) terrain is the involvement of third‐party contractors—a necessary presence in bringing raw data to bear in the office, virtual space, and operating room. The individual privileges and responsibilities of patients, providers, and vendors towards data are situated within the most recent U.S. court rulings and regulations. This paper offers guidance for overseeing the safe and responsible transfer to third‐party contractors, and provides suggestions for negotiating the trinary relationship between physicians, their patients, and the vendors offering this transformative technology. (shrink)

In discourses on digitization and the data economy, it is often claimed that data subjects shall beownersof their data. In this paper, we provide a problem diagnosis for such calls fordata ownership: a large variety of demands are discussed under this heading. It thus becomes challenging to specify what—if anything—unites them. We identify four conceptual dimensions of calls for data ownership and argue that these help to systematize and to compare different positions. In view (...) of this pluralism of data ownership claims, we introduce, spell out and defend a constructive interpretative proposal: claims for data ownership are charitably understood as attempts to call for theredistributionof material resources and the socio-culturalrecognitionof data subjects. We argue that as one consequence of this reading, it misses the point to reject claims for data ownership on the grounds that property in data does not exist. Instead, data ownership brings to attention a claim to renegotiate such aspects of thestatus quo. (shrink)

The concept of ‘ownership’ is increasingly central to debates, in the media, health policy and bioethics, about the appropriate management of clinical data. I argue that the language of ownership acts as a metaphor and reflects multiple concerns about current data use and the disenfranchisement of citizens and collectives in the existing data ecosystem. But exactly which core interests and concerns ownership claims allude to remains opaque. Too often, we jump straight from ‘ownership’ (...) to ‘private property’ and conclude ‘the data belongs to the patient’. I will argue here that private property is only one type of relevant relationship between people, communities and data. There are several reasons to doubt that conceptualising data as private property presents a compelling response to concerns about clinical data ownership. In particular I argue that clinical data are co-constructed, so a property account would fail to confer exclusive rights to the patient. A non-property account of ownership acknowledges that the data are ‘about the patient’, and therefore the patient has relevant interests, without jumping to the conclusion that the data ‘belongs to the patient’. On this broader account of ownership, the relevant harm is the severing of the connection between the patient and their data, and the solution is to re-engage and re-connect patients to the data research enterprise. (shrink)

Background The ownership status of individual-level health data affects the manner in which it is used. In this paper we analyze two competing models of the ownership status of the data discussed in the literature recently: private ownership and public ownership. Main body In this paper we describe the limitations of these two models of data ownership with respect to individual-level health data, in particular in terms of ethical principles of justice (...) and autonomy, risk mitigation, as well as technological, economic, and conceptual issues. We argue that undifferentiated application of neither private ownership nor public ownership will allow us to resolve all the problems associated with effective, equitable, and ethical use of data. We suggest that, instead of focusing on data ownership, we should focus on the institutional and procedural aspects of data governance, such as using Data Access Committees (DACs) or equivalent managed access processes, which can balance the elements of these two ownership frameworks. Conclusion Undifferentiated application of the ownership concept (private or public) is not helpful in resolving problems associated with sharing individual-level health data. DACs or equivalent managed access processes should be an integral part of data governance. They can approve or disapprove data access requests after considering the potential benefits and harms to data subjects, their communities, primary researchers, and the wider society. (shrink)

The article by Dupras and Bunnik. makes a fundamental contribution in the context of the current boom in personalized medicine. We propose an additional crit...

This article considers the practical question of how research institutions should best structure their legal relationship with the human genomic data that they generate. The analysis, based on South African law, is framed by the legal position that although a research institution that generates human genomic data is not automatically the owner thereof, it is well positioned to claim ownership of newly generated data instances. Given that the research institution exerts effort to generate the data, (...) it can be argued that it has a moral right to claim ownership of such data. Combined with the fact that it has an interest in having comprehensive rights in such data, it appears that the prudent policy for research institutions is to claim ownership of the human genomic data instances that they generate. This policy is tested against two opposing policy positions. The first opposing policy position is that research participants should own the data that relate to them. However, in light of data protection legislation that already provides extensive protections to research participants, bestowing data ownership on research participants would offer little benefit to such individuals, while leading to significant practical problems for research institutions. The second opposing policy position is that the concept of ownership should be abandoned in favour of data custodianship. This opposing position is problematic, as avoiding reference to ownership is a denial of legal reality and hence not a useful policy. Also, avoiding reference to ownership will leave research institutions with limited legal remedies in the event of appropriation of data by third parties. Accordingly, it is concluded that the wisest policy for research institutions is indeed to explicitly claim ownership of the human genomic data instances that they generate. (shrink)

In recent years, critical scholarship has drawn attention to increasing power differentials between corporations that use data and people whose data is used. A growing number of scholars see digital data and information commons as a way to counteract this asymmetry. In this paper I raise two concerns with this argument: First, because digital data and information can be in more than one place at once, governance models for physical common-pool resources cannot be easily transposed to (...) digital commons. Second, not all data and information commons are suitable to address power differentials. In order to create digital commons that effectively address power asymmetries we must pay more systematic attention to the issue of exclusion from digital data and information commons. Why and how digital data and information commons exclude, and what the consequences of such exclusion are, decide whether commons can change power asymmetries or whether they are more likely to perpetuate them. (shrink)

This study investigates how ownership concentration in European multinational firms is associated with these firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR). We employ factor analysis on responsibility data from EIRiS and use a regression analysis. Using firm-level data for almost 700 European firms, we find that shareholder concentration is significantly related to such policies. That is, more concentrated ownership goes hand in hand with poorer CSR policies. In our analysis, we control for size, leverage, profitability, industry, and country (...) of origin. We use several indicators for ownership concentration. We also find that with more concentrated ownership, CSR of the firm gets worse. We suggest that especially with large shareholders, CSR would need to be included in their performance assessment. (shrink)

We investigate two issues about the subjective experience of one's body: first, is the experience of owning a full-body fundamentally different from the experience of owning a body-part?Second, when I experience a bodily sensation, does it guarantee that I cannot be wrong about whether it is me who feels it? To address these issues, we conducted a series of experiments that combined the rubber hand illusion (RHI) and the “body swap illusion.” The subject wore a head mounted display (HMD) connected (...) with a stereo camera set on the experimenter's head. Sitting face to face, they used their right hand holding a paintbrush to brush each other's left hand. Through the HMD, the subject adopted the experimenter's first-person perspective (1PP) as if it was his/her own 1PP: the subject watched either the experimenter's hand from the adopted 1PP, and/or the subject's own hand from the adopted third-person perspective (3PP) in the opposite direction (180°), or the subject's full body from the adopted 3PP (180°, with or without face). The synchronous full-body conditions generate a “self-touching illusion”: many participants felt that “I was brushing my own hand!” We found that (1) the sense of body-part ownership and the sense of full-body ownership are not fundamentally different from each other; and (2) our data present a strong case against the mainstream philosophical view called the immunity principle (IEM). We argue that it is possible for misrepresentation to occur in the subject's sense of “experiential ownership” (the sense that I am the one who is having this bodily experience). We discuss these findings and conclude that not only the sense of body ownership but also the sense of experiential ownership call for further interdisciplinary studies. (shrink)

The emergence of the “4th Industrial Revolution,” i.e. the convergence of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, advanced materials, and bioengineering technologies, could accelerate socioeconomic insecurities and anxieties or provide beneficial alternatives to the status quo. In the post-Covid-19 era, the entities that are best positioned to capitalize on these innovations are large firms, which use digital platforms and big data to orchestrate vast ecosystems of users and extract market share across industry sectors. Nonetheless, these technologies also have the (...) potential to democratize ownership, broaden political-economic participation, and reduce environmental harms. We articulate the potential sociotechnical pathways in this high-stakes crossroads by analyzing cellular agriculture, an exemplary 4th Industrial Revolution technology that synergizes computer science, biopharma, tissue engineering, and food science to grow cultured meat, dairy, and egg products from cultured cells and/or genetically modified yeast. Our exploration of this space involved multi-sited ethnographic research in both the cellular agriculture community and alternative economic organizations devoted to open source licensing, member-owned cooperatives, social financing, and platform business models. Upon discussing how these latter approaches could potentially facilitate alternative sociotechnical pathways in cellular agriculture, we reflect upon the broader implications of this work with respect to the 4th Industrial Revolution and the enduring need for public policy reform. (shrink)

China’s historical mixed-ownership reform (the Reform) has prioritized enhancing the efficiency and financial performance of its large state-owned enterprises (SOEs) through introduction of partial private-sector equity ownership. However, the presence of a significant gap between China’s private enterprises’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and those of its SOEs suggests potential for Reform-related ownership changes to negatively impact economy-wide CSR performance. We therefore examine the Reform’s impact on private acquirer firms’ CSR practices. We use a proprietary data (...) set of firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges, covering the 2011–2015 period. Our findings identify that private firms can enhance their economic and political status through acquiring equity in state-controlled or SOEs and, following this, improve their CSR practices. Our findings have policy implications in the context of the world’s largest emerging market and, more generally, for SOE ownership reform in emerging and transition economies. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis study examines whether a firm's ownership form has any influence on its social performance. Conventional wisdom suggests that public corporations are more susceptible to corruption and socially irresponsible behavior than privately owned corporations because of the intense short‐term profit maximization pressure from shareholders and the lack of sufficient monitoring mechanisms. This study introduces an alternate perspective in thinking about the relationship between ownership form and corporate social responsibility. This study reasons that public corporations are more likely to (...) become socially responsible because of their greater exposure to external influence and greater dependence on external actors with diverse interests. Using a panel data on the pollution management practices of 118 industrial facilities over a 13‐year period, this study shows that public corporations were indeed subject to greater external pressure to reduce pollution, and the pressure led to consistently stronger environmental performance. (shrink)

Data management raises a number of issues, both regulatory and non-regulatory. Researchers should understand how data are defined by their particular institutions and regulatory authorities. Data are the bases of scientific communication and provide a strong defense against allegations of scientific misconduct. Authorization is often necessary before collection of data can commence. Proper handling, retention, and storage of data, especially that involving humans, are crucial for the researcher. Data ownership by the institution leads (...) to a responsibility by the institution to educate all its researchers in responsible data management practices. (shrink)

Modern information technologies rely on electronic and optical signals transmitting data, expressions, and other signals around the world. Digital networks account for trillions of dollars worth of worldwide commerce, but the nature of their objects is complicated and has proven to be a challenge for customary and legal modes of ownership for expressions. Intellectual property law governed expressions and inventions for the past couple hundred years, but software and other digital objects, due to their ephemeral and non-physical natures, (...) pose some ontological, ethical, and regulatory challenges discussed in this chapter. (shrink)

Pets often factor in older adults’ health behaviors and decisions. However, the degree to which issues related to pet ownership are encountered or addressed by professionals working with this population remains unknown. The aim of this study was to identify specific issues stemming from pet ownership professionals had encountered in their work with older adults, people living with dementia, and care partners. An interdisciplinary sample completed an online survey addressing pet ownership issues encountered in their work. Descriptive (...) statistics, t-tests, and repeated measures ANOVAs were used to analyze quantitative data. A conventional content analysis was used to analyze open-ended responses to an item asking about “other” issues encountered in their work with these populations. The professionals estimated 46.29% of clients had been pet owners, 41.23% regularly asked about pets, and 79.22% had encountered issues related to pet ownership. Specific issues raised to the professionals varied by type of client. The professionals reported older adults most often raised getting pet items into the home and concerns about their pets’ health. The issues most often raised by people living with dementia to the professionals were planning for the pet due to a housing transition and basic pet care. Care partners focused on basic pet care and planning for the pet due to a housing transition. The professionals themselves most often raised the issues of basic pet care, concerns about falling, and the pets’ behavior. Professionals who entered clients’ homes were more likely to raise issues stemming from pet ownership compared to those who reported they did not enter clients’ homes in their current job, t = 5.59, p < 0.00001. The eleven new issues identified by the content analysis underscored how the health and wellbeing of people and their pets are linked. The results of this study provide strong evidence that professionals do encounter issues related to pet ownership. Including issues stemming from pet ownership into procedures, policies, and programs is likely to have positive impacts on those served by and working in the geriatric workforce. (shrink)

For many citizens, news media are the most important source of information about relevant political topics and actors. As a consequence, it is crucial to investigate who gains media coverage and why. Leaning on two classic news sourcing criteria, suitability and availability, we claim that issue owners can be seen as good news sources. By combining a content analysis of television news with data collected through a journalist survey, we investigate whether issue ownership is a determinant of political (...) parties’ news coverage. Results confirm that issue ownership is a predictor of parties’ news coverage, even when controlling for ministerial competences. (shrink)

Dissociation during trauma lacks an adequate definition. Using data obtained from interviews with 36 posttraumatic individuals conducted according to the phenomenological approach, this paper seeks to improve our understanding of this phenomenon. In particular, it suggesting a trade off model depicting the balance between the sense of agency and the sense of ownership : a reciprocal relationship appears to exist between these two, and in order to enable control of the body during trauma the sense of ownership (...) must decrease. When the relationship between the sense of agency and sense of ownership changes disproportionately to the constraints of the traumatic event, the dissociative mechanism becomes dysfunctional. By contrast, when the relations alter in accordance with the surrounding conditions, the dissociative mechanism functions properly. (shrink)

New data-driven technologies yield benefits and potentials, but also confront different agents and stakeholders with challenges in retaining control over their data. Our goal in this study is to arrive at a clear picture of what is meant by data sovereignty in such problem settings. To this end, we review 341 publications and analyze the frequency of different notions such as data sovereignty, digital sovereignty, and cyber sovereignty. We go on to map agents they concern, in (...) which context they appear, and which values they allude to. While our sample reveals a considerable degree of divergence and an occasional lack of clarity about intended meanings of data sovereignty, we propose a conceptual grid to systematize different dimensions and connotations. Each of them relates in some way to meaningful control, ownership, and other claims to data articulated by a variety of agents ranging from individuals to countries. Data sovereignty alludes to a nuanced mixture of normative concepts such as inclusive deliberation and recognition of the fundamental rights of data subjects. (shrink)

AI systems are bringing an augmentation of human capabilities to shape the world. They may also drag a replacement of human conscience in large chunks of life. AI systems can be designed to leave moral control in human hands, to obstruct or diminish that moral control, or even to prevent it, replacing human morality with pre-packaged or developed ‘solutions’ by the ‘intelligent’ machine itself. Artificial Intelligent systems (AIS) are increasingly being used in multiple applications and receiving more attention from the (...) public and private organisations. The purpose of this article is to offer a mapping of the technological architectures that support AIS, under the specific focus of the moral agency. Through a literature research and reflection process, the following areas are covered: a brief introduction and review of the literature on the topic of moral agency; an analysis using the BDI logic model (Bratman 1987); an elemental review of artificial ‘reasoning’ architectures in AIS; the influence of the data input and the data quality; AI systems’ positioning in decision support and decision making scenarios; and finally, some conclusions are offered about regarding the potential loss of moral control by humans due to AIS. This article contributes to the field of Ethics and Artificial Intelligence by providing a discussion for developers and researchers to understand how and under what circumstances the ‘human subject’ may, totally or partially, lose moral control and ownership over AI technologies. The topic is relevant because AIS often are not single machines but complex networks of machines that feed information and decisions into each other and to human operators. The detailed traceability of input-process-output at each node of the network is essential for it to remain within the field of moral agency. Moral agency is then at the basis of our system of legal responsibility, and social approval is unlikely to be obtained for entrusting important functions to complex systems under which no moral agency can be identified. (shrink)

The concept of responsible ownership was originally developed with reference to large, publicly held firms. However, the relevance of small- and medium-sized closely held firms, such as family firms, in all economies and the specific governance and organisational characteristics of these firms require further examination of the responsible ownership concept and its operationalisation. Based on the existing literature, we define the construct of responsible family ownership to fill this gap in responsible ownership theory. We propose a (...) scale that can be used to assess the responsible family ownership construct in small- and medium-sized family enterprises. The data used in this exploratory study were collected in an ad hoc survey answered by a representative sample of 84 small- and medium-sized family enterprises. The study contributes to the responsible ownership literature by presenting the responsible family ownership construct, a key driver of balance in family and firm systems that is therefore critical to the health of small- and medium-sized family enterprises. In addition, a scale is proposed as a means to operationalise the construct and to derive practical implications for the governance of this kind of firms. (shrink)

The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) challenges political theorists to think about data ownership and policymakers to regulate the collection and use of public data. AI producers benefit from free public data for training their systems while retaining the profits. We argue against the view that the use of public data must be free. The proponents of unconstrained use point out that consuming data does not diminish its quality and that information is in ample (...) supply. Therefore, they suggest, publicly available data should be free. We present two objections. First, allowing free data use promotes unwanted inequality. Second, contributors of information did not and could not anticipate that their contribution would be used to train AI systems. Therefore, charging for extensive data use is pro tanto permissible and desirable. We discuss policy implications and propose a progressive data use tax to counter the inequality arising. (shrink)

Where there is data there are questions of ownership, leaks, and worries about misuse. When what’s at stake is data on our brains, the stakes are high. This book brings together philosophical analysis and neuroscientific insights to develop an account of ‘brain data’: what it is, how it is used, and how we ought to take care of it. Emerging trends in neuroscience appear to make mental activity legible, through sophisticated processing of signals recorded from the (...) brain. This can include Artificial Intelligence (AI), with algorithms classifying brain signals for further processing. These developments will have ramifications for concepts of the brain, the self, and the mind. They will also affect clinical practices like psychiatry, by modifying concepts of mental health and introducing AI-based diagnostic and treatment strategies. The issues arising are vastly complicated, little understood, but of high importance. Philosophical Perspectives on Brain Data clarifies complex intersections of philosophical and neuroscientific interest, presenting an account of brain data that is comprehensible. This account can be the basis for evaluating practices based on brain data. As such, the book aims to open a novel space for evaluating hitherto arcane areas of academic research in order to provide the necessary scope for understanding their real-world consequences. These consequences will include personal, socio-political, and public health dimensions. It is therefore vital that they are understood if their impacts upon aspects of everyday life can be evaluated adequately. (shrink)

Digital personal data is increasingly framed as the basis of contemporary economies, representing an important new asset class. Control over these data assets seems to explain the emergence and dominance of so-called “Big Tech” firms, consisting of Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google/alphabet, and Facebook. These US-based firms are some of the largest in the world by market capitalization, a position that they retain despite growing policy and public condemnation—or “techlash”—of their market power based on their monopolistic control of personal (...) data. We analyse the transformation of personal data into an asset in order to explore how personal data is accounted for, governed, and valued by Big Tech firms and other political-economic actors. However, our findings show that Big Tech firms turn “users” and “user engagement” into assets through the performative measurement, governance, and valuation of user metrics, rather than extending ownership and control rights over personal data per se. We conceptualize this strategy as a form of “techcraft” to center attention on the means and mechanisms that Big Tech firms deploy to make users and user data measurable and legible as future revenue streams. (shrink)

Property rights of personal data have been advocated for some time. From the perspective of economics of law some argued that they could lower transaction costs for contracts involving personal data. This may be the case, but new transaction costs are introduced by propertization and the issue has not been settled. In this paper, I focus on a different and potentially more important aspect. In the actual situation, data collectors externalize costs and internalize benefits. An ownership (...) regime that enables every citizen to hold a personal data account, like a bank account, and that gives people ownership rights over secondary use of personal data could correct these misallocations. I hope to shed new light on the normative implications of the issue by offering normative justifications for property rights of personal data (Sections 2–4). Secondly, I present fundamental goals and building blocks of a property regime of personal data (Section 5) and, thirdly, I illustrate how income from personal data ownership could for instance contribute to financing pensions under proper regulation (Section 6). (shrink)

Property rights of personal data have been advocated for some time. From the perspective of economics of law some argued that they could lower transaction costs for contracts involving personal data. This may be the case, but new transaction costs are introduced by propertization and the issue has not been settled. In this paper, I focus on a different and potentially more important aspect. In the actual situation, data collectors externalize costs and internalize benefits. An ownership (...) regime that enables every citizen to hold a personal data account, like a bank account, and that gives people ownership rights over secondary use of personal data could correct these misallocations. I hope to shed new light on the normative implications of the issue by offering normative justifications for property rights of personal data (Sections 2–4). Secondly, I present fundamental goals and building blocks of a property regime of personal data (Section 5) and, thirdly, I illustrate how income from personal data ownership could for instance contribute to financing pensions under proper regulation (Section 6). (shrink)

In this chapter, we will discuss three key ethical issues related to data collected in stakeholder-engaged research: (1) data ownership, (2) deciding how data are used, and (3) deciding what is published. We begin with the legal and regulatory policies of universities and sponsors around data ownership and data sharing. We then discuss the role of principal investigator(s) in a study and/or partnership leaders as data stewards for the development and implementation of (...) partnership practices for data decision-making. We examine the implications of funding and timing since many decisions related to data use and sharing often happen after the project has ended. Finally, we discuss the roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders (e.g., funder, researcher, and nonacademic partner) and offer lessons to be learned and resources for partnerships. (shrink)

Public-private partnerships are established to specifically harness the potential of Big Data in healthcare and can include partners working across the data chain—producing health data, analysing data, using research results or creating value from data. This domain paper will illustrate the challenges that arise when partners from the public and private sector collaborate to share, analyse and use biomedical Big Data. We discuss three specific challenges for PPPs: working within the social licence, public antipathy (...) to the commercialisation of public sector health data, and questions of ownership, both of the data and any resulting intellectual property or products. As a specific example we consider the case of the UK National Health Service providing patient data to Google’s DeepMind AI program to develop a diagnostic app for kidney disease. This article is an application of the framework presented in this issue of ABR. Please refer to that article for more information on how this framework is to be used, including a full explanation of the key values involved and the balancing approach used in the case study at the end. We use four specific values to help analysis these issues: public benefit, stewardship, transparency and engagement. We demonstrate how the Deliberative Framework can support ethical governance of PPPs involving biomedical big data. (shrink)

The capacity to collect and analyse data is growing exponentially. Referred to as ‘Big Data’, this scientific, social and technological trend has helped create destabilising amounts of information, which can challenge accepted social and ethical norms. Big Data remains a fuzzy idea, emerging across social, scientific, and business contexts sometimes seemingly related only by the gigantic size of the datasets being considered. As is often the case with the cutting edge of scientific and technological progress, understanding of (...) the ethical implications of Big Data lags behind. In order to bridge such a gap, this article systematically and comprehensively analyses academic literature concerning the ethical implications of Big Data, providing a watershed for future ethical investigations and regulations. Particular attention is paid to biomedical Big Data due to the inherent sensitivity of medical information. By means of a meta-analysis of the literature, a thematic narrative is provided to guide ethicists, data scientists, regulators and other stakeholders through what is already known or hypothesised about the ethical risks of this emerging and innovative phenomenon. Five key areas of concern are identified: informed consent, privacy, ownership, epistemology and objectivity, and ‘Big Data Divides’ created between those who have or lack the necessary resources to analyse increasingly large datasets. Critical gaps in the treatment of these themes are identified with suggestions for future research. Six additional areas of concern are then suggested which, although related have not yet attracted extensive debate in the existing literature. It is argued that they will require much closer scrutiny in the immediate future: the dangers of ignoring group-level ethical harms; the importance of epistemology in assessing the ethics of Big Data; the changing nature of fiduciary relationships that become increasingly data saturated; the need to distinguish between ‘academic’ and ‘commercial’ Big Data practices in terms of potential harm to data subjects; future problems with ownership of intellectual property generated from analysis of aggregated datasets; and the difficulty of providing meaningful access rights to individual data subjects that lack necessary resources. Considered together, these eleven themes provide a thorough critical framework to guide ethical assessment and governance of emerging Big Data practices. (shrink)

Farming is undergoing a digital revolution. Our existing review of current Big Data applications in the agri-food sector has revealed several collection and analytics tools that may have implications for relationships of power between players in the food system. For example, Who retains ownership of the data generated by applications like Monsanto Corproation's Weed I.D. “app”? Are there privacy implications with the data gathered by John Deere's precision agricultural equipment? Systematically tracing the digital revolution in agriculture, (...) and charting the affordances as well as the limitations of Big Data applied to food and agriculture, should be a broad research goal for Big Data scholarship. Such a goal brings data scholarship into conversation with food studies and it allows for a focus on the material consequences of big data in society. (shrink)

The basic components of data management including data ownership, collection, selection, recording, analysis, storage, retention, destruction, and sharing. A number of important principles underlie best practices for each of these components; these include recording details such that another can repeat the experiment, keeping the data safe, managing storage in such a way as to facilitate easy retrieval for the period of time required by regulatory agencies and establishing data sharing principles with colleagues before collaborations begin. (...) Experience as practicing scientists and teachers has aided in developing helpful strategies and approaches for communicating these principles, policies and practices to trainees and colleagues. We recommend didactic instruction focused by discipline, combined with the use of teachable moments in a student’s career, as well as teaching principles versus rules, because changing methods of data collection and storage have implications for data management practices. (shrink)

There is a growing expectation, or even requirement, for researchers to deposit a variety of research data in data repositories as a condition of funding or publication. This expectation recognizes the enormous benefits of data collected and created for research purposes being made available for secondary uses, as open science gains increasing support. This is particularly so in the context of big data, especially where health data is involved. There are, however, also challenges relating to (...) the collection, storage, and re-use of research data. This paper gives a brief overview of the landscape of data sharing via data repositories and discusses some of the key ethical issues raised by the sharing of health-related research data, including expectations of privacy and confidentiality, the transparency of repository governance structures, access restrictions, as well as data ownership and the fair attribution of credit. To consider these issues and the values that are pertinent, the paper applies the deliberative balancing approach articulated in the Ethics Framework for Big Data in Health and Research to the domain of Openness in Big Data and Data Repositories. Please refer to that article for more information on how this framework is to be used, including a full explanation of the key values involved and the balancing approach used in the case study at the end. (shrink)

Data activism, promoting new forms of civic and political engagement, has emerged as a response to problematic aspects of datafication that include tensions between data openness and data ownership, and asymmetries in terms of data usage and distribution. In this article, we discuss MyData, a data activism initiative originating in Finland, which aims to shape a more sustainable citizen-centric data economy by means of increasing individuals' control of their personal data. Using (...) class='Hi'>data gathered during long-term participant-observation in collaborative projects with data activists, we explore the internal tensions of data activism by first outlining two different social imaginaries – technological and socio-critical – within MyData, and then merging them to open practical and analytical space for engaging with the socio-technical futures currently in the making. While the technological imaginary favours data infrastructures as corrective measures, the socio-critical imaginary questions the effectiveness of technological correction. Unpacking them clarifies the kinds of political and social alternatives that different social imaginaries ascribe to the notions underlying data activism, and highlights the need to consider the social structures in play. The more far-reaching goal of our exercise is to provide practical and analytical resources for critical engagement in the context of data activism. By merging technological and socio-critical imaginaries in the work of reimagining governing structures and knowledge practices alongside infrastructural arrangements, scholars can depart from the most obvious forms of critique, influence data activism practice, and formulate data ethics and data futures. (shrink)

This article contrasts two reform proposals articulated in recent debates about how to democratize the digital economy: data-owning democracy and digital socialism. A data-owning democracy is a political-economic regime characterized by the widespread distribution of data as capital among citizens, whereas digital socialism entails the social ownership of productive assets in the digital economy and popular control over digital services. The article argues that while a degree of complementarity exists between the two, there are important limitations (...) to theories of data-owning democracy that have not yet received significant attention within the literature. The bulk of the article highlights three ways in which digital socialists would consider a data-owning democracy to fall short of achieving a more just digital economy: a lack of workplace democracy, limitations in terms of scope, and a lack of democratic control over long-term investment decisions in new technology. The article thus contributes to determining what is at stake in recent debates about how to democratize the digital economy. (shrink)

This research work investigates the association between psychological ownership and innovative behaviour with knowledge hiding and knowledge sharing as mediators. The latter variables are presented as focal antecedents of preventive and promotive psychological ownership. To conduct the study, a theoretical framework was proposed, and data was collected from professionals working in complex management systems in Pakistan. The analysis revealed that knowledge hiding and knowledge sharing can exist simultaneously, and psychological ownership can evoke both positive and negative (...) feelings in employees, which poses a challenge for the management. The results illustrate that psychological ownership has significant associations with knowledge hiding, knowledge sharing, and innovative behaviour. Consequent theoretical contributions and important managerial implications are discussed at the end. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to extend prior research on this topic by investigating whether the impact of ownership concentration moderates the link between corporate social performance and financial performance. This study uses a set of unique, hand-collected pollution control data to measure CSP, based on a sample of Taiwanese listed companies during the period from 1996 to 2006. The results of the empirical analysis provide firm support for the idea that the divergence between control rights and (...) the cash flow rights of controlling owners negatively moderates the link between social and short- and long-run FP. (shrink)

PurposePrincipled discussions on the economic value of data are frequently pursued through metaphors. This study aims to explore three influential metaphors for talking about the economic value of data: data are the new oil, data as infrastructure and data as an asset.Design/methodology/approachWith the help of conceptual metaphor theory, various meanings surrounding the three metaphors are explored. Meanings clarified or hidden through various metaphors are identified. Specific emphasis is placed on the economic value of ownership (...) of data.FindingsIn discussions on data as economic resource, the three different metaphors are used for separate purposes. The most used metaphor, data are the new oil, communicates that ownership of data could lead to great wealth. However, with data as infrastructure data have no intrinsic value. Therefore, profits generated from data resources belong to those processing the data, not those owning it. The data as an asset metaphor can be used to convince organizational leadership that they own data of great value.Originality/valueThis is the first scholarly investigation of metaphors communicating economic value of data. More studies in this area appear urgent, given the power of such metaphors, as well as the increasing importance of data in economics. (shrink)

We investigated how employees’ perceptions of ethical leadership affects different facets of work behavior. We also explored the effects of psychological ownership on this relationship. Data were collected from 456 workers from various industries in Taiwan over three time periods. Ethical leadership positively related to both psychological ownership of the job and organization. Specifically, we found that psychological ownership of the job positively predicted contextual performance and was negatively associated with counterproductive work behavior. Additionally we found (...) psychological ownership for the organization to be negatively associated with counterproductive work behavior for the organization. (shrink)

This study examines the R&D investment behaviour of different types of family-controlled firms with the moderating role of ownership discrepancy between cash-flow rights and excess voting rights by using the sufficiency conditions’ theoretical framework of ability and willingness developed by De Massis. It uses data from family firms that have issued A-shares from 2008 to 2018. They used pooled OLS regression for data analysis and Tobit regression for robustness checks. This study classifies family firm types into two (...) categories, namely, the lone-controller family firms (LCFFs) and the multi-controller family firms (MCFFs), with each being further classified as “excess” or “no excess” voting rights. Both LCFFs without excess voting rights and MCFFs with excess voting rights have the “ability” and “willingness” toward R&D investment. LCFFs with excess voting rights and MCFFs without excess voting rights only have the ability but low willingness to invest in R&D. The study also establishes that Chinese family-controlled firms are heterogeneous toward risky investment. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to differentiate Chinese family firms by their unique ownership structure characteristics in investigating the effect of the family firm structure on R&D investment. The study is a novel attempt to test the willingness and ability framework of LCFFs and MCFFs. Previous studies based on agency theory have tacitly assumed that ability and willingness exist in family-controlled firms. However, this study challenges this implicit assumption. (shrink)

The relationship between firm financial performance and sustainability reporting (SR) has been extensively researched previously, but with inconsistent results. By incorporating the coercive isomorphism of the institutional theory, this study examines if the relationship is moderated by the ownership of institutional investors. Using data from a sample of 270 Malaysian public listed firms, the study tested two ordinary least square (OLS) regression models. The results show that firm performance and institutional ownership have a positive link to SR. (...) Further examination however discloses a negative moderation of institutional ownership on the relationship between firm performance and SR, thus fail to support the indication that institutional investors coerce the investee firms to utilise their firm performance for sustainability activities. This study adds to SR-related literature by providing reliable and objective findings and directions for future studies in this context. (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of U.S. farmland owners, operators, and workers by race, ethnicity, and gender. We first review the intersection between racialized and gendered capitalism and farmland ownership and farming in the United States. Then we analyze data from the 2014 Tenure and Ownership Agricultural Land survey, the 2012 Census of Agriculture, and the 2013–2014 National Agricultural Worker Survey to demonstrate that significant nation-wide disparities in farming by race, ethnicity and gender persist in the U.S. (...) In 2012–2014, White people owned 98% and operated 94% of all farmland. They generated 98% of all farm-related income from land ownership and 97% of income from farm owner-operatorship. Meanwhile, People of Color farmers were more likely to be tenants rather than owners, owned less land, and generated less farm-related wealth per person than their White counterparts. Hispanic farmers were also disproportionately farm laborers. In addition to racial and ethnic disparities, there were disparities by gender. About 63% of non-operating landowners, 86% of farm operators, and 87% of tenant farmers were male, and female farmers tended to generate less income per farmer than men. This data provides evidence of ongoing racial, ethnic and gender disparities in agriculture in the United States. We conclude with a call to address the structural drivers of the disparities and with recommendations for better data collection. (shrink)

This research scrutinises the correlation between state ownership and the attributes of green innovation, specifically underscoring generality as a primary trait of innovation favoured by governments. Green innovation with generality, due to its applicability across diverse contexts at reduced expense, becomes an appealing strategy for states to address environmental concerns. Consequently, we suggest that state ownership encourages the prevalence of green innovation characterised by generality. Furthermore, we delve into two contingencies related to ascribed and achieved political connections, positing (...) that they, respectively, impose negative and positive moderating influences. Support for our propositions comes from data gathered from Chinese listed firms during the period 2004–2019. By emphasising the importance of green innovation characteristics over their quantity, our research offers a significant contribution to the literature on green innovation in the context of state ownership. (shrink)

This study examined the influence of ethical leadership on knowledge sharing, the mediating role of psychological ownership, and the moderating effect of professional commitment between ethical leadership and knowledge sharing. Data were collected from 307 public listed Pakistani companies’ employees. Statistical analyses were performed by using SPSS Version 25 and AMOS version 22. The findings indicate a positive relationship between EL and KS behavior. Additionally, the impact of EL on KS was partially mediated by psychological ownership. Furthermore, (...) professional commitment buffers the link between EL and KS. This study contributes to the body of knowledge in the field of leadership by confirming the role of ethics. The results show that ethical leaders develop employee attitudes that contribute to employee KS behavior. Ethical leaders create and encourage a learning culture to enhance organizational performance. This study adds to the little data on the positive impact of EL on listed company’s employees and addresses the gaps in previous studies on the role of EL in changing environments. In addition, professional commitment as a moderator has not been previously investigated with ethical leadership antecedents. (shrink)

Data-sharing is a desired default in the field of public health and a source of much ethical deliberation. Sharing data potentially contributes the largest, most efficient source of scientific data, but is fraught with contextual challenges which make stakeholders, particularly those in under-resourced contexts hesitant or slow to share. Relatively little empirical research has engaged stakeholders in discussing the issue. This study sought to explore relevant experiences, contextual, and subjective explanations around the topic to provide a rich (...) and detailed presentation of what it means to different stakeholders and contexts to share data and how that can guide practice and ethical guidance. A qualitative design involving interviews was undertaken with professionals working in public health institutions endowed with data, ethics committees, and advisory agencies which help shape health research in Africa. A descriptive form of thematic analysis was used to summarize results into six key themes: The role of HDSSs in research using public health data and data-sharing; Ownership and funding are critical factors influencing data-sharing; Other factors discourage data-sharing; Promoting and sustaining data-sharing; Ethical guidance structures; and Establishing effective guidance. The themes reveal factors regarding the willingness or not to share and an intricate ethical system that current discourse could reflect. Many of the concerns resonate with the literature, but a whole other gamut of people and process issues; commitments, investments, careers, and the right ethical guidance are needed to realize a sustainable goal of reaching ‘share’ as a default. (shrink)

This article examines whether the charitable giving amount and likelihood of firm response to catastrophic events relate to firms’ ownership type using a unique dataset of listed firms in China, where state ownership is still prevalent. Based on the data of Chinese firms’ response to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, we find that the extent of corporate contributions for state-owned firms following this disaster is less than that for private firms. State-owned firms are also less likely to respond (...) in␣this disaster compared to private firms. The results also␣reveal that firm size, profitability, geography, cash resource available, and leverage affect firms’ philanthropic disaster response behavior in China. (shrink)

Following the rediscovery of Mendelian genetics, food supply pressures and the rapid expansion of crop varieties with defined performance characteristics, international systems were set up throughout the 20 C to regulate the trade of seed, the protection of intellectual property and the sale of productive varieties of key agricultural crops. These systems are a highly connected but largely linear set of processes. System changes are slow to be adopted due to the cascade of effects that structural alteration would have globally. (...) Multi-omic technologies and the subsequent proliferation of data types used within modern breeding, offer the possibility to gain deeper insights into the performance characteristics of varieties. Current integration of data, standards and ownership structures limit their applications for wider purposes, both private and public. We explore how data within and between breeding programmes and the varietal approval and monitoring processes could be made FAIR. We examine what role expanded or aligned programmes of data collection and expanded trait evaluation at the point of varietal registration and evaluation, as well as on farm could have in ensuring the best linkage of public and private data to address some of the challenges society faces over the next 30 years with the required, rapid transition to sustainable agricultural systems. (shrink)

The analysis of data from electronic health records aspires to facilitate healthcare efficiencies and biomedical innovation. There are also ethical, legal and social implications from the handling of sensitive patient information. The paper explores the concerns, expectations and implications of the National Health Service England care.data programme: a national data sharing initiative of linked electronic health records for healthcare and other research purposes. Using Nissenbaum’s contextual integrity of privacy framework through a critical Science and Technology Studies lens, (...) it examines the way technologies and policies are developed to promote sustainability, governance and economic growth as the de facto social values, while reducing privacy to an individualistic preference. The state, acting as a new, central data broker reappropriates public ownership rights and establishes those information flows and transmission principles that facilitate the assetisation of NHS datasets for the knowledge economy. Various actors and processes from other contexts attempt to erode the public healthcare sector and privilege new information recipients. However, such data sharing initiatives in healthcare will be resisted if we continue to focus only on the monetary and scientific values of these datasets and keep ignoring their equally important social and ethical values. (shrink)