Internet of Things and Big Data: Cooperative Smart Home Data Governance and Leadership
Management Summary
Ready for mass adoption
Sensing machines connected to home appliances and wearable sensor technology that networks over the Internet and allows for process automation, predictive analysis, and artificially intelligent environments able to interact and communicate over a smartphone without the time and distance constraints are nearly ready for possible mass adoption.
Promising descriptive change
In fact, the capabilities of the Internet of Things and big data are promising disruptive change. However, although the smart home sector expects big growth, the transparency regarding the developing market and the awareness regarding disruptive technologies still raise concerns, such as feelings of a lack of individual control of how data is used and shared by different data holders. Determining questions to be answered for the adoption and sustainability of the Internet of Things and big data in general, and the smart home in particular will be the benefits for its users and how risks will be optimized.
Players’ strategies
Literature was studied to identify the different potentially smart home-related Internet of Things and big data players’ strategies. A SWOT analysis was performed to inform the development of a sustainable smart home data governance setup. Survey research was used to analyze possible relationships between smart home adoption likelihood, opportunity, and risk perception regarding the increased collection and use of smart home data and the perceived need for regulation. The survey respondents were also presented with a set of smart home provisions strategic pillars, one of which was the “citizen participating organizational form.” The relative importance of the strategic pillars was analyzed, and reasons for rating citizen participation as a strategic element were explored.
Smart home data governance
Overall, this project has to be understood as a situational analysis of the smart home value system and the development of a strategic planning framework that addresses the needs for smart home data governance. The body of knowledge elaborated in this work is incorporated into the smart home sustainability framework in terms of (1) smart home drivers, such as commercialization and human integration; (2) benefit realization and risk optimization; (3) stakeholders, namely corporations, government, citizens, and communities; and (4) strategic options such as top-down and bottom-up governance.
Putting the smart home vision into practice
The main practical contribution of this master thesis lies in logically deriving, structuring, and formulating actionable tactics to reach the governance goal of creating economically and socially sustainable value for citizens, i.e., smart home users, in an evolving data value system. The tactics involve business, technology, and innovation perspectives. For example, a peer-to-peer smart home data-trading platform is planned. Societal and cultural points of view are considered as well. The proposed tactics conclude by analyzing how they could be attained to put the smart home vision and the tactics’ feasibility into context.
