# Cooperative Approaches to Data Sharing and Analysis for Industrial Internet of Things Ecosystems
## 2 Related Work and Background
### Business and IIoT Ecosystems and Aspects of Accounting  
In general, a business ecosystem can facilitate joint value creation by bringing different actors together [48]. We follow [PERSON]'s ecosystem concept, which defines a business ecosystem as a collaborative structure in which value is provided collectively based on a central value proposition [14]. This value proposition also forms the heart of the ecosystem and requires the partners to align their activities and capabilities. Notably, an ecosystem can very well include partners that are competitors outside the joint value generation scenario, which sets the ecosystem apart from more closed forms of business networks. Meanwhile, it goes beyond the loose fog of selfish actors. This sort of selective cooperative setting aligns very well with our _data cooperative_ concept (cf. Section 1). The basic elements to describe such ecosystems are the actors involved, activities and capabilities of the actors, positions of the actors in the ecosystem, and relationships between them (see Figure 2) [14].  
The information systems literature distinguishes between different types of business ecosystems, such as platform, innovation, and knowledge ecosystems. In our study, we focus on IIoT ecosystems, which are a subtype of a platform ecosystem [49] in which the member enterprises compete and cooperate based on a common set of IIoT assets that are connected over a platform [5]. An IIoT ecosystem can bind partners from different domains, technologies, and processes [7; 50]. This is illustrated in Figure 2.  
We understand the formation of a data cooperative as a manifestation of a business ecosystem in the Adner sense that has the purpose of sharing and analyzing data. As we also focus on IIoT data, the data cooperatives we are investigating are also considered variants of an IIoT ecosystem. In this context, the tangible data cooperative is a separate legal entity that incorporates coordination responsibilities for shared resources. Figure 3 shows the resulting typology.  
Figure 3: Business ecosystems typology, based on [5; 49].  
Figure 2: Tiers of an IIoT ecosystem, based on [5; 14].  
Where they are established, cooperatives have stood the test of time and have proven to enable SME business ecosystem settings, for example, in the sectors of agriculture, banking, retail, and manufacturing. The German literature on cooperatives claims that the long-term success of German cooperatives stems from their three guiding principles of self-help, self-administration, and self-responsibility. The principle of self-help states that a cooperative does not receive external support, for instance, from a government body or an external enterprise. The principle of self-administration means that the cooperative is managed by the ecosystem participants in a democratic fashion. Self-responsibility implies that all members of the cooperative have a defined set of rights and responsibilities. The interaction of these principles is seen as the basis for the creation of a space of trust in which the participating partners come together on equal terms [16; 51].  
One aspect that needs careful consideration when implementing a cooperative is the measurement and sharing of the generated benefits, aspects of accounting and reporting, and the recognition of revenues. While this is not easy for any cooperative scenario, the sharing and utilization of data bring specific challenges. In fact, data sharing initiatives are quickly impeded by issues of acceptance that result from the perceived (un)fairness of the sharing of costs and benefits. The intangible nature of data and the implications of the information paradox-the benefits of the utilization of information are often only measurable ex-post-make the development and coordination of revenue and cost structures in a data cooperative particularly challenging. We assume that this, as well as overall governance, has relevant implications for the acceptance of the endeavor.