The strategic value of data resources in emergent industries

•We present a comparative analysis of two case studies.•The case studies focus on the non-traditional SMB financing and online display advertising industries.•We contrast resource-based and relational views on data resource exploitation.•The emergent industry practices differ from theoretically predicted configurations.•Leading companies embed data resources within analytical services and leverage partnerships. In this paper we examine the strategic role of data resources in emergent industries. We contrast the resource-based view and the relational view theories to examine how data resources can help organizations create and capture value. We compare two organizations from two different industries to understand how different types of data resources can provide a competitive advantage. We also examine the role of strategic partnerships in capturing value created through the exploitation of data resources. We conclude that while data often serve as a required resource for entry into new markets, strategic partnerships play a critical role in capturing value created through the exploitation of data resources. The emergent partnership structures are remarkably similar across the two organizations. They target rapid market expansion through encapsulation of data resources within highly scalable web services and the use of standardized legal contracts. We also find that temporal decoupling between value creation and value capture can expose firms to the erosion of the competitive advantage gained through investment in data resources.