Data is increasingly considered to be a key component in stimulating innovation. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with their limited internal resources, particularly face a severe challenge in implementing innovations that depend upon data. However, smart city projects across the globe, where significant amounts of data are available from various sophisticated devices, are providing rich opportunities for SMEs to explore data-driven innovation. Chinese Governments are trying to actively engage the SMEs in the proces of smart city construction. When coorporating with the government, the availability of and access to data involved in the government contracts help to improve the innovation development of SMEs in China.

In this thesis, we intend to address how data is managed thro...[ Read more ]

Data is increasingly considered to be a key component in stimulating innovation. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with their limited internal resources, particularly face a severe challenge in implementing innovations that depend upon data. However, smart city projects across the globe, where significant amounts of data are available from various sophisticated devices, are providing rich opportunities for SMEs to explore data-driven innovation. Chinese Governments are trying to actively engage the SMEs in the proces of smart city construction. When coorporating with the government, the availability of and access to data involved in the government contracts help to improve the innovation development of SMEs in China.

In this thesis, we intend to address how data is managed through collaboration between the government and companies in smart cities and how obtaining different types of government contracts (equipment supply, platform building, data analysis) can influence firms’ performance on innovation. Focusing on the case of SMEs in China, this research aims to shed light on what kinds of data are available and used in smart cities, and how the government and enterprises collaborate on data to facilitate innovation. Data on companies’ registered capital, industry, software products, and patents from 1990–2020 is compiled from the database Tianyancha. A panel dataset is established with the key characteristics of the SMEs, software and patent output, and their record on government contracts. Our PSM analysis suggests that compared to the control group, the treatment group which obtain the government contracts have more innovation outputs.