Firm strategies and path dependencies: an emerging economic geography of industrial data

This paper analyses how firms engaged in industrial data production in the power-generation industry operating within the US energy sector produce, collect, store, aggregate, analyse, and ultimately monetize and use industrial data. Industrial data activities are increasingly central to the strategic decision-making of firms in industries from energy to aerospace. This study focuses on whether industrial data production is dispersed and distributed or geographically concentrated. And further, what factors influence the location and concentration of industrial data-production activities. The results indicate that regional factors are affecting industrial data production and that regional policy may not only influence but also largely determine the evolving economic geography of industrial data.