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Mapping digital businesses with big data: Some early findings from the UK

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  • Nathan, Max
  • Rosso, Anna
Abstract
Governments around the world want to develop their ICT industries. Researchers and policymakers thus need a clear picture of digital businesses, but conventional datasets and typologies tend to lag real-world change. We use innovative ‘big data’ resources to perform an alternative analysis for all active companies in the UK, focusing on ICT-producing firms. Exploiting a combination of observed and modelled variables, we develop a novel ‘sector-product’ approach and use text mining to provide further detail on key sector-product cells. We find that the ICT production space is around 42% larger than SIC-based estimates, with around 70,000 more companies. We also find ICT employment shares over double the conventional estimates, although this result is more speculative. Our findings are robust to various scope, selection and sample construction challenges. We use our experiences to reflect on the broader pros and cons of frontier data use.

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  • Nathan, Max & Rosso, Anna, 2015. "Mapping digital businesses with big data: Some early findings from the UK," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(9), pages 1714-1733.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:44:y:2015:i:9:p:1714-1733
    DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2015.01.008
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    6. Turrell, Arthur & Thurgood, James & Djumalieva, Jyldyz & Copple, David & Speigner, Bradley, 2018. "Using online job vacancies to understand the UK labour market from the bottom-up," Bank of England working papers 742, Bank of England.
    7. Max Nathan & Anna Rosso, 2017. "Innovative events," Development Working Papers 429, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano, revised 08 Apr 2019.
    8. Ben Spigel & Fumi Kitagawa & Colin Mason, 2020. "A manifesto for researching entrepreneurial ecosystems," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 35(5), pages 482-495, August.
    9. Nicholas Stern & Anna Valero, 2021. "Innovation, growth and the transition to net-zero emissions," CEP Discussion Papers dp1773, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    10. Nicholas Stern & Anna Valero, 2021. "Innovation, growth and the transition to net-zero emissions," POID Working Papers 008, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    11. Margherita Russo & Annalisa Caloffi & Ana Colovic & Pasquale Pavone & Saverio Romeo & Federica Rossi, 2021. "Mapping the distribution of Internet of Things competences across European regions," Working Papers 57, Birkbeck Centre for Innovation Management Research, revised Dec 2021.
    12. Neil Lee & Stephen Clarke, 2017. "Who gains from high-tech growth? High-technology multipliers, employment and wages in Britain," SPRU Working Paper Series 2017-14, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    13. Occhini, Giulia & Tranos, Emmanouil & Wolf, Levi John, 2023. "Measuring a country’s digital industrial structure: commercial websites and weakly supervised classification to the rescue," SocArXiv h572n, Center for Open Science.
    14. Wen Chen, 2023. "Digital economy development, corporate social responsibility and low‐carbon innovation," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(4), pages 1664-1679, July.
    15. Stern, Nicholas & Valero, Anna, 2021. "Innovation, growth and the transition to net-zero emissions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(9).
    16. Josh Martin & Rebecca Riley, 2023. "Productivity measurement - Reassessing the production function from micro to macro," Working Papers 033, The Productivity Institute.
    17. Kuebart, Andreas, 2022. "Open creative labs as functional infrastructure for entrepreneurial ecosystems: Using sequence analysis to explore tempo-spatial trajectories of startups in Berlin," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(9).
    18. Margherita Russo & Annalisa Caloffi & Ana Colovic & Pasquale Pavone & Saverio Romeo & Federica Rossi, 2022. "Mapping regional strengths in a key enabling technology: The distribution of Internet of Things competences across European regions," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 101(4), pages 875-900, August.
    19. Occhini, Giulia & Tranos, Emmanouil & Wolf, Levi John, 2023. "Occupational segregation in the digital economy? A Natural Language Processing approach using UK Web Data," SocArXiv z8xta, Center for Open Science.
    20. Wen Chen & Changyi Zhu & Qi Cheung & Siying Wu & Jun Zhang & Jia Cao, 2024. "How does digitization enable green innovation? Evidence from Chinese listed companies," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(5), pages 3832-3854, July.
    21. Tian, Meng & Chen, Yang & Tian, Guanghao & Huang, Wei & Hu, Chuan, 2023. "The role of digital transformation practices in the operations improvement in manufacturing firms: A practice-based view," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 262(C).
    22. Stern, Nicholas & Sivropoulos-Valero, Anna Valero, 2021. "Innovation, growth and the transition to net-zero emissions," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114385, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Big Data; Text mining; ICTs; Digital economy; Industrial policy; Firm-level analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C81 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access
    • L63 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Microelectronics; Computers; Communications Equipment
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software
    • O38 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Government Policy

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