Clément Labadie defended his PhD thesis “Essays on Data Democratization and Protection in the Data-driven Enterprise” on July 13, 2021.
Members of the jury were Prof. Christine Legner as supervisor, Prof. Michalis Vlachos as internal expert, Prof. Öykü Isik (IMD) and Prof. Felix Wortmann (University of St. Gallen) as external experts, and Prof. Felicitas Morhart as president of the jury.
Abstract of the thesis:
In the data-driven enterprise, large quantities of data are automatically processed to detect patterns, generate insights, and fuel business processes and business models alike. However, enterprises striving to become data-driven face multiple challenges. First, while a broadening audience of enterprise stakeholders need to work with data, they largely remain lodged in organizational and technical silos. Second, organizations must comply with strengthened data protection regulations to exploit personal data, which is key to successful data-driven business strategies. This dissertation explores the seemingly contradictory objectives of data protection compliance and increased data usage in enterprises. On the one hand, we investigate. enterprise data catalogs (EDC) as emerging platforms that support data democratization in the enterprise context. Based on insights from over 10 real-world EDC pilot projects in multi-national organizations, we identify emerging data-related roles and analyze how EDCs support their typical data needs and usages. On the other hand, we examine the interplay between data protection regulations and data processing practices, by linking compliance requirements to data management capabilities, embedded into a revisited data life cycle for personal data. In collating these two perspectives, we find that creating transparency on enterprise-wide data assets is a cornerstone of both data protection compliance and data democratization. Our contributions inform the redesign of data management practices and call attention to the need for diligent data documentation as essential building block of the conformable and democratized data-driven enterprise.
The entire team congratulates Clément on his successful PhD defense. We also thank him for the many contributions to the Competence Center Corporate Data Quality (CC CDQ) and for supporting the Bachelor course “Digital Business Processes & Enterprise Systems”.
