Addressing Issues of SDI Governance and Standardisation: Variety Dynamics Analysis

Variety Dynamics (VD) is a new methodology to identify reasons for failures in spatial data infrastructure (SDI) governance and standardisation as well as potential opportunities for improvement. SDI governance and standardisation situations are often shaped by multiple feedback loops and do not conform to the assumptions needed for causal analysis. This combination is an intrinsic basis for faulty decision and policy making. Variety Dynamics presents geographic information science with a new ability to address the above issues and reveal otherwise hidden structural factors. It shows that most SDI initiatives for change are ineffective because they do not influence variety distributions. Standards are published, coordinating bodies established, and technical platforms deployed without significant changes in equitable outcomes. Variety Dynamics also reveals opportunities for successful SDI policy initiatives leveraging data sovereignty changes that force infrastructure migration and temporarily invert transaction cost structures. After data sovereignty is established, however, any SDI governance and standardisation problems will be likely locked in through path dependencies and accumulated switching costs.