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Abstract
Space Economy (SE) is increasingly becoming relevant for business and management with impacts on many industrial segments (i.e. agriculture, transport, assurance and the environment) but also on sustainable practices (i.e. Agenda 2030).
Despite the importance of SE for new business models and value creation processes in the ecosystem, theoretical approaches for the downstream space economy implementation are still quite limited in literature.
Accordingly, this paper aims to understand how open innovation supports the downstream sector through digital platforms. We use a qualitative methodology, by combining a theory-driven approach, based on an in-depth analysis of the main factors that affect the implementation of space value chain models.
Keywords: Space Economy; Digital Platform; Earth Observation; Sustainability; Global Markets
1.Space Economy: A General Overview
The Space sector is currently undergoing a radical transition (Vidmar et al., 2020) in terms of industrial structure, competition forces, innovation management, market demand and public-private relationship (Moranta, 2022), becoming more relevant for business and management.
OECD estimates G20 governments' budgets amounting to 79 billion in 2019, with an annual commercial revenue of 280-300 billion ($). Moreover, the Space Economy (SE) has positive outcomes, including employment, revenues, as well as technological and scientific innovation (OECD, 2020).
Space Economy (SE) is defined as the full range of activities and the use of resources that create value and benefits to human beings in the course of exploring, researching, understanding, managing, and utilizing space (OECD, 2020).
SE impacts on different economic sectors, for instance:
- On monitoring near real-time energy distribution networks, which are often located in remote or inaccessible areas;
- On the risk assessment models improvement and products that are increasingly tailored to actual client risk profile in the assurance companies;
- On the exploitation space data to monitor the traceability and tracking of food
- On the improvement the production on agricultural sector.
However, its relevancy relies not only on the market side. The importance of social and environmental issues for the managerial agenda has been already highlighted in literature (i.e. Brondoni, 2003; Ergene et al., 2021; Brondoni & Ricotti, 2022). Accordingly, the use of space data is instrumental to monitor environmental parameters, included the delivering of economically sustainable and innovative solutions for the green and digital transformation. Examples are:
- industrial...