Abstract. The health of a software ecosystem is argued to be a key indicator of well-being, longevity and performance of a network of companies. In this paper, we address what scientific literature actually means with the concept of 'ecosystem health' by selecting relevant articles with systematic literature review. Based on the final set of 38 papers, we found that despite a common base, the term has been used to depict a wide range of hoped characteristics of a software ecosystem. However, the number of studies addressing the topic is shown to grow while empirical studies are still rare. Thus, further studies should aim to standardize the terminology and concepts in order to create a common base for future work. Further work is needed also to develop early indicators that warn and guides companies on problems with their ecosystems.

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In a modern organization, IT and digital data have transformed from being functional resources to integral elements of business strategy. Against this background, our article addresses corporate governance of digital data in general and that of aging societies in particular. To describe the role of executives and managers in data governance, we first review the corporate and IT governance literature. We then propose a theoretical framework for the governance of data: a novel construct. We apply the framework to the governance of aging societies related data, that is, to answer the question of how best to manage the provision of services to citizens with digital data enablement and support. We also disclose the results from two recent surveys, with 212 and 68 respondents respectively, on the business significance of data governance. The survey results reveal that good governance of data is considered critical to organizations. As concluding remarks, we discuss the significance of our results, our contributions to research, the limitations of our study and its managerial implications.

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During the era of open systems, healthcare services and related data are in a constant flux caused by digital transformation. The amount, sources and dimensionality of data grow rapidly, and solutions for data governance, integration and interoperability are urgently needed. At the same time, digital data and information technology–enabled healthcare services are offered as a means to empower citizens. The objective is for active citizens to take better care of their own health. It is possible to support empowerment in many ways, such as with easy-to-use information systems (IS) or personal health records (PHR), or by supporting citizens’ participation in health data creation. In this article, we first present the federative approach to data governance with data federation matrixes in order to show how data are made interoperable by combining data from different data storages. Federation matrixes define shared attributes with their technical, information-flow and socio-contextual metadata. We then contemplate how the federative approach can be deployed to citizens’ healthcare data empowerment. We propose that data ontologies, e.g., data federation matrixes, are useful in bridging gaps between the social contexts of citizens and healthcare professionals and, by doing so, to promote citizen empowerment. The present article contributes to research on the federative approach to data governance, its deployment to citizens’ healthcare empowerment, and to the practice-oriented further development of the federation matrix tools for this and other use cases.