Firms seeking to satisfy customer needs should not only rely oninternal but also external sources of innovations for the development of theirproducts and services. Consequently, they need to shift their centralisedbusiness approaches by adopting the paradigm of open innovation and theconcept of platforms to harness the value of innovation networks. The aim ofthis paper is to examine the nature of platforms and how their adoption canstimulate external contributions of third-party developers. Based on the analysiswhich illustrated three platform adoption examples from Apple, Facebook andTwitter it is found that a platform approach and its four main elements(components, knowledge, processes and people) affect the entire innovationnetwork and its two dimension of translations. It is also found that each of thethree firms applied its own particular strategy while adopting the four mainplatform elements to suit its own innovation networks.
Firms that identify themselves as innovative have toconstantly and continuously generate a stream ofvalue-rich products and services, and improve them by time targeting growth markets and finding new ones for their core technologies. To achieve this, they start to open their innovation practices by adopting the open innovation paradigm, giving the opportunity to actors to engage in innovation networks. This paper discusses the supportive roles of platforms and platform thinking concepts in the practices that take place in innovation networks based on the dimensions of translations insuch networks. The paper illustrates two practical examples of such roles, exemplifying how platform adopting can enhance and support the innovative practices.
The last few years have witnessed a significant increase in the frequency and magnitude of involving third-party application developers in software platforms. While this involvement offers great opportunities in building and sustaining platform innovation, it also exposes platform owners to significant challenges. Typically, platform owners facilitate the involvement of third-party developers by providing resources, referred to in this thesis as boundary resources, that give access to the platform, shift design capability, and facilitate the use of the platform’s core technologies. At the same time, these resources have the potential to be used to maintain platform control. This involves seemingly conflicting goals that creates a challenge for platform owners in finding the right balance.
The main objective of this thesis is to investigate and understand the role of boundary resources in platform owners’ efforts to stimulate third-party development. To this end, this thesis proposes a theoretical model of boundary resources. This model centres on various drivers behind boundary resources design and use, and how these drivers interact in third-party development. The thesis also presents a comprehensive view of governance and strategizing practices used by platform owners through boundary resources. This thesis comprises a cover and a collection of five published research papers. The thesis applies a qualitative research method and employs multiple case studies. Boundary resources, innovation networks and platform governance perspectives have been synthesized to build a theoretical basis to analyze the empirical findings.
This thesis complements and extends the literature on software platforms, and the insights derived from the thesis enhance previous research on third-party development. In addition, it provides a focused theoretical account of the interfaces between platform owners and third-party developers that contributes to the body of knowledge developed around using tools for innovation.
The developments of new technologies, the new scientific initiatives and thenew global market are giving rise to new phenomenon of collaboration, referred to asmass collaboration, which is mainly derived by communities and self-organizing, and isbased on the new Internet and Web 2.0 technologies, services and tools. To date, this newphenomenon has been researched from strategic perspectives lacking to address themanagerial practices to be applied for its adoption. This paper presents this newphenomenon of collaboration and the concept of Web 2.0, and its technologies, servicesand tools. The paper then proposes a process framework to be used for managing projectsand initiatives that specifically aim to adopt such collaboration form. The proposition ofthe framework is based on an illustration of a case study of a Danish municipality thatapplied mass collaboration on one of its development projects.
Prior research documents the significance of using platform boundary resources (e.g., APIs) for cultivating platform ecosystems through third-party development. However, there are few, if any, theoretical accounts of this relationship. To this end, this paper proposes a theoretical model that centers on two drivers behind boundary resources design and use – resourcing and securing – and how these drivers interact in third-party development. We apply the model to a detailed case study of Apple’s iPhone platform. Our application of the model not only serves as an illustration of its plausibility but also generates insights about the conflicting goals of third-party development: the maintenance of platform control and the transfer of design capability to third-party developers. We generate four specialized constructs for understanding the actions taken by stakeholders in third-party development: self-resourcing, regulation-based securing, diversity-resourcing, and sovereignty securing. Our research extends and complements existing platform literature and contributes new knowledge about an alternative form of system development.
Third-party development is increasingly relevant for software platform owners seeking to generatecomplementary assets in the form of applications. The governance of such development involvestwo seemingly conflicting goals: the maintenance of platform control and the transfer of designcapability to users. A key element in simultaneously accommodating these goals is platformboundary resources. However, so far, there is a dearth of theoretical accounts of the role ofboundary resources and the process by which such resources can be used to govern third-partydevelopment. Drawing on case study research of Apple’s iPhone developer program, wesynthesize boundary objects theory and innovation networks literature to develop a processperspective of third-party development governance through boundary resources. In doing this, ourresearch extends and complements existing governance literature and contributes new knowledgeabout an alternative form of system development.
The strategy by which a platform owner manages the future trajectory of its platform involves many unknowns. In particular, the ambition to simultaneously control the platform and distribute design capability to users is challenging. While there is an emerging literature on strategy in platform ecosystems, little empirical evidence exists about the series of strategic actions that platform owners conduct to create value in an ecosystem context. Drawing on a strategy-as-process perspective, this paper augments existing platform perspectives by seeking to understand the micro-strategizing of a platform owner. To this end, we report a multiple case study of Apple’s use of application programming interfaces for generating value from the iPhone platform. Our comparative analysis identifies and explores five different micro-strategies that can be enacted proactively or reactively: counteracting, monetizing, resourcing, securing, and sustaining. The paper concludes with a number of theoretical and practical implications of these micro-strategies and their interaction.
The discussion of the core identity of IS research is dominated by a heated controversy between the narrow and the broad views. The paper reviews different perspectives of the core identity of IS and stand in with the broad view. We argued that the constant changes and developments of IT capabilities dynamically drive the corefocus of IS research and thus a broader view should be adopted. The paper presents the recent changes and developments of IT in the social computing era where we have shown how recent developments have widened the scope of IS research by involving mutliple social aspects of investigation. We concluded the paper by proposing some properties of IS research in this era.
The increasing adoption of nomadic devices and the associated use of information in numerous use situations pose new challenges for the ISD practice; handling the development of such multi- contextual services covering a broader vignette of users, devices and use situations than typically associated with ISD. Recently organizations have started tapping into development resources in large networks of third-party developers. Such development is enabled through the use of software platforms where developers through boundary resources, such as APIs, may access and extend functionality in new ways. Yet, studies on how organizations are able to control this type of development remains scarce. By synthesizing theory on control and boundary objects we aim at putting a new perspective and gain a greater understanding of how organizations attempt to control such development efforts. As an illustration, we draw upon a case study of a public transportation company which through deployment of a software platform is provided access to a large body of third-party developers. We use this case to study the measures taken to control development.
Intellectual capital is the single most important asset owned by any organization. Business continuity, innovation, and long-term sustainability of Small Medium Enterprises depend partly on accumulated organizational knowledge. Knowledge is hard to capture and manage due to its implicit nature. This paper seeks to investigate how Web 2.0 technologies are being used to overcome knowledge sharing and collaboration issues. The new web technologies, which are based on platforms, are referred to as emergent social software platforms (ESSP’s). The use of ESSP’s within a business enterprise to achieve business goals is known as enterprise 2.0 (E2.0). Central to this research is the proposed knowledge sharing cycle model, which has three main stages - internalization, externalization, and objectification. This model is adapted based on the findings of a case study of IBM Corporation. The findings indicate that ESSP’s can be used to support knowledge sharing practices and to help convert knowledge into its different forms.