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PublicationGovernance Mechanisms in Digital Platform Ecosystems: Addressing the Generativity-Control TensionDigital platform owners repeatedly face paradoxical design decisions with regard to their platforms’ generativity and control, requiring them to facilitate co-innovation whilst simultaneously retaining control over third-party complementors. To address this challenge, platform owners deploy a variety of governance mechanisms. However, researchers and practitioners currently lack a coherent understanding of what major governance mechanisms platform owners rely on to simultaneously foster generativity and control. Conducting a structured literature review, we connect the fragmented academic discourse on governance mechanisms with each aspect of the generativity-control tension. Next to providing avenues for prospective digital platform research, we elaborate on the double-sidedness of governance mechanisms in fostering both generativity and control.
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PublicationGuiding the Evolution of B2B Platform Ecosystems: Governance Mechanisms and Acquisition Strategy(Universität St. Gallen, 2023-02-20)Platform ecosystems are groups of interdependent firms and/or individuals that produce complementary products or services to create a coordinated shared value proposition. At the nexus of each platform ecosystem is a digital platform that provides a shared interface and facilitates exchange and collaboration between its actors. The evolution of such a platform ecosystem is shaped by complex interactions between the technology and functionalities of the digital platform and the roles and interests of the ecosystems actors. Despite the fact that platform ecosystems are becoming the new organizing logic of many industries, the majority of them fail to survive in the long-term due to fierce competition. Surprisingly, however, there is little research on the evolutionary dynamics of platform ecosystems, specifically in the business-to-business (B2B) context. Due to this, platform owners as orchestrators of their ecosystems require more guidance to ensure the adaptability of the platform ecosystem to emerging internal and external market conditions. This dissertation aims to provide a more coherent understanding of the guidance of platform ecosystem evolution in the B2B context. Specifically, it aims to derive insights on two major types of guidance: (1) governance mechanisms to ensure alignment of all the ecosystems actors interests, and (2) acquisition strategy to enable rapid growth of the platforms technology and functionalities. To achieve this, the dissertation provides an in-depth case study of Salesforce, a leading global enterprise software company and a thriving B2B platform ecosystem. The dissertation contributes to three research streams: (1) platform ecosystem evolution, (2) platform governance, and (3) platform owners acquisitions. It shows how major governance mechanisms can be employed by platform owners to simultaneously incentivize and control the ecosystems actors; it demonstrates how platform owners can employ acquisitions to strategically guide the evolution of their ecosystem; and it investigates how acquisitions affect the ecosystems internal dynamics and actors. Based on these findings, this research suggests targeted guidance for platform owners in B2B platform ecosystems.
