Actors or Actions? Rethinking Platform Governance in Pre-Platform Crisis Settings
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2026-12
Author(s)
Abstract
Crises expose the limits of governance characterized by predefined roles and stable structures. This study examines how governance emerges in the pre-platform stage under conditions of urgency, unpredictability, and fragmented authority. Using four dimensions of platform governance, i.e. roles, decision rights, control, and ownership, we analyze three crisis actions during the Ukrainian refugee crisis in Switzerland: communication via online refugee communities, identification of refugees, and civic-led host-refugee matching. Findings show that governance emerges through action rather than formal authority: roles become overlapping, decision rights shift to those who can act, control relies on local norms, and ownership becomes collective and negotiated. We conceptualize this as governance-by-action, that explains how coordination arises before a coherent platform is established, extending platform governance theory to pre-platform contexts.
Keywords
Platform governance
crisis management
pre-platform stage
governance-by-action
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
Association for Information Systems
Event Title
Forty-Seventh International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS)
Event Location
Lisbon, Portugal
Subject(s)
Division(s)
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
open.access
Name
ICIS-2026-Platform-GovByAction_final.pdf
Size
525.33 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
e88b7cc665fd2664096be50ccbbaa4ff