Abstract
Third-party innovators, i.e., complementors, in platform enterprises develop and commercialize add-on products which are one of the main attraction points for customers. To ensure a sustainable evolution of the enterprise, the platform owner needs to attract and retain high-quality third-party innovators. We posit that the transaction costs incurred upon joining the enterprise as well as the controls imposed by the platform owner throughout the development and commercialization process shape the innovator’s perceived risk and influence his decision on whether to join or not. Based on a literature review, the paper at hand proposes a conceptual model for complementors to assess their perceived risk and subsequently evaluates the model in a case study of a platform enterprise for IT-based modelling tools. While some of the propositions are validated, i.e., that informational controls decrease the perceived environmental uncertainty and implicitly the perceived risks, other propositions, such as the fact that asset specificity is a deterrent to entering the platform enterprise could not be validated. Further case studies are necessary to provide a conclusive proof of the proposed model.
Highlights
Contrary to the expectation derived on the basis of theory, the complementors did not perceive the fact that the platform is proprietary and imposes proprietary programming languages and interfaces negatively
As most of them did not have an information technology (IT)-supported modelling tool before entering the ecosystem, several interviewees concluded that for them time to market was more important than openness and they didn’t care if the platform was proprietary as long as the learning curve/entry barriers were not too high
Indicators (6) and (7) which represented the motivational control were in line with the hypothesis showing a strong positive correlation between the incentives received and the perceived lowering of asset specificity and implicitly of the risk the complementor faces
Summary
More than 4 billion people are connected to the internet and their number is expected to increase by 2020 to about 70% of the world’s population. New materials and nanotechnology support the increase of digitalization. This is understood here as the separation of functionality from a physical/material carrier and its availability as a digital functionality. A simple example would be a thermometer: while previously one had to use a physical device in order to know the temperature at a specific time in a given place. Digitalization and the transformational process accompanying it will impact the use of material resources and environmental sustainability in the long term
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