Platform, or technology project? A spectrum of six strategic ‘plays’ from UK government IT initiatives and their implications for policy

Abstract

There is a markedly broad range of definitions and illustrative examples of the role played by governments themselves within the literature on government platforms. In response we conduct an inductive and deductive qualitative review of the literature to clarify this landscape and so to develop a typology of six definitions of government platforms, organised within three genres along a spectrum from fully centralised, through to fully decentralised. For each platform definition we offer illustrative ‘mini-cases’ drawn from the UK government experience as well as further insights and implications for each genre, drawn from the broader information systems literature on platforms. A range of benefits, risks, governance challenges, policy recommendations, and suggestions for further research are then identified and discussed.