Platform Organising and Platform Organisations

Abstract

There is a growing consensus that the digital age comes along with the distinguishing organisational form of the platform. Discussions of this organisational form, however, tend to lack a coherent theoretical framing. In this paper, I argue that the distinction between platform organising and platform organisation helps to reduce some of the equivocality in the discussion. So far, the literature has focused on the novelty of the ‘organisational form’ without reflecting the inherent ambiguity of the meaning of this term: whereas some scholars use it to describe a new kind of ‘social ordering’, others associate it with ‘formal organisation’. I show that both understandings are relevant, but that they should be kept separate for analytical reasons. Platform organisations are formal organisations which are dependent on the technological infrastructure of a digital platform. Platform organising, however, is a new kind of social ordering, which combines organising outside and organising inside of formal organisations. Platform organising entails four processes: providing (organising technology), regulating (organising markets), integrating (organising networks), and orchestrating (organising the emerging meta-organisation). In shedding light on these processes in their interplay with platform organisations, this paper proposes a theoretical framework providing a basis for both further conceptual considerations and empirical research.