Platform Owners Research Articles

Gaming Expertise Metrics: A Sociological Examination of Online Knowledge Creation Platforms

AbstractOnline environments have the potential to disrupt traditional orderings of expertise and allow a wider audience to engage as experts in the process of knowledge creation. Many online environments use crowdsourced metric-based systems, such as upvotes and reputation scores, to help identify experts. While these online systems provide opportunities to recognize expertise in new ways, they continue to reproduce and reconfigure existing issues around what is considered expertise and who is considered an expert. To explore these issues, we conduct an ethnographic engagement with Stack Overflow, a community knowledge sharing platform for programmers and coders. Our empirical material comprises 14 interviews with Stack Overflow users and documentary material collected from the platform.We find that while platform owners often present their systems as arbiters of expertise, crowdsourced metric-based systems like Stack Overflow may not locate subject matter experts, but rather may measure community trust and engagement. Reward mechanics may also tempt users to play the game of increasing their metrics rather than developing expertise. Furthermore, our findings suggest that certain conditions in online environments may actively prevent those from under-represented groups from being recognized as experts. This presents an ethical challenge to the premise that online platforms may democratize the sharing of knowledge and recognition of expertise. Our findings suggest that while users may be aware of such issues, metrics are so intertwined with the functioning of the platforms they use that they may accept the premise that those metrics are relevant measures of expertise regardless.

From mutualism to commensalism: Assessing the evolving relationship between complementors and digital platforms

AbstractDigital platforms are increasingly dominating markets by bringing together two or more groups of users and facilitating the exchange of value between them. Although several significant issues concerning the dynamics of digital platforms have been addressed, much of the research effort has focused on the platform owner. On the other hand, research on complementors neither takes into account the individual level nor clearly shows what an individual complementor can do to benefit from platform participation. By studying the evolving relationship between YouTube and its ecosystem of complementors (content creators), we shed light on the strategies that complementors use to progressively avoid but still benefit from platform governance. We find that content creators are, first, in a mutual relationship with the YouTube platform, benefiting from direct monetization. Then, they shift to commensalism as the relationship evolves, allowing them to avoid YouTube's governance and take advantage of multi‐homing. Our findings illuminate the effects of platform governance, particularly how it shapes the actions of complementors.

Comparing Platform Owners’ Early and Late Entry into Complementary Markets

Research on platform owners’ entry into complementary markets points in divergent directions. One strand of the literature reports a squeeze on post-entry complementor profits due to increased competition, while another observes positive effects as increased customer attention and innovation benefit the complementary market as a whole. In this research note, we seek to transcend these conflicting views by comparing the effects of the early and late timing of platform owners’ entry. We apply a difference-in-differences design to explore the drivers and effects of the timing of platform owners’ entry using data from three entries that Amazon made into its Alexa voice assistant’s complementary markets. Our findings suggest that early entry is driven by the motivation to boost the overall value creation of the complementary market, whereas late entry is driven by the motivation to capture value already created in a key complementary market. Importantly, our findings suggest that early entry, in contrast to late entry, creates substantial consumer attention that benefits complementors offering specialized functionality. In addition, the findings also suggest that complementors with more experience are more likely to benefit from the increased consumer attention. We contribute to platform research by showing that the timing of the platform owner’s entry matters in a way that can potentially reconcile conflicting findings regarding the consequences of platform owners’ entry into complementary markets.

B2B service sales on a digital multi-sided platform: Transformation from value chains to value networks

Business-to-business (B2B) service suppliers mobilize a platform approach to enhance their competitive advantage, service selling, and long-term relationships. These emerging platforms in established value chains have been insufficiently studied on a strategic level, especially regarding value orchestration. The aim of this article is to examine how digital multi-sided platforms (DMSPs) change platform owners' value chains toward joint value creation from a sales approach, including sales strategy, sales structure, and customer relationships. Our longitudinal multiple case study was conducted on four platform owners adopting a DMSP as part of their service selling. The findings show how the transition from value chain toward value orchestration in a network shifts the platform owner's focus to develop a common sales strategy with strategic network actors. The restructuring of sales with platform resources allows platform owners to manage larger networks with fewer resources and utilize enhanced interaction to create commitment in network relationships. We put forward three propositions and a framework to illustrate the interdependence of the value chain changes under examination. Additionally, this study offers various managerial implications for companies when utilizing platforms and provides avenues for further research.

Effective reporting system to encourage users’ reporting behavior in social media platforms: an empirical study based on structural empowerment theory

ABSTRACT Reporting systems are gradually gaining attention as a mechanism for users to engage in platform content governance, such as reporting problematic content in terms of misinformation or misbehaviors. However, there is little research on how a reporting system can be effectively designed to facilitate users’ reports. This study presents a model that is grounded in structural empowerment theory and the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework to bridge this gap and considers the embedded reporting system on social media as a mechanism to empower users to participate in reporting problematic content. Using a two-stage survey and a partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), the authors find that three empowerment structures of the reporting system (i.e. information transparency, tool usability, and platform reporting support) stimulate users’ reporting self-efficacy through unequal pathways and then promote users’ engagement in reporting platform content. The contribution of this paper is that it explores the application of structural empowerment theory in empowering user reporting on social media platforms, explains the relationship between the three empowerment structures, and then provides a reference to content governance practices for the platform owner and other stakeholders.

Measuring Misinformation Trends on Social Media in South Africa using Machine Learning

Misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, and/or fake news have gained attention for good and bad in South Africa, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. The research-based and non-research-based interventions to tackle misinformation have also been slowly gaining traction, particularly through fact checkers, fake news reporting systems such as those by real411, research on automated systems to detect fake news online using machine learning, sentiment analysis of fake news, tagging of fake news data, and so on. Nevertheless, the spread of misinformation and/or fake news still represents a serious threat and challenge to social media platform owners, citizens, lawmakers, governments, and businesses alike. We hypothesized that the awareness, engagement, influence, and impact levels of misinformation on citizens, politicians, journalists, and lawmakers are relatively low, especially in South Africa. However, no sufficient research has been done in this area to understand engagements, awareness, and reporting of fake news online. This research uses open-source intelligence and selected machine learning techniques to analyse publicly collected social media data to monitor and measure the awareness and engagements of fake news in South Africa over a period of 30 days. The research further identifies key drivers of spreading or reporting misinformation online. We conclude that misinformation engagements on social media in South Africa are active, but only in affluent regions and influenced by mobile device users, who are mostly male. The study recommends further research that may support raising misinformation awareness and positive engagements on social media.

The role of knowledge boundary resources for platform ecosystems – insights and design implications from SAP's Business Technology Platform

Platform ecosystems shift the locus of innovation from internal departments to third‐party developers, leading to knowledge boundaries between the platform owner and these external developers. Whereas traditional knowledge management approaches focus on intra‐organizational knowledge sharing, platform owners have to adopt an inter‐organizational approach to integrate knowledge across firm boundaries. Platform owners thus rely on knowledge boundary resources such as technical documentation, information portals, training materials, sample code, blogs, and online communities to overcome knowledge boundaries in their ecosystems. Existing research has identified different types of knowledge boundaries and knowledge boundary resources, but further research is needed to clarify how they influence third‐party application development. Against this background, we study how third‐party developers integrate knowledge boundary resources into their development practices. To derive an in‐depth understanding of the phenomenon, we used cognitive fit theory and conducted a single case study of SAP's Business Technology Platform. Based on 23 interviews, we developed a process model and distilled two primary purposes why third‐party developers use knowledge boundary resources: learning and problem‐solving. Based on these purposes, we explain the emergence of a knowledge boundary resource‐purpose fit that shapes the selection, evaluation, and usage of knowledge boundary resources. We then draw upon various knowledge boundary resource characteristics to condense four cases with a particularly favorable knowledge boundary resource‐purpose fit. Based on our results, we derive five propositions to help platform owners design effective knowledge boundary resources.

An Analysis of the Impact of Social Media and Search Engines on Decision-Making

With the constant advancement of technology and the advent of a global pandemic, as of 2023 it is safe to say our lives are as affected by our physical surroundings as they are by the virtual spaces we inhabit.
 Social media and search engines constitute a big part of how people use technology to aid in their decision-making processes. The current state of social media and search engines regulation in the United States is one of stall: while public discourse continues and concerns among experts keep raising at each iteration of existing platforms or introduction of new tools, policymakers have not made as much progress in regulating the actions of the companies owning these platforms, in spite of their awareness of the impact these tools have on the public’s decision-making abilities. In this context, the spread of dis- and mis- information is a particularly dangerous phenomenon that can only be tackled with a radical change in the way platform owners are held accountable for the content they allow the circulation of.
 This study aims to serve as a much needed reminder of the effects of social media and search engines usage on the public’s agency, decision-making processes, and ultimately the real-life consequences of the exposure to and interaction with online misinformation and disinformation.
 A specific focus on how Covid-19 disinformation (false information which is deliberately intended to mislead) and misinformation (false or inaccurate information) spreading on two specific platforms (Reddit, and Google) was handled by said platforms will serve as a magnifying glass on the aforementioned issues. Analyzing the prominent design and ethics concerns in this landscape, I intend to propose heuristics to inform policy-oriented solutions to a set of issues that has been largely misunderstood and underestimated at the policy level in the United States. I argue that these concerns will only increase in complexity if left untackled, and the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to the public might have already exponentially complicated the position of the United States’ governmental entities; while explicitly clarifying their intention to insure people’s well-being, governmental bodies are struggling with either understanding the policy/regulatory options available to them or getting them passed. The influence of the lobbying power of tech companies and governments' conflicts of interests in the matter will be discussed.

Challenges of IT freelancers on digital labor platforms: A topic model approach

Freelancers working on digital labor platforms have to deal with many challenges. IT freelancers should be considered separately due to special characteristics such as high skill level or collaborative nature of IT work. Through a Latent Dirichlet Allocation analysis of 2804 forum posts with over 20,000 comments from IT freelancers and additional qualitative analysis, we assign themes to each identified topic, cluster them into aggregated dimensions, and illustrate the interrelationships in a model of IT freelancing. Thus, we examine the challenges of IT freelancers and synthesize them. We extend the challenges of online freelancing already outlined in the literature and identify four IT-specific challenges for IT freelancers. Therefore, we improve our understanding of how IT work is performed on digital labor platforms and which particular aspects should be considered in future research. Furthermore, we highlight implications for practitioners, i.e., IT freelancers on the one hand and platform owners on the other hand.

Digital platform ecosystem governance of private companies: Building blocks and a research agenda based on a multidisciplinary, systematic literature review

Digital platform ecosystem governance refers to a platform owner's decisions and mechanisms that seek to influence complementors and users to build and sustain an ecosystem. The relevance of digital platform ecosystem governance is broadly acknowledged by researchers. However, the extant body of research is fragmented, and varied terminologies are employed, leading to challenges in identifying and recognizing results across different fields. This article provides a multidisciplinary and systematic literature review with the aim of consolidating knowledge on this important topic. Based on an analysis of 103 journal articles and conference papers, this review synthesizes the literature into a conceptual model with five building blocks of platform ecosystem governance. The model aims to create a robust foundation for researchers approaching the topic for the first time and conducting subsequent research. The conceptual model also offers practical guidance for governing ecosystems in a structured manner. Finally, this article provides a research agenda with five areas for future investigation.

Accommodating New Modes of Work in the Era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in Ghana: Some Comparative Lessons from the United Kingdom and South Africa

Over the past decade, Ghana has significantly improved in the digitalisation and transformation agenda. The digitalisation agenda has paved the way for creating an inclusive digital economy. Through this agenda, many Ghanaians now have access to digital platforms, particularly those in the financial and transportation sectors. The quest to digitalise the Ghanaian economy has also created an enabling platform for digital entrepreneurship. The digital economy ecosystem has presented many Ghanaians with economic and employment opportunities that did not exist in the traditional or mainstream economy. While the economic potential of the Ghanaian digital economy cannot be denied, the employment opportunities created by the digital transformation drive present some challenges for the traditional labour market. Moreover, the novel nature of the digital transformation drive poses some difficulties for the existing legal framework of labour laws in Ghana. In addition to examining how Ghana’s labour laws can accommodate gig workers, this article discusses the digital economy’s meaning and significance in Africa, particularly in Ghana. Furthermore, it discusses the new modes of work associated with the digital economy. In addressing the issue of whether the current legal framework in Ghana can accommodate gig workers, the article reflects on the nature of the relationship between gig workers and owners of digital platforms. The article accordingly deals with the issue of whether the Labour Act 651 of 2003 offers guidance in addressing the employment status of gig workers in Ghana. In dealing with whether gig workers are employees of digital platform providers, this article draws some comparative and judicial lessons from the legal position in the United Kingdom (UK) and South Africa. The article concludes with a call for the statutory protection of gig workers in Ghana.

Developers' decision to navigate resource adversity in crowdfunded digital development projects

In a world where funding institutions and venture capitalists dominate the digital product development landscape, crowdfunding engages a global crowd to finance visionary ideas and address underrepresented needs. However, despite recognizing the challenges of managing crowd expectations, there is limited understanding of how developers navigate these challenges following the successful funding of their proposals. Drawing on a comparative, longitudinal, and in-depth grounded investigation, this study illuminates the prevalence of "resource adversity" within crowdfunded digital development projects. Resource adversity, characterized by scarcities of critical resources such as funding and human capital, affects crowdfunded development despite substantial support from a large crowd, potentially leading to complex outcomes. While adversity compels developers to seek additional funding and advocate for changes in various project aspects, this perspective departs from resource-centric viewpoints and emphasizes resourceful decisions to proactively establish resilience, resist precarious changes, and facilitate the release of high-quality products and post-adversity benefits. The perspective contributes to the dominant research focus on post-adversity decision-making and restoration by discussing connections across pre-adversity, adversity, and post-adversity stages. By focusing on preparedness and resourcefulness, the decision-making insights expand research on managing resource-limited development while meeting diverse stakeholder expectations. Moreover, the perspective enriches extant understanding of community-based innovation by elucidating how product improvisation, community resource engagement, and bricolage are interrelated and contribute to shaping evolving digital products. The article concludes by discussing practical implications for entrepreneurs and platform owners and by exploring avenues for future research.

Coordination in a Digital Platform Organization

The value of a digital platform (DP) can only be achieved through the coordinated actions of participating sides. Therefore, the question of how platform owners can coordinate multiple side actions is central. By positioning platform sides as part of the DP organization rather than viewing DP as a market or technological architecture, we highlight the differences in platform sides and how these differences must be acknowledged and managed as they are a source of misalignment among platform sides. Given that DP owners do not possess formal power over the sides (they are free to join other DPs simultaneously), our study demonstrates how a DP owner, in addition to putting in place structures to enable or constrain certain actions of platform sides, must also influence their narrowing of possibilities of action toward achieving coordinated actions. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to offer a process model of digital platform coordination that explains digital platform coordination in terms of the contextual conditions (when platform sides could enact their agency), the mechanisms of the platform sides’ agency enactment and digital orienting (an expanded repertoire of actions in coordinating platform sides through technology), and the resultant outcome.

Perceived uncertainty and switching intention on e-commerce platforms: The moderating role of usage habit

With the increasingly fierce competition between e-commerce platforms, the issue of user retention has received more attention. Prior research highlighted the important role of perceived uncertainty in predicting user switching. This study enriches this line of literature by incorporating the effect of habit. Distinguished from other research, our study specifically focuses on the conflict between habit, which requires a stable environment for formation, and perceived uncertainty, which indicates an unstable environment. Anchored on the stimulus–organism–response framework, we provide a clear explanation of how perceived uncertainty interacts with habit and shapes users’ switching intention in the e-commerce context. An online survey of 358 users of the Taobao in China provided data for model validation and partial least squares estimation was adopted for data analysis. Three main findings emerged. First, perceived information asymmetry and perceived seller opportunism increase users’ perceived uncertainty. Second, perceived uncertainty directly and positively influences disconfirmation (internal cognition), whereas indirectly influences dissatisfaction (internal affect) through disconfirmation. Third, users’ habit of using an incumbent platform negatively moderates the effect of perceived uncertainty on disconfirmation. Furthermore, both disconfirmation and dissatisfaction positively contribute to the users’ switching intention. The findings provide valuable enlightenment for e-commerce platform owners to retain users.

Older Individuals and Digital Healthcare Platforms: Usage Motivations and the Impact of Age on Postadoption Usage Patterns

Digital healthcare platforms have enabled patients to receive healthcare in ways that were impossible previously—for example, by providing a “safer” way to meet, as underscored by the Covid-19 pandemic. This article investigates whether older and younger primary care users display behavioral differences on digital healthcare platforms. The article adopts a mixed-method approach in which one-way ANOVA analysis on a sample of 152 000 patient journeys was combined with qualitative interview data. The findings highlight significant differences in usage between elderly and younger patients. The elderly spends more time during use—for example, during anamnesis, onboarding, and in queues. We also outline how the key antecedent factors that are most central to platform usage, such as perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, digital maturity, and trust, play out in the elderly user context. The study contributes to the nascent literature on digital healthcare platforms and the postadoption usage of information and communication technologies by the elderly. The article also outlines research implications in the area of DHPs and mHealth for elderly users, and it discusses the practical implications for both platform owners and healthcare professionals, where platform design and information management are particularly important for elderly users.

Understanding Platform Owner Assortment Strategy to Foster Customer Activity Metrics

Understanding Platform Owner Assortment Strategy to Foster Customer Activity Metrics

Analysis of Internet Rent from the Perspective of Marx's Rent Theory: A Case Study of Mobile Internet Applications

People are now tightly connected through mobile Internet applications, whether they are platform owners, renters, business professionals, or users. The presence of Internet Rent is concealed between platform owners and renters of mobile Internet applications, according to Marx's rent theory. Owners of platforms lease out data land and charge Internet Rent to renters. Similar to land rent, Internet Rent demonstrates differential rent. However, due to the instantaneous replicability of data flow activities and the impact of network externalities, the former still differs from the latter in terms of social relationships, the existence of Absolute Rent, and the form of Differential Rent II.

Lead complementor involvement in the design of platform boundary resources: A case study of BMW's onboard apps

AbstractAn increasing number of companies have implemented digital platforms to attract complementors who create innovations on the platform. Establishing such digital platforms is a challenge for incumbent companies because they lack related experience and capabilities. In particular, boundary resources that are the interface between the platform and complementors need to be well‐designed to attract complementors and keep them engaged. We propose that lead complementor involvement helps incumbent companies to improve the design of the platform boundary resources. In a multi‐year action research study, we established lead complementor involvement in the boundary resource design of a digital platform for automotive onboard apps at the BMW Group and evaluated how boundary resources improved. Along three episodes, we illustrate that lead complementor involvement was effective and we summarise our findings in four propositions: (1) lead complementor involvement facilitates platform emergence for incumbent companies by enhancing boundary resource design, (2) lead complementor involvement is more efficient in higher platform layers, (3) lead complementor involvement is facilitated by an increase of intensity and frequency of interactions between complementors and platform owner and (4) establishing a complementor community helps to continuously identify opportunities for lead complementor involvement. We contribute to the information systems literature on platform emergence and design by focusing on the process of designing boundary resources and by considering the heterogeneity of complementors. Furthermore, we contextualise the concept of lead user involvement in the domain of digital platforms and compare and contrast lead complementors and lead users.

LEGO and the Infrastructural Limits of Open Play

LEGO and the Infrastructural Limits of Open Play

Business Model Innovation in Manufacturing Firms: Exploring the Driving Forces of Digital Transformation

The adoption of digital technology has become a critical factor in the context of innovation management. The process of digital transformation leads to the realization of concrete business improvements that promote the innovation of entire business models. So far, it has remained unexplored what drives this business model innovation, especially when looking at digitally savvy firms from the manufacturing industry. This study aims to identify the key drivers of digital transformation of business models based on a systematic literature review. A four-step review approach draws on the findings from a core sample of 51 articles from two databases and results in the description of four key drivers for digital transformation of business models, namely ubiquitous connectivity, functional dematerialization, relational decentralization, and flexible scalability. Finally, a conceptual framework of four digital business model archetypes (lighthouse supplier, service enthusiast, data scientist, and platform owner) is proposed that considers a manufacturing firm’s business model exposure to the identified digital transformation drivers. While this study is limited to theoretical findings, it likewise provokes valuable follow-up thoughts for empirical academic work and practitioners from the manufacturing industries.