A Paradigmatic Analysis of Digital Application Marketplaces

This paper offers a paradigmatic analysis of digital application marketplaces for advancing information systems (IS) research on digital platforms and ecosystems. We refer to the notion of digital application marketplace, colloquially called “appstores,” as a platform component that offers a venue for exchanging applications between developers and end-users belonging to a single or multiple ecosystems. Such marketplaces exhibit diversity in features and assumptions, and we propose that examining this diversity, and its ideal types, will help us to further understand the relationship between application marketplaces, platforms, and platform ecosystems. To this end, we generate a typology that distinguishes four kinds of digital application marketplaces: closed, censored, focused, and open marketplaces. The paper also offers implications for actors wishing to make informed decisions about their relationship to a particular digital application marketplace

The Dynamics of Transformation in the Development of Digital Services

Service providers are increasingly depending and using digital infrastructure and tools provided by digital platforms to transform their services and develop digital ones that meet the needs of heterogeneous end users. However, while there is an emerging literature of developing digital services, little is known about the dynamics of transformation. Using multiple cases of firms that develop digital services, the digital service taxonomy was synthesized to understand the dynamics of transformation in developing digital services. This study identifies five main dynamics: the services experience, the service process, the service capabilities, the service environment and the service delivery.  Each of those dynamics and their associated factors is explored under the objectives of business, interaction and technology. This enables us to extend the existing literature on digital service development in particular and contributes to the research of digital innovation in general

User Participation in Value Creation

This article examines HM Treasury’s proposal to account for the active participation of users in value creation in certain digital platforms. The first key question is whether there is any reason to believe, as HM Treasury suggests, that users only meaningfully or actively contribute to value creation in the context of certain digital platforms. The article accordingly explores the factors HM Treasury sets out for the attribution of income to active user participation, including features such as network effects, multisided business models, and a lack of physical presence in the jurisdiction of the user. It concludes that if a user participation concept were adopted into international tax norms, it is unlikely to be limited to digital businesses or to the business models particularly highlighted in the proposal issued by HM Treasury. The analysis proceeds by considering the factors set out by HM Treasury for the attribution of income to active user participation in the context of pharmaceuticals and biologics, the financial sector, and the “internet of things”. For example, the article concludes that under HM Treasury’s user participation theory, returns from certain London-based financial intermediation businesses would need to be reallocated to other jurisdictions. Moreover, as the internet of things develops, one would expect the range of business affected by the active user participation concept to constantly expand

Value Creation in Digital Application Marketplaces: A Developers’ Perspective

Digital application marketplaces are increasingly relevant for digital platform owners seeking to reap the benefits of distributing, brokering, and operating applications by third-party developers. Owners of such marketplaces have two vital goals: address the needs of heterogeneous end-users and attract third-party developers. A key element in simultaneously accommodating these goals is value creation. However, while there is emerging literature on digital application marketplaces, little empirical evidence exits about the value creation process for and by application developers. Drawing on a research study of third-party developers, we synthesize the value creation perspective and digital platforms literature to develop an understanding of value creation in digital application marketplaces from the perspective of third-party developers. Our study identifies and explores six different value sources and their associated value creation and realization. In doing this, our research extends and complements existing digital platform literature and contributes new knowledge about new forms of value creation.

Competing within Aggregators: Competitive Moves in the Deliveroo Online Delivery Platform

Aggregators are platforms that also control a marketplace for the suppliers’ innovations. Suppliers competing within aggregators are limited by the technology and governance rules of the platform owner. As a consequence, aggregators influence the type and complexity of competitive moves suppliers can implement. Our research investigates the drivers of suppliers’ competitive advantage. We incorporate existing literature on competitive action to identify the categories of moves available to suppliers. Furthermore, we identify three types of orthogonal moves that are unique to competition within aggregators. Finally, we illustrate our advanced categorization in the context of a major food delivery platform. Our preliminary results confirm that suppliers, while bounded to resources exposed by the aggregator, have the opportunity to implement an heterogenous portfolio of moves in their pursuit of competitive advantage. This result calls for empirical research in the context of competition within aggregators in general, and food delivery platforms specifically

TAXONOMY RESEARCH IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS: A SYSTEMATIC ASSESSMENT

Today’s world is changing at unprecedent speed and scale becoming more complex to understand. Taxonomies represent an important tool for understanding and analyzing complex domains based on the classification of objects. In the Information Systems (IS) domain, Nickerson et al. (2013) were the first to propose a taxonomy development method, addressing the observation that many taxonomies have been developed in an ‘ad-hoc’ approach. More than five years after Nickerson et al.’s (2013) publication, we examined to what extent recently published taxonomy articles account for existing methodological guidance. Therefore, we identified and reviewed 33 taxonomy articles published between 2013 and 2018 in leading Information Systems journals. Our results were sobering: We found few taxonomy articles that followed any specific development method. Although most articles correctly understood taxonomies as conceptually or empirically derived groupings of dimensions and characteristics, our study revealed that the development process often remained opaque and that taxonomies were hardly evaluated. We discuss these findings and potential root causes related to method design, method adoption, and the general positioning of taxonomy research in the IS domain. Our study proposes stimulating questions for future research and contributes to the IS community’s progress towards methodologically well-founded taxonomies

Love and Hate Relationships in a Platform Ecosystem: A case of Finnish Electronic Identity Management

There has been a substantial interest among scholars in digital platforms and their governance. This paper proposes a different perspective on the phenomenon, by providing observations on non-focal firms’ dependencies to external platforms. Using the case study results of Finnish firms’ utilization of a monopolistic BankID authentication platform, we describe the platform ecosystem and its transformation on organizational and technology aspects. We show how legislation can transform the roles and relations between ecosystem participants and lead to the long-time dominant legacy platform weakening. Our study extends existing research on platforms and contributes new knowledge about the enforced adoption of the platform by heterogeneous organizations. These findings have important managerial implications, as they inform how non-focal firms can understand the use of existing and coming digital platforms

The future of manufacturing: A Delphi-based scenario analysis on Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 is expected to impart profound changes to the configuration of manufacturing companies with regards to what their value proposition will be and how their production network, supplier base and customer interfaces will develop. The literature on the topic is still fragmented; the features of the emerging paradigm appear to be a contested territory among different academic disciplines. This study assumes a value chain perspective to analyze the evolutionary trajectories of manufacturing companies. We developed a Delphi-based scenario analysis involving 76 experts from academia and practice. The results highlight the most common expectations as well as controversial issues in terms of emerging business models, size, barriers to entry, vertical integration, rent distribution, and geographical location of activities. Eight scenarios provide a concise outlook on the range of possible futures. These scenarios are based on four main drivers which stem from the experts\u2019 comments: demand characteristics, transparency of data among value chain participants, maturity of additive manufacturing and advanced robotics, and penetration of smart products. Researchers can derive from our study a series of hypotheses and opportunities for future research on Industry 4.0. Managers and policymakers can leverage the scenarios in long-term strategic planning

Online Black-Markets: An Investigation of a Digital Infrastructure in the Dark

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The Challenges of Designing Digital Services for Multiple Mobile Platforms

The value of digital services is increasingly recognized by owners of digital platforms. These services have central role in building and sustaining the business of the digital platform. In order to sustain the design of digital services, owners of digital platforms encourage third-party developers to tap into and join the digital ecosystem. However, while there is an emerging literature on designing digital services, little empirical evidence exists about challenges faced by third-party developers while designing digital services, and in particular for multiple mobile platforms. Drawing on a multiple case study of three mobile application development firms from Sweden, Denmark and Norway, we synthesize the digital service design taxonomy to understand the challenges faced by third-party developers. Our study identifies a set of challenges in four different levels: user level, platform level, distribution level and ecosystem level. The identified challenges are then illustrated by different design dimensions. For each challenge, we identified set of factors and classified them under three objectives: business, interaction and technology. In doing this, our research extends and complements existing digital service literature and contributes new knowledge about the design of digital services