Analyzing Dynamic Capabilities in the Context of Cloud Platform Ecosystems - A Case Study Approach

Dynamic capabilities (DCs) refer to a firm’s abilities to continuously adapt its resource base in order to respond to changes in its external environment. The capability to change dynamically is crucial in business ecosystems that are composed of a variety of actors. Amazon Web Services (AWS), the leader in the cloud platform industry, is a promising cloud platform provider (CPP) to show a high degree of dynamic capability fulfillment within its highly fluctuating ecosystem. To date, the full scope of dynamic capabilities in cloud platform ecosystems (CPEs) has not been fully understood. Previous work has failed to deliver a combined perspective of explicit dynamic capabilities in cloud platform ecosystems applied on an in-depth practical case. With our mixed-method case study on the AWS ecosystem we deliver a thorough understanding of its sensing, seizing and transforming capabilities. We generate a set of strategy management frameworks that support our expectations, lead to unexpected insights and answer the questions of what, how, why and with whom AWS uses DCs. In detail, we provide an understanding about DC chronological change, DC network patterns and DC logical explanations. Our research is based on a self-compiled case study database containing 16k+ secondary data pages from interviews, blogs, announcements, case studies, job vacancies, etc. that we analyze qualitatively and quantitatively. We find out that AWS develops and holds a large set of interacting dynamic capabilities incorporating a variety of ecosystem actors in order to sustain tremendous customer value and satisfaction. The thesis infers significant theoretical and practical implications for all CPE actors, like partners, customers, investors and researchers in the field of IT strategy management. Managers of all CPE actors are encouraged to critically evaluate their own maturity level and complement a CPP’s DC explications in order to boost business by implementing sensing, seizing, transforming and innovating capabilities. Keywords: Dynamic Capabilities, Cloud Platform Ecosystems, Innovation Capabilities, Mixed-Methods Case Study, Amazon Web Service

Enabling IoT ecosystems through platform interoperability

Today, the Internet of Things (IoT) comprises vertically oriented platforms for things. Developers who want to use them need to negotiate access individually and adapt to the platform-specific API and information models. Having to perform these actions for each platform often outweighs the possible gains from adapting applications to multiple platforms. This fragmentation of the IoT and the missing interoperability result in high entry barriers for developers and prevent the emergence of broadly accepted IoT ecosystems. The BIG IoT (Bridging the Interoperability Gap of the IoT) project aims to ignite an IoT ecosystem as part of the European Platforms Initiative. As part of the project, researchers have devised an IoT ecosystem architecture. It employs five interoperability patterns that enable cross-platform interoperability and can help establish successful IoT ecosystems.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

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

Value proposition as a framework for value co-creation in crowd-funding ecosystem

The present paper suggests that crowd-funding in the arts and cultural sector occurs within a complex service ecosystem, where six categories of value propositions frame eight value co-creation processes, namely through ideation, evaluation, design, testing, launch, financing and authorship. Managerial contributions include the development of a crowd-funding service ecosystem model for arts managers, which offers not only a method of financing or economic value, but which also offers opportunities for strengthening bonds with customers and other stakeholders. Our paper is innovative in that we integrate value propositions categories with the micro – meso and macro contexts and analyse the different kind of co-creation are framed in the crowdfunding contextUniversidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

RFID platform as a service, containerized ecosystem, feasibility and security impact analysis

This paper presents a new concept as a special type of virtualization of particular event based communication components in RFID ecosystems. The new approach is containers based virtualization, and it is applied and tested on the container of Object name service. The results of the experiment allowed us to do the preliminary analysis of security consequences on the isolated containerized DNS-based RFID sub-service. We confirmed feasibility with this sandboxing technology represented by the special container. They bring the benefits in terms of efficient software component life-cycle management and integrity improvements. Experiments results of the containerization are discussed to show the possible isolation ways of other components like EPCis and middleware. There is present evaluation towards external threats and vulnerabilities. The result is a higher level of integrity, availability of whole ecosystem and resiliency against external threats. This gives a new opportunity to build robust RFID as Platform as a service, and it proves the ability to achieve a positive impact on the end to end service Quality of service

Co-opetition of TV broadcasters in online video markets : a winning strategy?

This article focuses on TV broadcasters adopting co-opetition strategies for launching online video services. It is claimed that the emergence of online video platforms like YouTube and Netflix is driving TV broadcasters to collaborate with their closest competitors to reduce costs and reach the necessary scale in the global marketplace. The article sheds light on online video platforms that were developed following a co-opetition strategy (Hulu and YouView). The establishment of joint ventures in online video, however, has been scrutinised by competition authorities which fear that collaboration between close competitors lessens rivalry and reduces consumer choice. Therefore, several co-opetition projects (among others BBC’s Kangaroo and Germany’s Gold) have been prohibited by competition authorities

Information Technology Platforms: Definition and Research Directions

The concept of an information technology (IT) related platform is broad and covers phenomena ranging from the operating system Linux to the Internet. Such platforms are of increasing importance to innovation and value creation across many facets of industry and daily life. There is, however, a lack of common understanding in both research and industry about what is mean by the term platform when related to IT. This lack of consensus is detrimental to research and knowledge development. Thus, the aims of this study are to: (i) provide a sound definition of the IT-platform concept by identifying its distinguishing dimensions; and (ii) identify important current research directions for the IT-platform concept. To achieve these aims a systematic literature review was undertaken with 133 relevant articles taken from major information systems journals, conferences, and business publications. The study contributes by providing a sound base for future research into IT-platforms.Comment: Research-in-progress ISBN# 978-0-646-95337-3 Presented at the Australasian Conference on Information Systems 2015 (arXiv:1605.01032