The ownership of digital infrastructure: Exploring the deployment of software libraries in a digital innovation cluster

Boundary resources have been shown to enable the arm’s-length relationships between platform owners and third-party developers that underlie digital innovation in platform ecosystems. While boundary resources that are owned by open-source communities and smaller-scale software vendors are also critical components in the digital infrastructure, their role in digital innovation has yet to be systematically explored. In particular, software libraries are popular boundary resources that provide functionality without the need for continued interaction with their owners. They are used extensively by commercial vendors to enable customization of their software products, by communities to disseminate open-source software, and by big-tech platform owners to provide functionality that does not involve control. This paper reports on the deployment of such software libraries in the web and mobile (Android) contexts by 107 startup companies in London. Our findings show that libraries owned by big-tech companies, product vendors, and communities coexist; that the deployment of big-tech libraries is unaffected by the scale of the deploying startup; and that context evolution paths are consequential for library deployment. These findings portray a balanced picture of digital infrastructure as neither the community-based utopia of early open-source research nor the dystopia of the recent digital dominance literature

Digital Platforms in the Global South: Foundations and Research Agenda

Digital platforms have become integral to many of the everyday activities that people across the globe encounter in areas like transportation, commerce and social interactions. Research on the topic has largely concentrated on the general functioning of these platforms in terms of platform governance, business strategies and consumer behaviour. Despite their significant presence in the global South, the developmental implications of digital platforms remain largely understudied. In part, this is because digital platforms are a challenging research object due to their lack of conceptual definition, their spread across different regions and industries, and their intertwined nature with institutions, actors and digital technologies. The aim of this paper is therefore twofold: to provide a conceptual definition of digital platforms, and to identify research strands in international development contexts. To do so, we draw from digital platforms literature, differentiate between transaction and innovation platforms and expose their main characteristics. We the present four strands in the form of research questions, illustrated with concrete examples, that can assist to pursue relevant studies on digital platforms and international development in the future

The Design Towards a Collaborative Subscription Service : The Case of The Finnish Newspaper Industry

The newspaper industry is challenged with its business models. To stabilize revenues, publishers opted for digital subscriptions for generating additional revenue streams. However, digital subscriptions showcase limited success. News aggregator platforms may promise publishers a pool of paying readers. But platform fees and the loss of customer relationships enact barriers among publishers to join. This study proposes a software prototype based on design science research to address the aforementioned shortcomings by deriving design principles for a collaborative subscription service. Building on the strategic alliance, digital platform and business model literature, this research aims to identify design principles that create conducive conditions towards a collaborative subscription service among newspaper publisherspeerReviewe

Is Openness Really Free? A Critical Analysis of Switching Costs for Industrial Internet Platforms

Part 3: PLM for Digital Factories and Cyber Physical SystemsInternational audienceThe core idea of Industrial Internet, Industry 4.0, Smart Manufacturing and Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) is to utilize Internet of Things (IoT) based technologies and applications for the purpose of enhanced operations productivity. These IoT technologies and applications help companies to integrate their business as well as their engineering, manufacturing and service processes making their operations more robust, efficient and sustainable (green) with supreme quality. Switching cost and openness of the industrial internet (II) platform has many short and long-term impacts on the end-users’ business. Hence the openness is often considered to be free or synonymous to open source. The purpose of this paper is to understand and analyze the impact of II-platform’s increased openness and its dimensions on switching costs framework. For empirics and to test the developed framework we conducted a training and a workshop, where 11 manufacturing and service industry representatives describe the main types of switching costs that would be impacted because of increased openness of II-platforms. As a managerial implication this new switching cost framework seem to provide a tool to evaluate the specific preferences and potential positive and negative impacts of II openness on their respective businesses

Contribution of Information Systems to the Circular Economy in the Digital Age: Preliminary Discussion of Results of a Systematic Literature Review

The concept of the circular economy is currently experiencing a new discussion in the environmental sciences about its potential for transitioning the society towards sustainable development. However, financial, structural, technological, and sociological challenges hamper the comprehensive introduction of the concept. In this research-in-progress paper we explore the potential of information systems in the digital age for a circular economy. In a systematic literature analysis, we analyze existing information system research and categorize it based on existing circular economy principles. While research on ‘smart energy’, ‘smart mobility’, and ‘smart organization’ solutions has established a solid knowledge base, ‘smart consumption’ solutions – and, thus, many circular economy principles – are ignored by information system scholars

Competing logics: Towards a theory of digital platforms for socio-economic development

Extant literature on digital platforms is predominantly centred on the Global North, resulting in a paucity of research on the implications of digital platforms for developing countries. Against this backdrop, a recent research stream has focused on digital platforms in developing country contexts, with a view of understanding the affordances and limits of platforms as a route to socio-economic development. This paper seeks to contribute to this nascent literature, unpacking a human-centred development logic as an alternative to the market logic that animates most of the platforms discourse and relying on it to lay the foundations for an emerging theory of platforms for development. Two sub-linkages, centred respectively on platforms’ openness and modularity, are conceptualised and illustrated with examples from empirical research. This work has implications for the emerging literature on digital platforms for development, and for theorising platforms in the context of information systems and societal challenges

Leveraging Digital Health Platforms in Developing Countries: The Role of Boundary Resources

Part 1: Communities, ICT-Enabled Networks, and DevelopmentInternational audienceThe pervasiveness of digital platforms has resulted in the emergence of digital health platforms addressing various health care needs globally. Digital platforms, typically, bring about an international division of labor between platform owners in developed countries where they are usually developed and platform consumers in developing countries leveraging them. In this relationship, boundary resources, such as documentation and application programming interfaces, are critical elements in the efforts to leverage digital health platforms in developing countries. This paper uses the case of the digital health platform DHIS2 in Malawi to elucidate and discuss the enabling and restricting roles played by boundary resources towards efforts leveraging digital health platforms in developing countries

Software Platforms for Inclusive Innovation

Part 2: Digital Platforms for DevelopmentInternational audienceSoftware platforms present novel opportunities for innovation across heterogeneous settings, users and areas of use. We report from the case of the Health Information System Programme (HISP) that started out in post-apartheid South Africa more than two decades ago. The programme centres on the development of an open source software – called DHIS2 – primarily for decentralized public health management. Today, DHIS2 is a software platform with a significant global footprint. We contribute to literature on innovation for development, by identifying and examining processes of inclusive innovation pertaining to the longitudinal development of DHIS2. We find that a combination of long-term capacity building and knowledge sharing, consensus-based decision-making, and a modular platform architecture facilitates inclusive innovation. However, short term and project-oriented funding limits the sharing and scale-up of local innovations while the size of the venture and the heterogeneity of actors moderates inclusion in the development of core components of the platform