In the digital age, open innovation is increasingly organized around platform ecosystems. This paper investigates how firms can coordinate open innovation as a platform strategy for the development of complementary products by independent third parties. We draw on a qualitative case study of Philips Hue -a connected lighting platform for consumers with its variety of complementary products. We identify three increasingly complex ways in which independent complements connect to a focal platform. Our findings show that managing these connections requires a hybrid open innovation approach that combines arm's length coordination, with a large number of complementors through open interfaces, and intensivebilateral collaboration, with a selected number of partners. Our findings demonstrate that complex interconnections across digital platforms and products lead to the management challenge of navigating an 'ecology of platforms', which warrants future research.
When actors deem technological change undesirable, they may act symbolically by pretending to comply while avoiding real change. In our study of the introduction of an algorithmic technology in a sales organization, we found that such symbolic conformity led unintendedly to the full implementation of the suggested technological change. To explain this surprising outcome, we advance a regime-of-knowing lens that helps to analyze deep challenges happening under the surface during the process of technology introduction. A regime of knowing guides what is worth knowing, what actions matter to acquire this knowledge, and who has the authority to make decisions around those issues. We found that both the technologists who introduced the algorithmic technology, and the incumbent workers whose work was affected by the change, used symbolic actions to either defend the established regime of knowing or to advocate a radical change. Although the incumbent workers enacted symbolic conformity by pretending to comply with suggested changes, the technologists performed symbolic advocacy by presenting a positive side of the technological change. Ironically, because the symbolic conformity enabled and was reinforced by symbolic advocacy, reinforcing cycles of symbolic actions yielded a radical change in the sales' regime of knowing: from one focused on a deep understanding of customers via personal contact and strong relationships, to one based on model predictions from the processing of large datasets. We discuss the theoretical implications of these findings for the introduction of technology at work and for knowing in the workplace.
Innovation in a digital world increasingly revolves around open platforms that consist of a core technology and a large variety of complementary products developed by an ecosystem of independent complementors. The platform ecosystem literature has mainly focused on indirect network effects arising from the quantity of complements, with little attention to the quality of complements, despite the importance of quality for the complementary value that drives platform ecosystems. Because digital products are malleable and dependent on the ever‐evolving ecosystem, we advance a relational and dynamic conceptualization of complement quality. Drawing on a systematic, in‐depth qualitative case study of the Philips Hue connected lighting platform and its complementary third‐party apps, we study how and why complement quality is sustained over time. By analyzing apps and their updates, we developed a process model that explains pathways through which complement quality is enhanced, maintained, or deteriorates. Changes in the platform core, changes in other ecosystem elements, and idiosyncratic connections by users result in expanding affordances, materializing glitches, and emerging obsolescence. Without further action, glitches and obsolescence lead to deteriorating quality. Joint action of complementors, platform owners, and users is needed to act upon affordances, glitches, and obsolescence, in order to maintain integrity and enhance functionality. This paper contributes to the literature on innovation in platform ecosystems by explaining the dynamic and relational nature of complement quality in a digital platform ecosystem and showing the interdependence of ecosystem members (the triad between platform owner, complementors, and users) in sustained development efforts.
Platform economy organizations often resolve fundamental organizing problems with novel solutions, thereby transforming their relationship with core stakeholders including regulators and workers. Despite the integral role played by platform workers, research on the interplay between platforms and regulatory conditions has yet to take workers into consideration. We investigate how Uber drivers engage with novel forms of organizing across different regulatory structures. Drawing on insights from resource dependence theory, we conduct a topic modeling analysis of drivers’ online forum posts and a complementary qualitative analysis of triangulated data sources. Our findings reveal that workers do not always succumb to organizing solutions imposed upon them; they also actively oppose or supplement them. Importantly, platform workers’ responses vary with the local regulatory structure, which affects the mutual dependency and balance of power between platforms and workers. We discuss implications for the literature on new forms of organizing and the platform economy.
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