Elsevier Technovation
Volume 108, 2021

Impact Factor: 12.5

Context-dependent Trade-offs around Platform-to-platform Openness: The Case of the Internet of Things

Abstract:

As digital platforms are dominating the digital economy, complex 
ecologies of platforms are emerging. While the openness of digital 
platforms is an important theme in platform studies, the openness 
between platforms has hardly been studied. This paper explores 
factors that affect decisions by platform owners to open their 
platforms to other platforms. The focus is on Internet-of-Things 
platforms for automotive and healthcare applications. According to 
the findings, platform owners make trade-offs on whether to open 
up on a case-by-case basis. We identify a complex array of factors 
relating to direct benefits and costs (e.g., revenues from selling 
platform data), indirect benefits (e.g., attractiveness of the 
focal platform to users) as well as strategic consideration (e.g., 
improving bargaining power towards other actors). How businesses 
make trade-offs on these factors depends on market-level context 
(e.g., maturity of the market and standards) and organizational 
context (e.g., strategic focus and business objectives). Our 
findings provide a basis for future studies on the openness between 
platforms, which will become increasingly important as plat-forms 
proliferate in every layer of the digital industry.  


Journal Open Access

@article{Mosterd:TN2021,
author = {Lars Mosterd and Vladimir Sobota and Geerten van de Kaa and Aaron Yi Ding and Mark de Reuver},
title = {Context-dependent Trade-offs around Platform-to-platform Openness: The Case of the Internet of Things},
journal = {Technovation},
volume = {108},
year = {2021}
}

Lars Mosterd, Vladimir Sobota, Geerten van de Kaa, Aaron Yi Ding, Mark de Reuver, "Context-dependent Trade-offs around Platform-to-platform Openness: The Case of the Internet of Things", In Technovation, Vol. 108, 2021.