It is well understood that, in order to compete and survive, organizations have to consider platform- and ecosystem-centric perspectives (Parker et al. 2016; de Reuver 2018; McIntyre et al. 2020). Today, digital technologies shape firm identities, physical and digital resources merge, and even traditionally physical industries become “digital first” (e.g., Wessel et al. 2021, Baskerville et al. 2020). Platforms and ecosystems play a central role in the rapid emergence and proliferation of the technologies that afford this digital transformation, e.g., human-machine ecosystems, digital twins, cloud services, artificial intelligence, 5G. 

Although understanding the value and importance of platforms and ecosystems across various industries and domains has grown significantly over the years, there is still a paucity of research examining the dynamic and evolutionary aspects of platform and ecosystem management (e.g., de Reuver 2018; Gawer 2020). Building on last year’s experience, we seek contributions that focus on the “dynamic” aspects of platforms and ecosystems. How do platforms and ecosystems emerge and what are the mechanisms driving their evolution? How do platforms and ecosystems adapt to changes in the technological, social, economic, ecologic, or political environment? How can specific platform and ecosystem actors succeed within these dynamics and manage even unintended consequences?

The minitrack seeks contributions that problematize or build on diverse theoretical backgrounds such as management science, information systems, computer science, decision science, system science, organizational design, policy making, and behavioral economics to continue the scholarly exploration of concepts, theories, models, and tools for managing platforms and ecosystems. We are open to a wide set of methodological approaches including empirical research, case-based research, field studies, design science, behavioral decision-making experiments, and conceptual research. We encourage collaboration between academia, industry, and policy making and welcome submissions from industry and around the world.

For the minitrack call, we encourage topics of interest associated with such inquiries and beyond:

• Theories, models, and empirical studies of platform and ecosystem dynamics

• Taxonomies, vocabularies, ontologies, and other forms of shared language to exchange knowledge on platforms and ecosystems

• Open and closed resources in the dynamics of platforms and ecosystems, including emergent roles of boundary resources, software, and data

• Innovation in platforms and ecosystems

• (In)stability of identity for platforms, ecosystems, and actors over time

• Change of power, autonomy and control in platforms and ecosystems

• Evolving platform and ecosystem business models

• Mechanisms driving the dynamics, growth, and evolution of platforms and ecosystems

• Technological and competitive disruption in ecosystems

• Orchestration strategies for platforms and ecosystem

• Studies on the unintended consequences of (micro)mechanisms on platform and ecosystem success (or failure)

• Approaches for controlling the power of the network effects and mitigating their unintended consequences

• Dynamic analytics, visualization, and decision support for platform and ecosystems

• New methods to study platform and ecosystem management

Bibliography

• Baskerville, R. L., Myers, M. D., & Yoo, Y. (2020). Digital First: The Ontological Reversal and New Challenges for Information Systems Research. MIS Quarterly, 44(2), 509-523.
• de Reuver, M., Sørensen, C., & Basole, R. C. (2018). The digital platform: a research agenda. Journal of Information Technology, 33(2), 124-135.
• Gawer, A. (2020). Digital platforms’ boundaries: The interplay of firm scope, platform sides, and digital interfaces. Long Range Planning, 102045.
• McIntyre, D., Srinivasan, A., Afuah, A., Gawer, A., & Kretschmer, T. (2020). Multi-sided platforms as new organizational forms. Academy of Management Perspectives, (ja).
• Parker, G. G., Van Alstyne, M. W., & Choudary, S. P. (2016). Platform revolution: How networked markets are transforming the economy and how to make them work for you. WW Norton & Company.
• Russell, M., Rothe, H., & Huhtamäki, J. (2021). Introduction to the Minitrack on Managing the Dynamics of Platforms and Ecosystems. In Proceedings of the 54th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (p. 6109).
• Wessel, L., Baiyere, A., Ologeanu-Taddei, R., Cha, J., & Blegind Jensen, T. (2021). Unpacking the difference between digital transformation and IT-enabled organizational transformation. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 22(1), 6.

Chairs

Hannes Rothe
Freie Universität Berlin
hannes.rothe@fu-berlin.de

Kaisa Still
University of Oulu
kaisa.still@oulu.fi

Jukka Huhtamäki
Tampere University
jukka.huhtamaki@tuni.fi

Advisory Board

Amrit Tiwana (University of Georgia, USA)

Annabelle Gawer (University of Surrey)

Brandon Barnett (Intel Corporation, USA)

Carmelo Cennamo (Copenhagen Business School, Denmark)

Carsten Sørensen (London School of Economics, UK)

Daniel Fürstenau (Copenhagen Business School, Denmark)

Geoff Parker (Dartmouth College, USA)

Hyunwoo Park (Ohio State University, USA)

Jesus Delvalle (Bayer)

Jianxi Luo (Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore)

Jim Spohrer (IBM Corporation, USA)

Karl Täuscher (University of Bayreuth, Germany)

Mark de Reuver (Delft University of Technology, Netherlands)

Marko Seppänen (Tampere University, Finland)

Martha Russell (Stanford University)

Michael Cusumano (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)

Michael Jacobides (London Business School, UK)

Neil Rubens (Transport and Telecommunication Institute, Latvia)

Ola Henfridsson (University of Miami, USA)

Paavo Ritala (LUT University, Finland)

Rahul C. Basole (Accenture AI, USA)

Raul Chao (University of Virginia, USA)