The emergence of digital ecosystem governance

The emergence of digital ecosystem governance: An investigation of responses to disrupted resource control in the Swedish public transport sector

Ofe, H.A. (TU Delft Information and Communication Technology)
Sandberg, Johan (Umeå University)

2023

Digital ecosystem governance entails the management of complex, dynamic power relationships. As entrant platform providers seek to cultivate an ecosystem, they must carefully navigate these power relationships when dealing with governance tensions. Providers generally seek to leverage the ecosystem's generative potential by facilitating a variety of interactions and distributing design rights. Simultaneously, they need to ensure stability and order by imposing rules that resolve contentious matters and restrict ecosystem participants' degrees of freedom. This study explores how and why providers can induce ecosystem actors to engage in collaborative negotiation regarding such governance tensions through a case study of the introduction of an open data platform in the Swedish public transport sector. Our analysis offers three main contributions. First, it provides an empirical demonstration that entrepreneurial threats, as well as opportunities, can trigger platform launches and drive collaborative negotiation of digital ecosystem governance. Second, it extends conceptualizations of boundary resources beyond the current focus on transactional elements by demonstrating the role of interactive boundary resources in the negotiation of governance grounded in both social and systemic power relationships. Third, it shows how positive reinforcement can complement punitive measures to increase acceptance of design rules.

boundary resources
digital ecosystem
ecosystem emergence
governance
open data
platform
power
resource control

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:561b1181-008a-4377-b70a-87eb0055b1fb

https://doi.org/10.1111/isj.12404

1350-1917

Information Systems Journal: an international journal promoting the study and practice of information systems, 33 (2), 350-384

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2023 H.A. Ofe, Johan Sandberg