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 platforms proliferate in every layer of the digital industry. ... Read more

Over the years, several governments around the world have introduced a version of Standard Business Reporting (SBR) for information exchange with public agencies. Their main goals are to ease the reporting burden for businesses and the regulatory burden for government agencies. This paper takes a look at the adoption numbers in the Netherlands over multiple years. The objective of this paper is to analyse the adoption rates and explain them by revealing the steering instruments employed by government agencies looking to positive-ly influence SBR adoption. Our dataset consists of the total number of reports submitted using SBR towards the Tax Office, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Education Executive Agency. Quantitative data analysis reveals different adoption rates and patterns in the aforementioned reporting chains. We found that adoption was positively influenced using a deliberate and fine-tuned set of steering instruments, including public-private governance, open communication and knowledge exchange, mandation, software community engagement and technical configuration (use of interfaces that match the sector specific reporting capabilities). When considering these steering instruments, policy makers and practitioners need to balance progressive standard setting and steady implementation. ... Read more