Digital Platforms: Conceptualization and Practice
Date
2020
Authors
Sun, Ruonan
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ABSTRACT
Broadly, a digital platform (hereafter, a platform) is a type of technology architecture that facilitates evolving usage in multiple ways by diverse actors with different goals. Platforms are increasingly a foundation for a wide range of information systems such as enterprise resource planning systems, computer operating systems, online communication channels, web browsers, ecommerce sites, and social media sites. Organizations are investing considerable resources in designing, developing, and managing platform-based solutions. Despite the wide applications of and heavy investment in platforms, descriptions of platforms are many and varied. The lack of conceptual clarity concerning platform structures hinders interpretation of research results and cumulative theory building.
Motivated by the insufficient understanding of the nature of platforms, the thesis provides a unifying view of different perspectives on platforms. The thesis conceptualizes a platform as a technology architecture with generativity as its key attribute. Specifically, drawing from an interpretive literature review, the thesis develops a generative platform model (GPM) that embraces five essential components: (1) governance, (2) standards, (3) add-ons, (4) interoperability, and (5) a technology core. The GPM shows how generativity is inherent in a tension between stability and flexibility for each component, leading to the formulation of five broad propositions.
The thesis investigates the applicability of the GPM in a case study of Oracle's cloud transformation. Drawing on the analysis of three different data sources (i.e., focus groups with Oracle practitioners, Oracle documentation, and third-party blogs), the thesis finds support for the applicability of the GPM. Further, building from the case study, the thesis develops design patterns for each GPM component. In this light, the thesis takes a first step towards developing a mid-range theory for platform design in the case of cloud transformations.
The thesis contributes to theory by providing a foundation for theorizing platforms from a technology management perspective. It also contributes to practice because practitioners can use the GPM model as a tool in strategic decision-making for designing, developing, and managing platforms. Importantly, the GPM highlights the tension between stability and flexibility as a salient phenomenon in studying platform generativity.
Further, for cloud transformations, the thesis develops patterns to address the design challenge of tackling the interdependency between the stability that an efficient cloud requires and the flexibility that an innovative cloud needs. The new design patterns can assist technology vendors in creating and maintaining a productive cloud transformation in response to the current complex and dynamic landscapes of on-demand requirements as well as the continuing requirements of system efficiency and economy.
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Thesis (PhD)
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DOI
10.25911/5ec3b60460553