Input Control Practices and their Implications for Software Platform Ecosystems (OpenEco)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Alexander Benlian
• Subject Area: Accounting and Finance ; Data Management, Data-Intensive Systems, Computer Science Methods in Business Informatics
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 321298175

The goal of the research project OpenEco is to examine input control practices in software ecosystems (i.e., the screening and approval processes that regulate what complementors and their complements are granted access to a software platform), which are widely used in practice but largely overlooked in research. Given that previous studies have primarily focused on classical control modes in traditional control settings (e.g., IT outsourcing) and have only vaguely invoked input control, there is a clear need to more thoroughly examine the nature and effects of input control for software ecosystems.In the first project phase of OpenEco, we developed a validated conceptual definition and measurement scale for input control (the PIC scale) and cross-validated it based on field surveys in several different platform contexts. In addition, we could examine the effects of a wide range of input control practices on software platforms on complementor attitudes and behaviors. Finally, we explored the long-term implications of relaxing input control for platform complementors, users and the overall ecosystem based on a natural experiment occurring at the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. We thereby could exploit a policy change that relaxed the previously stringent screening process for new projects on Kickstarter, and enabled us to examine its effects on complementors, users and the entire platform ecosystem.In the second project phase of OpenEco, we plan to conduct follow-up research in three main areas. First, to deepen our understanding of input control practices and procedures as exercised in platform ecosystems, we aim to systematically profile concrete software platforms and derive different input control regimes based on a multi case study approach. Second, based on a multi-method approach, we aim to examine the interplay between input control and other formal and informal control modes that usually do not occur in isolation from one another. Finally, we want to extend our previous investigations into the long-term implications of changing input control for key platform actors and the overall platform ecosystem by conducting a randomized field experiment on an established E-Commerce platform that collaborates with the applicant to systematically manipulate the rigor of input control practices.With OpenEco, we want to contribute to the Information Systems control literature by theoretically developing input control as viable formal mechanism to govern the relationship between platform operators and complementors. Furthermore, we would like to advance the still nascent research on software platforms by highlighting that changing input control practices can have far-reaching and profound effects that may unbalance an entire software ecosystem and fundamentally transform its character. Our project thus fits under the broader umbrella of emerging research examining the openness and sustainability of digital platform ecosystems.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Denmark, Liechtenstein
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. Ferdinand Thies; Professor Dr. Michael Wessel