Managing Industrial B2B Platforms

Abstract

This thesis comprises four chapters. Chapter One provides a “meta-theoretical” agenda by revealing different paradigms or ways of thinking about platform ecosystems. Through the theoretical synthesis of existing research across management fields, Chapter One clarifies the onto-epistemological foundations of each paradigm and helps explain the varying expectations researchers place on the platform ecosystem construct. Chapter Two offers a conceptual framework that theorizes the nature of B2B platforms as meta-organizations. Building on a systematic review of existing literature, it uncovers five dominant B2B platform archetypes (matchmaker, application marketplace, solution enabler, consortium, and decentralized autonomous platforms). Further, it theorizes how the specific design features of B2B platforms shape their governance models. Chapter Three and Four empirically explore the dynamics of establishing B2B platforms. Drawing on a qualitative, single case study of a B2B solution enabler platform, Chapter Three shifts the focus from static platform attributes to the unfolding communication and coordination efforts that underpin the management of B2B platform establishment. Drawing on the framing concept, this chapter foregrounds the role of narratives and their strategic and temporal complexity in establishing a B2B platform, offering insights into the socio-cognitive nature of B2B platform establishment. Chapter Four builds on the same single case study, discusses the paradox of openness, the “black box,” that most platforms face, and shows how firms operationalize strategic openness throughout a platform’s lifecycle. It provides a process model of platform openness, shaped by highlighting how platform identity acts as both a driver and outcome of openness decisions across technical, economic, and socio-cognitive dimensions, indicating that B2B platform establishment is a pathdependent, multi-dimensional, and configurational process.