Challenges of platform-based ecosystems

Abstract

Platform-based business ecosystems (PBEs) are a rising phenomenon, fuelled by business digitalization and evolution of information technology. Current scientific literature discusses several challenges encountered in the PBE environment, but a comprehensive overview of these challenges seems to be missing. The timely identification of a challenge will support practitioners in their choices regarding PBE development or adoption. The aim of this study is to create an overview of PBE challenges and validate these, potentially offering refinement from practice. To this end, first a systematic literature review is conducted, to create an overview of challenges experienced in the PBE environment, where six main categories of challenges were identified: Architecture, Competition, Ecosystem Governance, PBE Innovation, PBE Phenomena and Specifics of business model. Hereafter, the overview is validated by conducting a single case study in which semi-structured interviews are held with various actors within a mature business-to-business application PBE. Finally, this research provides an empirical validation of majority of the challenging aspects in the overview, leaving paths for further research.

Date of Award	7 Dec 2022
Original language	English
Supervisor	Samaneh Bagheri (Examiner) & Khoi Nguyen (Co-assessor)