JPIM Special Issue Call for Papers: “Innovation via Business-to-Business (B2B) Digital Platforms, Platform Ecosystems, and Platform-based Business Models”
Submission deadline (full paper): April 30, 2024
The Journal of Product Innovation Management (JPIM) guest editors Seppo Leminen, Krithika Randhawa, Vinit Parida, Marin Jovanovic, and Mika Westerlund have put together a unique theme that touches on many cutting-edge topics in practice. An exciting special issue is titled “Innovation via Business-to-Business (B2B) Digital Platforms, Platform Ecosystems, and Platform-based Business Models”.
Submission deadline (full paper): April 30, 2024
Guest Editors:
• Seppo Leminen (University of South-Eastern Norway; seppo.leminen@usn.no)
• Krithika Randhawa (University of Sydney; Krithika.Randhawa@sydney.edu.au)
• Vinit Parida (Luleå University of Technology; vinit.parida@ltu.se)
• Marin Jovanovic (Copenhagen Business School; mjo.om@cbs.dk)
• Mika Westerlund (Carleton University; mika.westerlund@carleton.ca)
The special issue aims
This is a call for insightful scholarly contributions to the innovation management literature on technology-enabled business-to-business (B2B) platforms and platform ecosystems. Contributors to the special issue are encouraged to focus on how innovation and growth can be spurred through digital multi-sided platforms and platform-based business models, which are intertwined with multiple ecosystem actors – owners, providers, producers, complementors, and end-user networks – across multiple industries involved in manufacturing, healthcare, energy, automation, and knowledge-intensive services, among others.
Motivation for the special issue
The interplay of digital transformation and innovation management has received increasing attention in recent years (Appio et al., 2021; Spanjol & Noble, 2020; Wetzels, 2021). Specifically, digital transformation affects how industries and firms compete and organize for innovation in a digitalized world (Appio et al., 2021). Indeed, the development of new products and services is changing in response to digital technologies, such as digital multi-sided platforms (Chen et al, 2021; Rietveld & Schilling, 2020). Digital platforms are among the fastest-growing research domains enabling previously unrelated actors to converge into a platform ecosystem (comprising firms, complementors, and end users) and offering companies novel ways to innovate and develop and platform-based business models (Adner, 2017; Jacobides et al., 2018). Moreover, digital platforms and associated platform ecosystems are increasingly developed by business-to-business (B2B) companies, such as GE, ABB, and Siemens, leading to digital transformation across industries (Mishra & Tripathi, 2020). The platform and ecosystem literature addressing business-to-consumer (B2C) platforms and digital marketplaces, such as Facebook, Uber, and Airbnb (Cennamo, 2021), have not been applicable or replicable in the industrial B2B setting and have, therefore, created a gap in both knowledge and practice (Jovanovic et al., 2021). Hence, there is a need to better understand industrial platforms and platform ecosystems in B2B settings, as well as how they affect the underlying innovation mechanisms (Lanzolla et al., 2021 Leminen et al., forthcoming).
In comparison to B2C platforms or digital marketplaces, B2B platforms and platform ecosystems exhibit different characteristics in terms of platform structure and strategy (Cennamo, 2021; Giustiziero et al., 2021). B2B digital platforms that typically emerge as proprietary platforms do not directly follow the “winner-takes-all” strategy (Eisenmann, 2008; Saadatmand et al., 2019) where the platform owners or sponsors gradually open the platform to complementors and partners (Boudreau, 2010). The layered architecture of platforms in B2B settings is highly advanced in leveraging the industrial Internet of things (IIoT) and autonomous solutions (Leminen et al., 2020; Thomson et al., 2021), creating intelligent machines or smart things with sensing, connection, communication, and autonomously acting capabilities (Aversa et al., 2020; Rindfleisch et al., 2017), which enable unique industrial applications, such as real-time representations of industrial assets (i.e., digital twins) and autonomous mobile robots (Björkdahl, 2020; Dalenogare et al., 2018). Since B2B platforms are often investment heavy and industrywide, they play a major role in the transformation of industry verticals (de Reuver et al., 2018).
The presence of digital platforms and ecosystems in B2B firms also calls for business model innovation (Kohtamäki et al., 2019; Randhawa et al., 2021a). They not only dismantle established business models but also provide opportunities to design new business models to support newly developed digital products, services and solutions (Sestino et al., 2020; Sjödin et al., 2020a). Moreover, this situation may require operating with multiple and often conflicting business models (Visnjic et al., 2021; Smith & Baretta, 2021). Furthermore, in industrial B2B ecosystems, well-established incumbents from various industries are brought together, often without a predefined orchestrator. Here, it remains unclear who leads the business model transformation and evolution efforts. Indeed, the full potential of platform-based business models can only be realized if companies collaborate and share data, engaging in so-called “open innovation” with stakeholders across the ecosystem (Dahlander et al., 2021; Randhawa et al., 2016). Openness and data sharing are, therefore, at the heart of data-driven, customised solutions and business models enabled by B2B digital platforms and ecosystems (Sjödin et al., 2020b; Randhawa et al., 2018).
B2B digital platforms and associated platform ecosystems are also characterized by different dynamics of complementor engagement and governance (Vivek et al., 2021; Hilbolling et al., 2020). More specifically, the onboarding and alignment of complementors, other OEMs, and end users are complex and difficult to achieve (Murthy & Madhok, 2021; Hannah & Eisenhardt, 2018). This requires, for example, a complementor-specific model of governance based on the value and data complementors bring to the ecosystem (Alaimo & Kallinikos, 2021; Kretschmer et al., 2020). The orchestrator, keystone player, or ecosystem leader plays a distinct role in platform ecosystem governance, coordinating complementarities across supply-side and demand-side ecosystem actors (Bonina et al., 2021; Randhawa et al., 2021b). In a B2B context, this includes alignment with technology stack providers and industrial incumbents, among others. The role of ecosystem actors is also changing and evolving – being a leader or a complementor depends on the market context. Finally, it is evident that the wider regulatory and policy systems need to be adapted or reconceptualized to support new B2B platforms and platform ecosystems (Jovanovic et al., 2022; Kamalaldin et al., 2021). Thus, B2B platforms do not follow the “winner-takes-all” mantra of B2C platforms and ecosystems but rather bring to light the additional challenges of cohabitation facing multiple ecosystem actors, digital platforms, and platform coopetition – especially, in complex, regulated industries, such as manufacturing, energy, and healthcare.
Please check out the Call for Papers: