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A paradigmatic analysis of digital application marketplaces

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Journal of Information Technology

Abstract

This paper offers a paradigmatic analysis of digital application marketplaces for advancing information systems research on digital platforms and ecosystems. We refer to the notion of digital application marketplace, colloquially called ‘appstores,’ as a platform component that offers a venue for exchanging applications between developers and end users belonging to a single or multiple ecosystems. Such marketplaces exhibit diversity in features and assumptions, and we propose that examining this diversity, and its ideal types, will help us to further understand the relationship between application marketplaces, platforms, and platform ecosystems. To this end, we generate a typology that distinguishes four kinds of digital application marketplaces: closed, censored, focused, and open marketplaces. The paper also offers implications for actors wishing to make informed decisions about their relationship to a particular digital application marketplace.

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Notes

  1. In this context, it should be noted that control is a classic and complex object of study that warrants significant attention in the platform context. As one of our anonymous reviewers pointed out, even in cases with a dominant actor seemingly being in full control, there are always possibilities for minor actors to influence platform governance through, for instance, the ‘blogosphere’ if picked up by larger actors (Eaton et al., 2015). In other words, there is a certain reciprocity of control.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IT University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Ahmad Ghazawneh

  2. The University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

    Ola Henfridsson

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  1. Ahmad Ghazawneh
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  2. Ola Henfridsson
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Correspondence to Ola Henfridsson.

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Ghazawneh, A., Henfridsson, O. A paradigmatic analysis of digital application marketplaces. J Inf Technol 30, 198–208 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/jit.2015.16

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