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How open is this platform? The meaning and measurement of platform openness from the complementors’ perspective

  • Research Article
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Journal of Information Technology

Abstract

Software platforms’ success largely depends on complementors’ willingness to repeatedly invest their time and effort to the development of platform applications that attract users and increase the platform’s installed base. But how can platform providers encourage desirable behaviours by complementors (i.e., application developers) in the absence of formal roles and hierarchical control structures? Although previous studies of software-based platforms have identified openness as critical instrument at the macro (i.e., platform) level and have provided initial attempts to measure the construct, no research has been dedicated to comprehensively conceptualize and operationalize platform openness at the micro level from the perspective of application developers. To go beyond these preliminary findings and to theorize about the nature and effects of platform openness as perceived by application developers, we develop a construct called perceived platform openness (PPO). Drawing on recently advanced scale development methodologies, we conceptualize PPO as a multidimensional construct and empirically validate it with important consequent variables linked to developers’ continuous platform contributions. Empirical evidence from several rounds of qualitative and quantitative steps supports the conceptual validity of the construct and empirical relevance of the scale across different smartphone platform contexts (i.e., Apple iOS and Google Android). Researchers will benefit from the study’s systematic and comprehensive conceptualization of PPO, how it is measured, and how it relates to critical application developer beliefs and attitudes. Platform managers may use our results to target the underlying facets of PPO most likely to contribute to the platform’s long-term goals.

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Notes

  1. Overall, Android and iOS platform developers did not systematically differ in their responses. Both groups mentioned all of the identified facets of openness about the same number of times such that we believe that the saturated list of 23 platform openness facets represents a balanced perspective across both platforms.

  2. The hit ratio calculates the ratio of correct item assignments to the total number of assignments. A minimum of 75% is generally acceptable (Hinkin, 1998).

  3. The results of the convergent and discriminant validity tests of the 11 reflective indicators can be obtained from the authors upon request.

  4. Interestingly, while the formative indicators ‘cost of required technical equipment’ and ‘cost of selling’ were again non-significant in the impact on their respective first-order constructs for the Android sub-sample, they turned out to be significant (both P<0.01) for the iOS sub-sample.

  5. We also conducted a sub-sample analysis comparing employed and non-employed (i.e., hobby developers, entrepreneurs, and freelancers) developers. We found that although the relative importance of the four components of PPO differed in their impact on overall PPO, PPO’s influence on perceived usefulness, satisfaction, and continuance intentions remained stable across both sub-samples. These results underscore that developer perceptions and attitudes are affected by PPO irrespective of developers’ employment status.

  6. We thank the anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Information Systems & E-Services, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

    Alexander Benlian

  2. Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Munich, Germany

    Daniel Hilkert

  3. Institute for Information Systems & New Media, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Munich, Germany

    Thomas Hess

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  1. Alexander Benlian
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  2. Daniel Hilkert
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  3. Thomas Hess
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Correspondence to Alexander Benlian.

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Benlian, A., Hilkert, D. & Hess, T. How open is this platform? The meaning and measurement of platform openness from the complementors’ perspective. J Inf Technol 30, 209–228 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/jit.2015.6

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