How Do Practitioners Understand External Platforms and Services? A Grounded Theory Investigation

Abstract

In this article, we investigate how practitioners understand external platforms, whose core offering is shared and utilized by a number of heterogeneous and interconnected organizations in an ecosystem. We especially look into situations where organizations wish to extend their own capability instead of building services that extend the functionality of the platform. Such dependencies to external platforms can be envisioned as the contemporary evolution from traditional outsourcing service models. We interviewed twenty-four practitioners from eight IT organizations and discovered a considerable ambiguity in understanding of what are the external platforms utilized by the organizations. We further elaborate that the diversified meanings that various stakeholders give to the concept of external platforms, can hinder efficient communication and may have implications on important strategic decision making.