Design knowledge for digital business ecosystems: towards design principles for digital engagement platforms

Abstract

Modern technologies, globalization, and deregulation have led to the development of organizational ecosystems heavily reliant on digital platforms. In these ecosystems, heterogeneous actors integrate knowledge and resources to their mutual benefit. This co-creation of value in complex ecosystems created some of today's most successful companies such as Google, Apple, and Facebook. Nonetheless, the management of value co-creation was and remains a challenge. The successful development and management of digital engagement platforms relies on the design of governance structures and mechanisms that attract and bind a critical mass of actors, balance their heterogeneous interests, and ensure future success through continuous innovation. To address this challenge, we employ the Design Science Research approach and derive four design principles, including 13 mechanisms and 32 enactors, based on expert interviews with 14 platform operators from the personal service sector. These findings provide practical knowledge on how to design key features of engagement platforms.