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Tight and Loose Coupling in Evolving Platform Ecosystems: The Cases of Airbnb and Uber

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Book cover Business Information Systems (BIS 2018)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 320))

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Abstract

The emergence of digital platforms changes the way how companies interact with their ecosystem. Successful platforms like Apple’s App Store utilize an ecosystem of third-party developers to drive innovation. Those platforms are expanding the sphere of influence beyond internal resources and capabilities by taking advantage of a scalable ecosystem of external developers. However, until now it is unclear on how those companies establish a platform ecosystem. This article draws on two case studies in the form of ridesharing and accommodation platforms to illustrate how they transitioned through four evolutionary phases with the help of tight and loose coupling partnerships.

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Acknowledgements

This work is part of the TUM Living Lab Connected Mobility (TUM LLCM) project and has been funded by the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Media, Energy and Technology (StMWi) through the Center Digitisation. Bavaria (ZD.B), an initiative of the Bavarian State Government.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany

    Andreas Hein, Markus Böhm & Helmut Krcmar

Authors
  1. Andreas Hein
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  2. Markus Böhm
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  3. Helmut Krcmar
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andreas Hein .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Poznan University of Economics and Business, Poznan, Poland

    Witold Abramowicz

  2. Fraunhofer FOKUS, Berlin, Germany

    Adrian Paschke

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Hein, A., Böhm, M., Krcmar, H. (2018). Tight and Loose Coupling in Evolving Platform Ecosystems: The Cases of Airbnb and Uber. In: Abramowicz, W., Paschke, A. (eds) Business Information Systems. BIS 2018. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 320. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93931-5_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93931-5_21

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-93930-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-93931-5

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