Call for Papers for a Special Issue of Journal of Information Technology Mobile Platforms & Ecosystems

Special Issue Editors Rahul C. Basole, Georgia Institute of Technology Mark de Reuver, Delft University of Technology Carsten Srensen, London School of Economics
Motivation The exponential growth of the mobile application marketplace has created fierce competition for all participants in the mobile sector. Large companies, such as Apple and Google, use different strategies and business models to transform the industry with their own operating systems and app stores. Past leaders such as Research in Motion have been relegated to the bottom of the market and are in real danger of dropping out entirely. Nokia, Microsoft and virtually all mobile network operators are trying to regain market share. The Japanese market, which was at the forefront 15 years ago, now struggles to meet the US-based smart phone competition. At the same time, new technologies and standards, such as HTML5 and crossplatform development tools, show the promise of opening the market for more competition through a shift from proprietary to open standards. Unquestionably, the mobile sector is in a constant state of flux, influenced by a plethora of technological- and market-related forces. Together, these complex and emerging industry dynamics demand novel and innovative empirical and theoretical insights. Past research in economics and strategic management has examined the performance and competition of platforms and ecosystems through economic factors such as pricing strategies and two-sided markets (Rochet & Tirole, 2003), through organizational factors, for example leadership (Gawer & Cusumano, 2002), governance (Evans & Schmalensee, 2007) and through relationships with the key platform constituents (Perrons, 2009). However, from an Information Systems perspective, the technological factors related to the core platforms controlled by the platform owners and the associated ecosystems surrounding the platform are far from trivial. More research is needed into the complex issues of, for example, the distribution of intelligence between the mobile device and the cloud; different approaches to the distribution of control of critical assets; and the distribution of control over platform and ecosystem amongst key stakeholders (De Reuver, Bouwman, Prieto, & Visser, 2011). The technological openness of the platform and of supporting technologies, such as the Software Development Kits (SDKs) and Application Program Interfaces (APIs) influence the attractiveness for application developers (Ghazawneh & Henfridsson, 2012). The arrangement of the platform defines the extent to which platform owners are able to balance control through a range of control points while ensuring a generative arrangement (Tilson, Lyytinen, & Srensen, 2010). Moreover, the platforms themselves are made up of different layers and modules, which in turn each can be a platform in their own right, e.g., Googles Android operating system, Chrome browser, Play app store and Google Maps. The importance of mobile platforms and ecosystems is not adequately captured in the top Information Systems journals. In fact, mobile and ubiquitous computing in general are largely underrepresented in the top IS journals (Srensen, 2011). While platform concepts have been introduced onto the Information Systems literature recently (e.g., Ballon, Bouwman, & Yuan, 2011; Basole & Karla, 2011), definitions, conceptualizations as well as empirical and analytical underpinnings still need to be developed. Potential Themes This special issue calls for original papers on the central topic of mobile platforms and ecosystems. Authors can submit empirical papers that use any research method. Case studies, ethnographies, action research and grounded theory are all acceptable provided that their underlying perspective is interpretive. Conceptual papers are also welcome. The papers may focus on individual platforms and applications, as well as on cross-platform comparative studies.

The special issue scope includes but is not limited to: Conceptualization of platforms and ecosystems, especially specifying platform concepts to the (mobile) IS domain Empirical studies of platform leadership and platform competition in the mobile domain The use of big and open data to study mobile ecosystem dynamics Innovation in platforms and mobile ecosystems Platform and mobile ecosystem strategies Governance of mobile platforms Understanding mobile platform value networks Case studies on how to establish and cultivate mobile platforms Studies on the intersection of the mobile ecosystem with other ecosystems such as ubiquitous computing, health care delivery, education, and smart homes. Differences in mobile ecosystems across regions and the intersection of regional and international ecosystems

Timetable 28 February 2013: Deadline for article submission 31 May 2013: Reviews returned to author 1 August 2013: Deadline for submission of revised articles 1 November 2013: Deadline for second submission of revised articles 1 February 2014: Final articles acceptance notification Publication second half of 2014

Submission information For information about JIT and formatting requirements please see www.palgrave-journals.com/jit/index.html. Questions about the Special Issue should be addressed to Special Issue Editors Rahul C. Basole, (basole@gatech.edu), Mark de Reuver (g.a.dereuver@tudelft.nl), Carsten Srensen (c.sorensen@lse.ac.uk) Papers for the Special Issue should be submitted by email to JITedoffice@lse.ac.uk with the title of the Special Issue in the Subject Line.

References Ballon, P., Bouwman, H., & Yuan, Y. (2011). Special Issue on Business Models for Mobile Platforms: Guest Editors Introduction. Journal of theoretical and applied electronic commerce research, 6(2), v-vi. Basole, R. C., & Karla, J. (2011). On the evolution of mobile platform ecosystem structure and strategy. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 1-10. De Reuver, M., Bouwman, H., Prieto, G., & Visser, A. (2011). Governance of flexible mobile service platforms. Futures, 43, 979-985. Evans, D. S., & Schmalensee, R. (2007 ). Industrial Organization of Markets with Two-Sided Platforms Competition Policy International, 3(1). Gawer, A., & Cusumano, M. A. (2002). Platform leadership: How Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco drive industry innovation: Harvard Business Press. Ghazawneh, A. and O. Henfridsson (2012). "Balancing Platform Control and External Contribution in ThirdParty Development: The Boundary Resources Model." Information Systems Journal 22(2): Forthcoming. Perrons, R. K. (2009). The open kimono: How Intel balances trust and power to maintain platform leadership. Research Policy, 38(8), 1300-1312. Rochet, J.-C., & Tirole, J. (2003). Platform competition in two-sided markets. Journal of The European Economic Association, 1(4), 990-1029. Srensen, C. (2011). Enterprise mobility: tiny technology with global impact on work: Palgrave Macmillan. Tilson, D., Lyytinen, K., & Srensen, C. (2010). Research Commentary---Digital Infrastructures: The Missing IS Research Agenda. Information Systems Research, 21(4), 748-759.