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Dear colleagues,
Electronic Markets is inviting submissions for a Topical Collection on "Critical perspectives on Digital Platform Ecosystems: Governance, influence, and consequences". Please find further details below.
Call for Papers: "Critical perspectives on Digital Platform Ecosystems: Governance, influence, and consequences"
Submission deadline: December 01, 2026
Guest Editors
* Chayanin Wipusanawan, University of Passau, Germany, chayanin.wipusanawan@uni-passau.de
* Andreas König, University of Passau, Germany, andreas.koenig@uni-passau.de
* Jan Krämer, University of Passau, Germany, jan.kraemer@uni-passau.de
* Hemant Bhargava, University of California Davis, USA, hemantb@ucdavis.edu
Theme
One of the central features of the contemporary digital economy is the growing importance of digital platforms that enable, facilitate, govern, and increasingly mediate exchanges and interactions among participants who affiliate with the platform (Parker et al., 2016). Digital platform ecosystems, comprising platform owners, complementors, users, and a broader network of partners and institutions, have become a dominant architecture for value creation in the global economy (Jacobides et al., 2018; Tiwana, 2014). They influence organizational strategies, reshape industries and markets, and generate far-reaching social and political implications.
While platform ecosystems can foster novel forms of innovation, coordination, and entrepreneurial opportunity, their concentrated influence also raises critical questions regarding their powerful, and sometimes problematic, effects on societal processes and structures that extend beyond business and economic outcomes. As platform-mediated activities now govern substantial parts of how individuals work, communicate, access information, and participate in public debate, it is increasingly important to examine how these ecosystems are designed, governed, and regulated, and how such governance arrangements shape societal outcomes.
This influence is particularly visible in evolving labor arrangements (Bogliacino et al., 2020), the organization and boundaries of online speech and content moderation (Nguyen et al., 2024) and the protection of vulnerable users, including youth safety and digital well-being (Allcott et al., 2022). Related concerns include issues of fairness and transparency (Krämer & Schnurr, 2018), market power and competitive dynamics (Krämer & Schnurr, 2022), data practices and privacy (Krämer & Wohlfarth, 2018), the distribution of risks and benefits across stakeholder groups, and the interaction of platform governance with public policy.
This special issue aims to provide a scholarly forum for addressing critical questions on digital platform ecosystems, considering both their enabling potential and their societal risks. We welcome theoretical and empirical contributions, employing quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods approaches, from the full breadth of the information systems field and related disciplines.
Central issues and topics
Possible topics of submissions include, but are not limited to:
- Platform Governance and Ecosystem Orchestration: Governance mechanisms, rule-setting, boundary resources, and the allocation of decision rights across platform owners, complementors, and users; centralized, decentralized, and hybrid governance models.
- Strategic Conduct, Market Power, and Competitive Dynamics: Strategic positioning, platform envelopment, self-preferencing, lock-in, multi-homing, and the implications of dominant platforms for competition and market structure.
- Innovation, Complementor Dynamics, and Value Co-creation: Generativity, innovation governance, API and data access, developer relations, incentive structures, and strategies for value creation and capture across ecosystem participants.
- Content Governance, Speech, and Public Discourse: Content moderation, recommender systems, platform policies, and their effects on online speech, civic participation, and political communication across jurisdictions.
- Societal Risks, Safety, and Equity: Fairness, inclusion, and distributional effects of platform governance and algorithmic decision-making; information integrity and the maintenance of digital trust; safety, well-being, and protection of vulnerable users
- Regulation, Policy, and Institutional Change: Antitrust and platform regulation, interoperability and portability, liability regimes, standards, oversight of platform policies and algorithmic systemsm, and the interaction between platform governance and public policy.
- Platforms and Socio-Economic Development: Platformization trajectories, local innovation ecosystems, informal economies, and societal impacts in emerging and developing contexts.
Submission
Submissions should be original, unpublished, and not under consideration at any other journal. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods are welcome, provided the research exhibits strong methodological rigor. Contributions can take the form of conceptual and theoretical development papers, empirical hypothesis testing, position papers, case-based studies, and more. All papers will undergo a double-blind peer-review process. Submissions must be made via the journal's submission system (https://www.editorialmanager.com/elma/) and comply with the journal's formatting standards. The preferred average article length is approximately 10,000 words, excluding references. Instructions, templates, and general information are available at www.electronicmarkets.org/authors/general-information/. If you would like to discuss any aspect of this special issue, you may either contact the guest editors or the Editorial Office.
Keywords
Digital platform, online harms, societal challenges, market power, platform governance, regulation
Important deadline
* Submission Deadline: December 01, 2026
References
Allcott, H., Gentzkow, M., & Song, L. (2022). Digital addiction. American Economic Review, 112(7), 2424–2463. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20210867
Bogliacino, F., Codagnone, C., Cirillo, V., & Guarascio, D. (2020). Quantity and quality of work in the platform economy. In Handbook of labor, human resources and population economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57365-6_18-1
Jacobides, M. G., Cennamo, C., & Gawer, A. (2018). Towards a theory of ecosystems. Strategic Management Journal, 39(8), 2255–2276. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2904
Krämer, J., & Schnurr, D. (2018). Is there a need for platform neutrality regulation in the EU? Telecommunications Policy, 42(7), 514–529. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2018.06.004
Krämer, J., & Schnurr, D. (2022). Big data and digital markets contestability: Theory of harm and data access remedies. Journal of Competition Law & Economics, 18(2), 255–322. https://doi.org/10.1093/joclec/nhab015
Krämer, J., & Wohlfarth, M. (2018). Market power, regulatory convergence, and the role of data in digital markets. Telecommunications Policy, 42(2), 154–171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2017.10.004
Nguyen, A., Rai, A., & Maruping, L. (2024). Understanding the unintended effects of human-machine moderation in addressing harassment within online communities. Journal of Management Information Systems, 41(2), 341–366. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421222.2024.2340831
Parker, G. G., Van Alstyne, M. W., & Choudary, S. P. (2016). Platform revolution: How networked markets are transforming the economy and how to make them work for you. W. W. Norton & Company.
Tiwana, A. (2014). Platform ecosystems: Aligning architecture, governance, and strategy. Morgan Kaufmann.
Best regards,
Rainer Alt, Mathias Klier, Maria Madlberger, Hans-Dieter Zimmermann, Ramona Coia
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Electronic Markets - The International Journal on Networked Business
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Editor-in-Chief: Rainer Alt, Leipzig University
Co-Editors: Mathias Klier, Ulm University; Maria Madlberger, Webster Vienna Private University; Hans-Dieter Zimmermann, Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences
Executive Editor: Ramona Coia, Leipzig University
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Leipzig University
04109 Leipzig, Germany
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