Dynamics of Ecosystem Governance on a Technology Platform: Network analysis of Siemens MindSphere partners

To develop an innovation ecosystem and maintain a healthy ecosystem through contributions from partners, the ecosystem owner must balance exercising control over the partners and allowing them autonomy in their activities. While a large body of literature discusses the comparative statics of the optimal degree of “control” over “autonomy”, few studies empirically investigate governance model dynamics during ecosystem development. This study sheds new light on this issue using information from the Siemens IoT Platform called MindSphere. Specifically, by measuring the similarity among the partners in terms of their business domain, we constructed an indicator of complementarity among platform participants. We then evaluate Siemens’s platform governance strategy using Burt’s constraint index (measuring structural holes in network data). Siemens changed its governance model from facilitating mutual complementarity among partners in the early stage of platform development to inducing more competition in its later stage using network externality as a centripetal force.