Shifting Design Capability to Third-Party Developers: An affordance Perspective on Platform Boundary Resources

Boundary resource theory has emerged as conceptual tool for understanding the complex relationship between platform owners and third-party developers. Drawing on existing theories of boundary objects and boundary spanning competence it suggests that platforms may offer influence over external ecosystems, yet keep them at arm’s length. To exercise such governance, however, platform owners have to figure out how to design boundary resource to transfer design capability to third-party developers. Addressing this challenge, we analyze a digital platform initiative in the automotive industry from an affordances perspective. By doing so, we have explored what platform boundary resources allow developers to achieve, rather than what they are. As a main obstacle in the transfer of design capability, we found that platform owners’ perceptions of what a specific boundary resource affords often differ from third-party developers understanding of the same resource.