A Power Perspective on Software Ecosystem Partnerships

To address today’s market demands for continuous enhancement of systems capabilities, software producing organisations have increasingly formed or joined software ecosystems. In these complex and networked settings, they define partnerships to complement each other’s features, acquire new skills, divide R&D costs and share customers. Such business model entails mutual dependence on companies for survival and effectiveness. It creates a flow of influence among them and makes the ecosystem resemble power-law distributions. Drawing on established concepts from Social and Behavioural Sciences, we performed an exploratory case study of six software companies to investigate their power-dependence relationships in an ecosystem environment. A prime result of this research is showing that it is possible to understand how power and dependence influence the behaviour and coordination of partner firms within a software ecosystem.