Evolving Shared Platforms: An Imbrication Lens

Shared platforms form a stable foundation for the integration of digital components by heterogeneous actors. These platforms are an emergent organizational form whose members seek interoperability through technological architectures constituted of a modular core, a standardized interface, and complementary extensions. Although extant IS research on such platforms primarily emphasizes the social aspects of platforms, there is a growing literature that also takes their material aspects into account. Here our objective is to contribute to this trend in sociomaterial theorizing of platforms by undertaking an imbricational analysis of a twelve-year shared platform initiative in the Swedish Road Haulage industry. Hence, we attempt to answer the following research question: “How do the participants’ coopetitive behavior and the platform’s technology architecture reciprocally shape the evolution of a shared platform?”We identify three organizational forms that are likely to emerge in the evolution of a shared platform and assess their respective implications for platform innovatio