Enabling Partner Management in Enterprise Platform Ecosystems - A Design Science Research Study

Partner management is an important success factor for digital platform ecosystems. It operationalizes the platform partner strategy, making far-reaching decisions concerning value co-creation and mitigating governance tensions. However, tools to support partner managers in their tasks have received little attention. Using design science research, we develop a tool prototype that is capable of supporting partner managers through computation, provision, and visualization of relevant information. We analyze the literature and conduct nine interviews with partner managers from three enterprise software platform firms to identify requirements in four task areas. This paper presents the first design cycle comprising seven realized requirements. We present and evaluate the ITartifact using a simulation. Our findings highlight the need for information in platform governance and demonstrate the artifact’s ability to address practical needs and provide valuable IT-based decision support. We contribute to the literature on the governance of complementors and support practitioners with an effective tool