The Role of Digital Platforms in Inter-Firm Collaboration

Previous studies have widely focused on the adoption and usage of Knowledge Management Systems, namely KMS, within a single organization or within supply chains. However, these prior studies have provided little explanations of the relations behind knowledge sharing and transfer, and few studies have provided empirical results of KMS adoption within cluster of firms. In contemporary interorganizational relationships, digital platforms have gained attention for the enabling and improvement of communication, knowledge generation and information diffusion. This paper focuses on the cooperation, coordination and collaboration among a cluster of firms engaged in the usage of a digital platform. By integrating qualitative enquiries and Social Network Analysis (SNA), we illustrate the role of a digital platform in the interactions of firms within this cluster. Our research integrates theories pertaining to cooperation, coordination and collaboration in a framework of multiple stages, and clarifies the role of digital platform in this framework. The paper aims to contribute both to academia bringing together cooperation coordination and collaboration within a new framework, and to practitioners by understanding digital platform usage under a new context.

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