Service Innovation through Application Programming Interfaces - Towards a Typology of Service Designs

In recent years, many firms have published public Application Programing Interfaces (APIs). However, firms struggle with how to successfully implement API-enabled service innovation. APIs are either boundary resources through which platform strategies are enacted or they represent distribution channels for software, data, or infrastructure. We use a service innovation framework to integrate ten elements that determine business-oriented API design and that were discussed by prior API research. We report the preliminary results of a cluster analysis of 96 randomly sampled and qualitatively coded APIs. We identify three archetypes of API-enabled service innovation that are characterized by distinct configurations of API elements. We use a measure of API popularity to find structural differences of the archetypes' market impact. With our planned research addressing the interplay of API design, ecosystem-based value creation strategies and API performance, we intend to contribute to theory that explains the impact of API design on digital innovation.

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