Abstract
Technology-enabled multi-sided platforms (MSPs) have brought market transparency and efficiency through easy discovery and matching platform participants. These gains achieved through lowered search and transaction costs have made MSPs a favorite among governments, too. In addition to achieving efficiency gains, public MSPs strive for wider social welfare, like inclusion, which is not guaranteed apriori in a platform business model. Not many studies address the issue of enhanced social welfare in the context of a public MSP. Our research attempts to fill the gap by understanding how governance initiatives combined with technology bring ecosystem advantages and thereby increase social welfare. We study the Government e-Marketplace platform initiated by the Government of India for public procurement. In this research, we tease out the mechanisms towards achieving the ‘inclusion’ goal of public platforms using the lens of actor-network theory.
Recommended Citation
Pandey, Neena and Ramani, Vinay, "Digital Public Platforms and Empowerment of Small Businesses in e-Procurement: An Actor-Network Theory Perspective" (2023). GlobDev 2023. 12.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/globdev2023/12