Presenter Information

arvind karunakaran, MIT SloanFollow

Start Date

10-12-2017 12:00 AM

Description

Platform services — services that are provided to organizations through online platforms — are generating significant uncertainties for both the platform-provider and customer organizations, but how these uncertainties are managed and with what governance consequences are not well understood. I conducted an 18-month field study of a platform service in the enterprise cloud computing industry to examine these questions. I describe the dimensions of uncertainties associated with the platform and the platform-provider. I then identify four mechanisms that the platform-provider enacts — controlling through code, performing algorithmic governance, producing trust rhetoric, and establishing trust indicators — to manage the uncertainties. The first two mechanisms constitute platform work, while the latter two, trust work. Together, platform and trust work reconfigure the “arena of uncertainty” through a process of normalization. This study shows how platform-provider firms normalize the dimensions of uncertainties to their advantage, producing significant consequences for platform governance.

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Dec 10th, 12:00 AM

In Cloud we Trust? Normalization of Uncertainties in Platform Services

Platform services — services that are provided to organizations through online platforms — are generating significant uncertainties for both the platform-provider and customer organizations, but how these uncertainties are managed and with what governance consequences are not well understood. I conducted an 18-month field study of a platform service in the enterprise cloud computing industry to examine these questions. I describe the dimensions of uncertainties associated with the platform and the platform-provider. I then identify four mechanisms that the platform-provider enacts — controlling through code, performing algorithmic governance, producing trust rhetoric, and establishing trust indicators — to manage the uncertainties. The first two mechanisms constitute platform work, while the latter two, trust work. Together, platform and trust work reconfigure the “arena of uncertainty” through a process of normalization. This study shows how platform-provider firms normalize the dimensions of uncertainties to their advantage, producing significant consequences for platform governance.