Engagement on Digital Platforms: A Theoretical Perspective

Yinan Yu, University of Memphis
Jui Ramaprasad, McGill University

Description

The new business models enabled by digital platforms and the ecosystems built around them drive the most profound change in the global macroeconomic environment today. User engagement plays a crucial role in value creation for platform business models. Although Information Systems (IS) literature has started examining this key concept, it presents diverse and inconsistent conceptualizations, resulting in an incomplete nomological network of engagement with important antecedents, consequences, and mechanisms left largely unexamined. This study aims to build a theory of engagement for digital platforms. To achieve this goal, we have provided a coherent definition and a preliminary typology in this extended abstract. We will construct a nomological network of engagement in our follow-up study.

 

Engagement on Digital Platforms: A Theoretical Perspective

The new business models enabled by digital platforms and the ecosystems built around them drive the most profound change in the global macroeconomic environment today. User engagement plays a crucial role in value creation for platform business models. Although Information Systems (IS) literature has started examining this key concept, it presents diverse and inconsistent conceptualizations, resulting in an incomplete nomological network of engagement with important antecedents, consequences, and mechanisms left largely unexamined. This study aims to build a theory of engagement for digital platforms. To achieve this goal, we have provided a coherent definition and a preliminary typology in this extended abstract. We will construct a nomological network of engagement in our follow-up study.