Abstract
To address today’s market demands for continuous enhancement of systems capabilities, software producing organisations have increasingly formed or joined software ecosystems. In these complex and networked settings, they define partnerships to complement each other’s features, acquire new skills, divide R&D costs and share customers. Such business model entails mutual dependence on companies for survival and effectiveness. It creates a flow of influence among them and makes the ecosystem resemble power-law distributions. Drawing on established concepts from Social and Behavioural Sciences, we performed an exploratory case study of six software companies to investigate their power-dependence relationships in an ecosystem environment. A prime result of this research is showing that it is possible to understand how power and dependence influence the behaviour and coordination of partner firms within a software ecosystem.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The interview protocol is available via this link https://goo.gl/LbvSLL.
References
Alves, C., Oliveira, J., Jansen, S.: Software ecosystem governance – a systematic literature review and research agenda. Inf. Softw. Technol. (In submission)
Barbosa, O., Pereira, R., Alves, C., Werner, C., Jansen, S.: A systematic mapping study on software ecosystems from a three-dimensional perspective. In: Jansen, S., Cusumano, M. A., Brinkkemper, S. (eds.) Software Ecosystems: Analyzing and Managing Business Networks in the Software Industry, pp. 59–81. Edward Elgar Publishing (2013)
Campbell, P.R.J., Ahmed, F.: A three-dimensional view of software ecosystems. In: Fourth European Conference on Software Architecture, pp. 81–84 (2010)
Casciaro, T., Piskorski, M.J.: Power imbalance, mutual dependence, and constraint absorption: a closer look at resource dependence theory. Adm. Sci. Q. 50(2), 167–199 (2005)
Cruzes, D.S., Dybå, T.: Recommended steps for thematic synthesis in software engineering. In: International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, pp. 275–284 (2011)
Dahl, R.A.: The concept of power. Behav. Sci. 2(3), 201–215 (1957)
Elias, S.: Fifty years of influence in the workplace: the evolution of the French and Raven power taxonomy. J. Manage. Hist. 14(3), 267–283 (2008)
Emerson, R.M.: Power-dependence relations. Am. Sociol. Rev. 27(1), 31–41 (1962)
Hanssen, G., Dybå, T.: Theoretical foundations of software ecosystems. In: 4th International Workshop on Software Ecosystems, pp. 6–17 (2012)
Hartigh, E., Tol, M., Visscher, W.: The health measurement of a business ecosystem. In: Annual Meeting of European Chaos and Complexity in Org. Network, pp. 1–39 (2006)
Hurni, T., Huber, T.: The interplay of power and trust in platform ecosystems of the enterprise application software industry. In: European Conference on Information Systems (2014)
Iansiti, M., Levien, R.: Strategy as ecology. Harvard Bus. Rev. 82(3), 68–81 (2004)
Jansen, S., Finkelstein, A., Brinkkemper, S.: A sense of community: a research agenda for software ecosystems. In: 31st International Conference on Software Engineering, pp. 187–190 (2009)
Jansen, S., Brinkkemper, S., Souer, J., Luinenburg, L.: Shades of gray: Opening up a software producing organization with the open software enterprise model. J. Syst. Softw. 85(7), 1495–1510 (2012)
Lacoste, S., Johnsen, R.E.: Supplier-customer relationships: a case study of power dynamics. J. Purchasing Supply Manage. 21(4), 229–240 (2015)
Lawler, E.: Power processes in bargaining. Sociol. Q. 33(1), 17–34 (1992)
Manikas, K., Hansen, K.M.: Software ecosystems - A systematic literature review. J. Syst. Softw. 86(5), 1294–1306 (2013)
Meehan, J., Wright, G.H.: The origins of power in buyer–seller relationships. Ind. Mark. Manage. 41(4), 669–679 (2012)
Olsen, P.I., Prenkert, F., Hoholm, T., Harrison, D.: The dynamics of networked power in a concentrated business network. J. Bus. Res. 67(12), 2579–2589 (2014)
Raven, B.H.: The bases of power: origins and recent developments. J. Soc. Issues 49(4), 227–251 (1993)
Romano, N.C., Donovan, C., Chen, H., Nunamaker, J.F.: A methodology for analyzing web-based qualitative data. J. Manage. Inf. Syst. 19(4), 213–246 (2003)
Runeson, P., Höst, M.: Guidelines for conducting and reporting case study research in software engineering. Empir. Softw. Eng. 14(2), 131–164 (2009)
Santos, R.P., Werner, C.: Treating business dimension in software ecosystems. In: International Conference on Management of Emergent Digital EcoSystems, pp. 197–201 (2011)
Van Angeren, J., Kabbedijk, J., Jansen, S., Popp, K.M.: A survey of associate models used within large software ecosystems. In: 3rd International Workshop on Software Ecosystems, pp. 27–39 (2011)
Van Angeren, J., Alves, C., Jansen, S.: Can we ask you to collaborate? Analyzing app developer relationships in commercial platform ecosystems. J. Syst. Softw. 113, 430–445 (2016)
Weiblen, T.: Opening up the business model: Business model innovation through collaboration. Ph.D. Thesis. University of St. Gallen, Bamberg (2015)
Acknowledgement
We thank Yang Zherui Ryan for his constructive feedback on early versions of this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Valença, G., Alves, C., Jansen, S. (2016). A Power Perspective on Software Ecosystem Partnerships. In: Abrahamsson, P., Jedlitschka, A., Nguyen Duc, A., Felderer, M., Amasaki, S., Mikkonen, T. (eds) Product-Focused Software Process Improvement. PROFES 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10027. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49094-6_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49094-6_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-49093-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-49094-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)