eprintid: 10184167
rev_number: 6
eprint_status: archive
userid: 699
dir: disk0/10/18/41/67
datestamp: 2023-12-19 11:46:46
lastmod: 2023-12-19 11:46:46
status_changed: 2023-12-19 11:46:46
type: article
metadata_visibility: show
sword_depositor: 699
creators_name: Pujadas, Roser
creators_name: Valderrama, Erika
creators_name: Venters, Will
title: The value and structuring role of web APIs in digital innovation ecosystems: The case of the online travel ecosystem
ispublished: pub
divisions: UCL
divisions: B04
divisions: C05
divisions: J39
keywords: Interface, Web API, Orchestration, Governance, Ecosystem, Digital innovation, Entrepreneurship, Digital economy, Online travel, Decentralized interfaces
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abstract: Interfaces play a key role in facilitating the integration of external sources of innovation and structuring ecosystems. They have been conceptualized as design rules that ensure the interoperability of independently produced modules, with important strategic value for lead firms to attract and control access to complementary assets in platform ecosystems. While meaningful, these theorizations do not fully capture the value and structuring role of web APIs in digital innovation ecosystems. We show this with an empirical study of the online travel ecosystem in the 26 years (1995–2021) after the first Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) were launched. Our findings reveal that web APIs foster a dynamic digital innovation ecosystem with a distributed networked structure in which multiple actors design and use them. We provide evidence of an ecosystem where decentralized interfaces enable decentralized governance and where interfaces establish not only cooperative relationships, but also competitive ones. Instead of locking in complementors, web APIs enable the integration of capabilities from multiple organizations for the co-production of services and products, by interfacing their information systems. Web APIs are important sources of value creation and capture, increasingly being used to offer or sell services, constituting important sources of revenue.
date: 2024-03-01
date_type: published
publisher: Elsevier
official_url: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2023.104931
oa_status: green
full_text_type: pub
language: eng
primo: open
primo_central: open_green
verified: verified_manual
elements_id: 2133754
doi: 10.1016/j.respol.2023.104931
lyricists_name: Pujadas, Roser
lyricists_id: RPUJA45
actors_name: Bracey, Alan
actors_id: ABBRA90
actors_role: owner
funding_acknowledgements: EPSRC EP/R006865/1 [University College London]
full_text_status: public
publication: Research Policy
volume: 53
number: 2
article_number: 104931
citation:        Pujadas, Roser;    Valderrama, Erika;    Venters, Will;      (2024)    The value and structuring role of web APIs in digital innovation ecosystems: The case of the online travel ecosystem.                   Research Policy , 53  (2)    , Article 104931.  10.1016/j.respol.2023.104931 <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2023.104931>.       Green open access   
 
document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10184167/1/1-s2.0-S0048733323002159-main.pdf