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.
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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.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | The value and structuring role of web APIs in digital innovation ecosystems: The case of the online travel ecosystem |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.respol.2023.104931 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2023.104931 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third-party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | Interface, Web API, Orchestration, Governance, Ecosystem, Digital innovation, Entrepreneurship, Digital economy, Online travel, Decentralized interfaces |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > STEaPP |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10184167 |
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