T he emergence of software-based platforms is shifting competition toward platform-centric ecosystems, although this phenomenon has not received much attention in information systems research. Our premise is that the coevolution of the design, governance, and environmental dynamics of such ecosystems influences how they evolve. We present a framework for understanding platform-based ecosystems and discuss five broad research questions that present significant research opportunities for contributing homegrown theory about their evolutionary dynamics to the information systems discipline and distinctive information technology-artifactcentric contributions to the strategy, economics, and software engineering reference disciplines.

Despite increasing anecdotal evidence that information technology (IT) assets contribute to firm performance and future growth potential of firms, the empirical results relating IT investments to firm performance measures have been equivocal. However, the bulk of the studies have relied exclusively on accounting-based measures of firm performance, which largely tend to ignore IT's contribution to performance dimensions such as strategic flexibility and intangible value. In this paper, we use Tobin's q, a financial market-based measure of firm performance and examine the association between IT investments and firm q values, after controlling for a variety of industry factors and firm-specific variables. The results based on data from 1988--1993 indicate that, in all of the five years, the inclusion of the IT expenditure variable in the model increased the variance explained in q significantly. The results also showed that, for all five years, IT investments had a significantly positive association with Tobin's q value. Our results are consistent with the notion that IT contributes to a firm's future performance potential, which a forward-looking measure such as the q is better able to capture.information technology and firm performance, business value of information technology, information technology and Tobin's q ratio, information technology and intangible value

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This study addresses the theoretically neglected interplay between organizational information technology (IT) architecture and IT governance structure in shaping IT alignment. We theoretically develop the idea that IT architecture modularity helps sustain IT alignment by increasing IT agility, and that decentralization of IT governance strengthens this relationship. IT architecture therefore complements IT governance structure. Tests of the proposed mediated-moderation model using data from 223 organizations support these ideas. Implications for theory and practice are also discussed.