Fitness of business models for digital collaborative platforms in clusters: A case study

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of business models for exploiting digital options within digital clusters (that are clusters where collaboration is ITdependent). To this aim, this research focuses on digital platforms, a specific IT artifact supporting an inter-organizational system (IOS), which finds a typical application domain in clusters of enterprises. Thus, the paper first discusses the theoretical background and presents a literature review that has been used to set up a framework for analyzing the factors influencing the exploitation of digital platforms at cluster level. The framework is developed through a Design Science Research (DSR) methodology whose empirical ground will be represented by a cluster of more than a hundred of manufacturing small-medium enterprises. An exploratory case study is then discussed in this paper, meant to represent the early stages of application of the DSR method.