Governance of Platform Ecosystems - Designing Understandable Processesfor Digital High Street Retail

High streets are historically grown and decentralized ecosystems, currently introducing digital community platforms for adding additional digital touchpoints to the servicescape. Digital platforms are one game-changing technology that evolved over the last decade through building platform ecosystems. While most platform providers pursue solely digital business models, more traditional businesses, such as high street retail, struggle to cope with the increasing complexity of digitalized ecosystems. The Information Systems literature provides information on the governance of digital platform ecosystems in general but offers little guidance on how to govern digital platform ecosystems. In this paper, we set out to design and evaluate governance processes for digital high street ecosystems, focusing on understandability. We contribute to practice by designing implementable processes that guide practitioners in governing high street ecosystems. From a theoretical perspective, we add knowledge by discussing the general implications of applying Business Process Management tools and methods for governing platform ecosystems.