In Cloud We Trust? Normalization of Uncertainties in Online Platform Services
Arvind Karunakaran · Academy of Management Proceedings · 2018
Platform-based services – services that are provided to organizations through online platforms – are increasingly being adopted and used within firms. The novelty of these services is generating significant uncertainties for both platform provider and customer organizations, but how these uncertainties are managed by the platform provider and what consequences they produce for distributed inter- organizational relationships are not well understood. I conducted an 18-month field study of a platform-based service in the enterprise cloud computing industry to examine these questions. I describe the dimensions of uncertainties associated with the platform (privacy, security, flexibility, capacity, responsiveness, innovativeness) and the platform provider (trustworthiness, credibility). I then identify four mechanisms that the platform provider enacts – controlling through code, performing algorithmic governance, producing trust rhetoric and establishing trust indicators – to manage the uncertainties. The first two mechanisms constitute platform work, while the latter two constitute trust work. Together, platform and trust work reconfigure the “arena of uncertainty” through a process of normalization, in which (a) certain dimensions of uncertainty that are unpredictable and/or cannot be managed well (e.g., responsiveness, privacy) by Sigma are downplayed, while other dimensions of uncertainty that Sigma can effectively control (e.g., security, flexibility) are emphasized; (b) value-laden “matters of concern” are objectivized into “matters of fact” through metrics, visual indicators, and algorithms. This study shows how platform firms, through a process of normalization, reconfigure the arena of uncertainty to their advantage, producing significant consequences for governing distributed inter-organizational relationships in the digital economy.