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Critical Mass in Inter-Organizational Platforms

This paper examines how the critical mass challenge manifests itself during inter-organizational platform development. In previous research, critical mass is treated as an issue that occurs after platform launch. Strategies proposed, such as tactful pricing, opening the platform, user onboarding, and side-switching assume the platform to have already been launched. They may not work well in conditions where the platform is still under development. Over a two-and-a-half-year time period, this study traced the development of a data platform in a revelatory case within the New Zealand tourism sector. It revealed five critical mass issues faced by the platform sponsor in phases of development that occur before platform launch: (i) attracting initial interest, (ii) aligning heterogenous goals, (iii) sustaining commitment to the project (iv), negotiating architecture design, and (v) sustaining commitment to implementation. These findings provide a foundation for problematizing critical mass theory and its boundary conditions in interorganizational platform development.