Value co-creation underpins the symbiotic relationships of digital ecosystems. Many IS studies have focused on sponsored co-creation facilitated by a focal firm. There is a limited understanding of how co-creation can happen in an ecosystem without a focal firm. Building on an in-depth case study, we elaborate on the theoretical notion of autonomous digital co-creation. We propose two contributions: (1) In comparison to the centralized, collaborative, and facilitated nature of sponsored co-creation, our findings reveal the nature of autonomous digital co-creation characterized as distributed, cooperative, and emergent; (2) through an ecosystem-based analysis, this study extends the predominantly dyadic focus of existing value co-creation literature.

• When entering informal sectors, digital platforms formalize work practices to make them amenable to the platform model. • To enable formalization, platforms engage in institutional changes to alter the sector’s dominant logic. • Platform-enabled formalization involves codifying interactions, standardizing practices, and controlling boundaries. • Platforms shift informal sectors from an informal market logic to a matchmaking logic, then to a service system logic. • The design and governance of digital platforms for informal sectors need to account for the effects of formalization processes. Digital platforms are undermining long-standing formal institutions for the organization of work. However, when they enter informal sectors, they contribute to the opposite effect by increasing the formalization of work activities. In this study, we investigate this hitherto unexamined phenomenon by drawing on a case study of Gojek, one of the largest digital platforms in Southeast Asia. We identify three main mechanisms through which the platform transformed work in an informal transportation sector to make it amenable to integration into their platform model: codifying market interactions, standardizing work practices, and controlling ecosystem boundaries. We develop an understanding of the institutional changes that supported the platform-enabled formalization by noting the shifts in the sector’s dominant institutional logic from an informal market logic to a matchmaking logic, then to a service system logic. We discuss the implications of these institutional changes for the platform and the workers.

Social media assume a role in activism by enabling the powerless to voice widely shared grievances and organise unequally distributed resources. However, the predominant focus on the episodic effect of social media in the digital activism literature presents a limited understanding of how social media can play a role at different level of grassroots involvement and for movement continuity. By adopting a multidimensional empowerment perspective and extending the temporal scope in examining social media-enabled social movements, this study expounds on the logic of connective action (in contrast to the conventional logic of collective action) to offer a theory of social media empowerment. The study builds on a case study of an environmental movement to derive two key contributions: (1) it extends our knowledge of grassroots organising through a conceptualisation of the processes of how social media can allow individuals to assume a more proactive role in driving a social movement and (2) it provides a new understanding of the use of social media to sustain activism over time through the conceptualisation of social media empowerment mechanisms. A framework for social media empowerment in social movements is offered with implications for the mobilising practices of grassroots leaders and organisations.