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Full text release has been delayed at the author's request until August 18, 2025

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High Reliability Organizing in Digital Platforms: Managing Uncertainties in Negative Events

ALSAHLI, AMAL
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1688785629779499

Abstract Details

2023, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Management.
Digital platforms, such as Facebook, Amazon, and Uber, are becoming crucial components of modern societies' infrastructure. In addition to driving innovation and economic growth, they shape political opinion and facilitate social change. Despite their pervasiveness, digital platforms are increasingly challenged with emerging uncertainty that stems from a variety of sources and affects a wide range of platform actors. Without a proper and prompt approach to navigate such uncertainty, digital platforms are susceptible to potential failures and business discontinuity. This dissertation provides a preliminary understanding of the emerging uncertainty in digital platforms. It focuses on uncertainty associated with negative events that range from incidents in the interactions between the platform’s external users to major exogenous shocks that have a system-wide impact on the digital platform. Drawing on qualitative methods and interdisciplinary research, the dissertation is comprised of three independent studies. The first study utilizes a grounded theorizing approach to understand how users of digital platforms attribute blame for negative incidents. It follows media coverage of extreme incidents in two major platforms: YouTube and Airbnb. Findings show that the initial attribution of blame is transformed into a collectively distributed attribution through a retrospective sensemaking process. Study 2 seeks to understand how digital platforms organize for high reliability to manage uncertainty in negative incidents. An in-depth case study of the support function in a marketplace platform demonstrates evolving routine dynamics in the upstream (preventing incidents) and the downstream (resolving incidents) processes. Study 3 adopts a macro perspective on negative incidents by studying how digital platforms maintain operational resilience against major shocks. A longitudinal case study follows the response of a marketplace platform to the disruptions caused by the recent COVID-19 pandemic. The study identifies digital capabilities for absorbing, adapting, and ultimately transforming to a new stable state following a disruption. Taken together, the three studies contribute to research and practice by: (1) understanding the multidimensional and emergent nature of uncertainty in the context of digital platforms; (2) providing a rich description of digitally-enabled capabilities that a digital platform develops and uses to navigate uncertainty; and (3) providing suggestions for platforms seeking to organize for high reliability and resilience.
Kalle Lyytinen (Committee Chair)
Youngjin Yoo (Committee Member)
Satish Nambisan (Committee Member)
John Paul Stephens (Committee Member)
196 p.
Information Systems; Information Technology; Management; Organization Theory
Digital platforms, Uncertainty, High reliability organizing, Resilience, Process theory

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • ALSAHLI, A. (2023). High Reliability Organizing in Digital Platforms: Managing Uncertainties in Negative Events [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1688785629779499

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • ALSAHLI, AMAL. High Reliability Organizing in Digital Platforms: Managing Uncertainties in Negative Events. 2023. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1688785629779499.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • ALSAHLI, AMAL. "High Reliability Organizing in Digital Platforms: Managing Uncertainties in Negative Events." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2023. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1688785629779499

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1688785629779499
© 2023, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.