Journal of Management Information Systems 2020

Effect of Release Timing of App Innovations based on Mobile Platform Innovations

Franck Soh¹; Varun Grover²

¹ University of North Carolina at Greensboro · ² University of Arkansas at Fayetteville

Abstract

This study focuses on app innovations based on mobile platform innovations (MPIs), examining how app developers can time the app innovations release to best leverage MPIs and increase app financial performance. We suggest that the performance is contingent on the adoption curve of mobile platform generations and the level of backward compatibility of the MPIs. We find support for our hypotheses after analyzing 1,213 MPI-based app innovations on the iOS mobile platform ecosystem. The main theoretical contribution of this study, supported empirically, is to better understand the role of the platform generation adoption curve and MPIs’ level of backward compatibility in the assessment of the effect of MPI-based app innovation release timing on complementor’s performance. We encourage third-party developers to create MPI-based app innovations more prominently and release them early during the growth stage of the adoption curve while prioritizing MPIs with no backward compatibility.

DOI

10.1080/07421222.2020.1831763

Sources

openalex

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APA 7 MLA 9 Chicago (author–date) Harvard Elsevier Harvard (JFE, JBF…) The Accounting Review Academy of Management American Marketing Association INFORMS (Management Science) Copy citation Copied ✓