Accepted Manuscript

Title: Differential effects of formal and self-control in mobile

platform ecosystems: Multi-method findings on third-party
developers’ continuance intentions and application quality

Authors: Tobias Goldbach, Alexander Benlian, Peter

Buxmann

PII: S0378-7206(17)30633-X
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1016/j.im.2017.07.003
Reference: INFMAN 3011

To appear in: INFMAN

Received date: 3-2-2016

Revised date: 22-6-2017
Accepted date: 16-7-2017

Please cite this article as: Tobias Goldbach, Alexander Benlian, Peter Buxmann,
Differential effects of formal and self-control in mobile platform ecosystems: Multi-
method findings on third-party developers’ continuance intentions and application
quality, Information and Managementhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2017.07.003

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US Spelling
Differential effects of formal and self-control in mobile
platform ecosystems: Multimethod findings on third-
party developers’ continuance intentions and
application quality

Research Highlights
 Effects of formal and self-control on mobile app developers are compared.

 Self-control has more positive effects on continuance intention and app quality.

 Perceived autonomy mediates the effect of self-control on continuance intentions.

 Embracing softer governance instruments in platform ecosystems is recommended.

1
Abstract
Although control modes have been studied extensively in traditional IS contexts, minimal attention
has been directed toward understanding how different control modes operate in platform
ecosystems. Drawing on the IS control and self-determination literatures, we examined the
differential effects of formal and self-control on third-party developers’ continuance intentions and
application quality on mobile software platforms. Two studies from a laboratory experiment (N =
138) and a follow-up field survey with Android app developers (N = 230) show that self-control is
superior to formal control because it allows for higher perceived autonomy that in turn promotes
continuance intentions and application quality.
Keywords: Mobile platform ecosystems; IS control; Formal and self-control; Continuance
intentions; Application quality; Perceived autonomy

2
Differential effects of formal and self-control in mobile
platform ecosystems: Multimethod findings on third-
party developers’ continuance intentions and
application quality

Tobias Goldbach, Technische Universität Darmstadt,

Hochschulstr. 1, 64289 Darmstadt, Germany, goldbach@ise.tu-darmstadt
Alexander Benlian*, Technische Universität Darmstadt,
Hochschulstr. 1, 64289 Darmstadt, Germany, benlian@ise.tu-darmstadt
Peter Buxmann, Technische Universität Darmstadt,
Hochschulstr. 1, 64289 Darmstadt, Germany, buxmann@is.tu-darmstadt

*corresponding author

Abstract
Although control modes have been studied extensively in traditional IS contexts, minimal attention
has been directed toward understanding how different control modes operate in platform
ecosystems. Drawing on the IS control and self-determination literatures, we examined the
differential effects of formal and self-control on third-party developers’ continuance intentions and
application quality on mobile software platforms. Two studies from a laboratory experiment (N =
138) and a follow-up field survey with Android app developers (N = 230) show that self-control is
superior to formal control because it allows for higher perceived autonomy that in turn promotes
continuance intentions and application quality.
Keywords: Mobile platform ecosystems; IS control; Formal and self-control; Continuance
intentions; Application quality; Perceived autonomy

4
1 Introduction
Software platform ecosystems in the online and mobile context have experienced a massive
growth concerning third-party developers, offered applications (apps), and overall revenues [88].
Platform owners open their software platforms for third-party developers and thereby build upon
external resources to increase the platform’s innovation, output rate, and responsiveness to
customer needs and market dynamics [17, 21, 88]. A software platform is defined as “the
extensible codebase of a software system that provides core functionality shared by the modules
that interoperate with it and the interfaces through which they interoperate” [88, p. 675]. Third-
party developers extend the software platform by developing complementary modules (apps) for
the platform, which are then distributed through the platform’s marketplace (or app store) to the
platform’s customer base. Together, the platform owner, the third-party developers, and the
customer base shape the surrounding software platform ecosystem (or simply platform ecosystem),
which is highly dynamic and interdependent [35, 82]. Over the last few years, mobile platform
owners have established growing and profitable platform ecosystems such as Google with its
Android OS and Play store or Apple with its iOS and App Store [6, 85]. Failing to constantly
leverage external resources can lead to the demise of a software platform, as witnessed with
mobile platforms such as Nokia or Blackberry, which among other problems omitted creating and
managing a persistent pipeline of high-quality apps [84]. Platform owners are thus well advised to
create an environment that encourages third-party developers1 to continuously develop and update
their apps.
Control theory [56, 69], often invoked to analyze coordination between two parties, is a central
building block of platform governance [89], and platform owners exercise various formal and
informal control mechanisms to influence behaviors and performance outcomes of third-party
developers [88]. However, unlike software development in traditional contexts, platform owners
(i.e., the controllers) are especially challenged to find the right control balance to guarantee the
platform’s integrity and to foster developers’ (i.e., the controlees) innovative capacity [88]. Given
the absence of a contractual and hierarchical relationship between these two parties, external
developers and development studios are able to predominately make their own decisions
concerning their development activities and strategies [12]. Moreover, platform ecosystems consist
of a highly dynamic unstructured environment populated by thousands of developers and projects,
which challenges platform owners in exercising traditional tight formal control mechanisms [88].
Thus, developers’ freedom to act of their own volition and self-directed work are given much more
weight in platform environments than in traditional software development and outsourcing
contexts. Against this backdrop, the question arises whether traditional formal control modes (i.e.,
outcome and process control) can be exercised equally well and with similar effects in platform
ecosystems or whether nurturing developers’ autonomy with self-control leads to more beneficial
results for a platform ecosystem (i.e., in particular, high application quality and a constant supply
of app developers). Specifically, calls for research propose investigating the mechanisms through
which self-control can lead to positive outcomes [64], particularly considering that individual
perceptions of autonomy could empower intrinsic motivation and initiatives that might lead to
enhanced work outcomes [31, 78].
Two major gaps in prior IS research on control modes particularly deserve mention. First, studies
have largely focused on understanding the nature, antecedents, and choice of control modes [e.g.,
23, 24, 46, 55, 56, 58, 59, 66], whereas downstream effects have been analyzed by only a few
studies. Those studies focused almost exclusively on the performance effects of formal control
modes, resulting in mixed findings concerning positive or negative effects or did not provide an
explanatory argument for why an effect occurs [39, 48, 53, 83, 87]. Calls for research invited the
analysis of informal control modes and their relationships with control outcomes, particularly in
response to the growing prevalence of autonomous development teams [27]. In addition, studies
comparing different control modes are limited. As a second main research gap, most IS control
studies have focused on either internal IT projects [20, 24, 55, 57, 58] or outsourced/offshored
projects [7, 40, 75, 79, 87, 97]. Only recently have some studies started to examine control modes
in more open and dynamic software platform settings [36, 85, 93]. In summary, although control
modes have been well studied in IS research, there remains little understanding concerning

1
Third-party developers in mobile platform ecosystems usually include private/hobbyist, self-
employed/freelance, and employed developers (e.g., at a development studio); more than 50% of
the developer population engages in app development as a hobby or side project in comparison to
professional app development [91].

5
whether and why different control modes affect third-party developers’ performance outcomes and
continuance intentions in mobile platform ecosystems, in particular concerning the potential of
their more autonomous behaviors in such settings. This issue leads us to our two research
questions:
(1) What are the differential effects of formal and self-control modes on third-party developers’
behaviors (i.e., continuance intentions) and performance outcomes (i.e., application quality) in
mobile platform ecosystems?
(2) What is the role of third-party developers’ perceived autonomy in the relationship between
platform control modes and these outcomes?
To examine our research questions, we conducted a laboratory experiment in a mobile platform
context and a follow-up field survey with third-party app developers on Google’s Android
platform. Drawing on the IS control theory and self-determination literatures, we analyzed how
well third-party developers contribute to mobile platform ecosystems in terms of application
quality and whether they are willing to stay and keep contributing to the platform under formal and
self-control. The complementary features of a laboratory experiment and a field survey thereby
allow us to show that self-control has consistently stronger and more positive effects on
application quality and developers’ continuance intention compared with formal control modes.
Furthermore, our study reveals that developers’ perceived autonomy serves as a mediator through
which self-control affects these outcomes.
Our study contributes to the body of knowledge in the IS control literature by responding to
several calls for research on analyzing control modes and their downstream effects in platform
ecosystems [89, 93]. Our findings specifically address calls by Maruping et al. [64] and Cram et al.
[27] by examining mechanisms through which self-control might lead to positive outcomes.
Furthermore, our study particularly adds to IS control research by drawing on self-determination
theory to identify perceived autonomy as an explanatory mechanism through which control modes
affect developers’ outcomes and behaviors in platform ecosystems. This identification goes
beyond previous empirical studies that treated the relationship between control modes and
performance outcomes largely as a black box [e.g., 53]. Finally, by analyzing which and how
control modes affect third-party developers’ outcomes and behaviors, our study provides platform
owners with valuable insights about the critical role of developers’ perceived autonomy in
affecting their performance and loyalty. These insights speak in favor of embracing softer
governance instruments (i.e., such as employing self-control) rather than traditional bureaucratic
control procedures [98].
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. We begin by providing the theoretical
background followed by the development of our research hypotheses. We then describe our two
studies and their corresponding results. We conclude the article with a discussion of our key
findings and note implications and potential areas for further research.

2 Platform Control
Control modes are a central part of software platform governance, and various control mechanisms
are currently implemented by platform owners [88]. Control can be defined as a controller’s
attempts to influence a controlee to act according to the controller’s objectives [56, 69]. Control is
exercised with specific mechanisms such as rules, regulations, and incentives that, when adopted
by the controlee, result in activities and outcomes that are in line with the controller’s objectives
and goals. Two main categories of control mechanisms are distinguished: formal and informal
control modes. Formal control is further divided into output and process (or behavior) control. In
terms of output control, output requirements and performance targets are prespecified as
objectives, which are then accordingly monitored, evaluated, and rewarded. However, the specific
actions to reach these objectives can be arbitrarily chosen by the controlee. In contrast, under
process control, no specific outcomes are predetermined and therefore free-to-be-chosen. Instead,
specific procedures and methodologies are specified and must be followed. For both types of
formal control, evaluation information is required from the controlee, particularly on intermediate
or final outputs (e.g., deliverables at milestones) or about controlees’ adherence to the methods and
procedures prescribed by the controller [55].
Informal control is categorized into self-control and clan control [69]. With self-control,
controllers encourage individuals to set their own goals and self-regulate their activities and
outcomes in achieving these goals [46]. Therefore, self-control is solely reliant on the abilities of

6
the controlee [32]. To implement self-control as a form of governance mechanism, controllers can
encourage and enable the controlee to exercise self-control by providing tools, information, and
training for self-organization and self-regulation and by granting developers the required freedom
for decision-making [55, 59]. In terms of clan control, members of a group commit themselves to
mutual beliefs and goals and therefore often tend to engage in similar behavior and produce
comparable performance outcomes based on shared values and norms. Informal control modes are
particularly relevant when desired outcomes and behaviors are unknown or difficult to monitor
[59, 60, 88]. Currently, a wide variety of control modes are observed in mobile platform
ecosystems [83]. As a form of process control, platforms are providing software development
tools, software development kits, and best practice references in different forms and degrees,
which influence the means and procedures for how software is developed. As examples of process
control, Google provides the free-to-use Android SDK, and Apple the mandatory-to-use
development environment XCode. Apple also approves new apps based on iOS Developer
Guidelines before releasing them on the Appstore as a form of formal output control. Similar
approval procedures are almost absent for distribution through the Google Play Store. Hence,
Android developers have more latitude to decide on the functionality, look-and-feel, and tools for
developing their apps, which is an example of self-control.
Two major gaps in prior IS research on control modes are particularly noteworthy. First, much of
prior research has focused on predicting control choices [23, 55, 66] or on understanding the
nature and antecedents of control modes [24, 46, 56, 58, 59]. However, few studies have analyzed
the downstream effects of control modes, instead primarily resting on the assumption that more
control improves project performance [83, 87]. The few studies that have analyzed control
outcomes focused almost exclusively on formal control modes and their performance effects,
resulting in mixed findings concerning positive or negative outcomes, or did not provide an
explanatory argument for why an effect occurs [39, 48, 53, 83, 87]. Calls for research have
particularly invited the analysis of informal control modes and their effects on diverse control
outcomes, specifically with regard to an increasing prevalence of autonomous development teams
[27, 64]. Moreover, previous studies have treated the effects of control modes on performance
outcomes largely as a black box without explicating why such effects are at work, thus leaving
fundamental questions about control modes’ effect mechanisms and theoretical explanations
unanswered.
Second, research on control modes in platform ecosystem settings is rather scarce. Previous IS
research on control modes can be categorized as studying control modes in three major research
streams: within organizations in internal IT projects, at the interface between organizations in IT
outsourcing/offshoring relationships, or in more-open settings such as open-source or software
platform contexts. Studies within organizations have examined the antecedents and choice of
different control modes in IT project settings [55, 57, 59, 66], the effects of formal control on
software development innovation and team performance [20, 46], and the role of clan control in IT
projects [24, 58] and at the control configuration and enactment in IS projects [96]. IS control
research that sheds light on inter-organizational settings has investigated the effectiveness of
control modes in internal and outsourced projects [87], the configuration of control portfolios in IT
outsourcing and offshoring projects [23, 40, 75, 79, 86], and the relationship between formal and
informal control in outsourced projects [83]. Control research on open-source projects has focused
on how control can be leveraged to influence developers’ motivations and behaviors (e.g., [72]).
More recent studies have also started to examine control in platform ecosystem settings;
Ghazawneh and Henfridsson [36] examined the relationship between control and boundary
resources on Apple’s iPhone platform, Wareham et al. [93] investigated the tension between
control and autonomy in a business software ecosystem, and Tiwana [85] analyzed the effects of
input control on the Firefox platform. Although all the mentioned studies have laid the
groundwork for understanding the nature, antecedents, and conditions of control modes in
traditional and more open contexts, there remains little understanding about how and why different
control modes, particularly self-control, affect controlees’ (i.e., third-party developers’) behaviors
and work outcomes in mobile software platform ecosystems.
In this study, we focus on self-control as an informal control mode for two main reasons. First, our
explicit theoretical focus was on the comparison between formal control modes and self-control
because these control modes can be considered two extremes on a continuum between hierarchical
and self-directed (laissez-faire) control arrangements. Thus, greater differences in the effects on
developer behaviors can be expected. Similar to self-control, clan control relies on individual
controlees to engage in self-regulated behavior without further formal controls [23]. Second, there
are different research streams on clan control with not yet established and agreed upon

7
measurements (e.g., [24, 58]) that would make including clan control in our empirical analysis
especially difficult. Therefore, we focused on the individual (i.e., developer) level of self-
regulation, which is captured by self-control.

3 Hypotheses Development
In the following, we develop our research model as illustrated in Figure 1. Our main argument is
that, in mobile platform ecosystems, (1) self-control has consistently stronger effects on third-party
developers’ perceived autonomy, continuance intentions, and delivered application quality than do
formal control modes (H1-H3), and (2) developers’ perceived autonomy mediates the effects of
self-control and therefore might explain how and why these effects occur (H4, H5).

Application
H1
quality
(AQ)

Control modes Perceived

H3
(Formal vs. autonomy
self-control (SC)) (PA)

H2 Continuance
Intention
(CI)
H4: SC  PA  AQ
H5: SC  PA  CI

Figure 1: Research Model

3.1 Differential Effect Hypotheses

Application Quality
One of the major performance outcomes of third-party developers in mobile platform ecosystems
is the quality of developed applications. Software quality can be defined from an internal or
external quality perspective [15]. Although internal quality refers to technical aspects such as
software structure, complexity, and development standards, we focus on external quality, referring
to users’ evaluations of an application’s functionality, usefulness, ease of use, and design [63].
That is, when judging the quality of an application, users usually draw on different system
indicators—related to a system’s purpose, behaviors, accessibility, and aesthetics—that together
form the perception of the application’s overall quality [50]. In the context of software platforms,
application quality is a particularly critical performance indicator for these platforms because the
end-user market usually rewards high-quality output with strong sales and penalizes low-quality
output with poor sales [84]. High-quality applications usually attract the lion’s share of user
attention, mostly through a high number of positive user reviews and downloads [37], which can
ultimately lead to, among other factors, higher revenues and stronger competitiveness for the
platform. Consequently, a constant supply of high-quality applications contributes to a platform
ecosystem’s health [44] through fomenting positive self-reinforcing network effects that foster fast
innovation cycles and strong user growth [51].
Under formal control conditions, controlees must comply with prespecified behaviors and
outcomes [56]. Controlees are urged to regularly verify and align their current activities and
preliminary results with the given requirements. Although formal control can help controlees to
ensure the internal quality of a product (i.e., software structure and standard conformance), such
control might result in lower awareness of the external quality of controlees’ work. Even worse,
prespecified and tightly regulated work often will likely result in an unenthusiastic, purely
compliant response that produces inertia rather than proactive endeavors [69]. As a result, tight
controls usually stifle controlees’ creativity and often interfere with their capabilities to reflect on
their own activities and decisions, resulting in less creative, decreased performance due to task
monotony, and more-compliant work outcomes [3, 65, 68]. In contrast, given the lack of
prespecified instructions on goals and procedures under self-control, individuals are able to be
more reflective about their work [56] and thus to think through their activities and goals.
Moreover, individuals are more likely to perceive their outcomes as depending upon their own
efforts, which motivates them to invest even more effort into their activities [92], resulting in
possibly better outcomes. Applying these arguments to software platforms, we stipulate that
developers generate higher quality applications under self-control than under formal control

8
because self-control creates working conditions that are more in line with developers’ personal
goals, ambitions, and self-interests. Therefore, we hypothesize the following:
H1: Third-party developers will produce higher quality applications under self-control than under
formal control.
Developers’ Continuance Intention
To build upon external capabilities and innovation, platform owners rely on third-party
developers’ willingness to be part of the platform ecosystem and to keep contributing applications
to the platform [16, 21]. We define third-party developers’ continuance intention as their
behavioral intention to remain in a specific ecosystem and develop apps for that software platform
[1]. Third-party developers who continue to develop and improve their applications increase the
platforms’ productivity, stability, and growth and are therefore contributing to a healthy ecosystem
[51]. In contrast, when developers or development studios do not intend to keep developing for a
platform and even churn to rival platforms, they are likely to unbalance the abandoned platform
through diminishing its innovative capacity2. Rival platforms and their customer bases might
benefit from the influx of developers and their new applications, which might ultimately nurture
network effects and thus critically shape a platform’s evolutionary trajectory [85].
Formal control modes are typically exercised by formulating goals and then monitoring, evaluating
and correcting, and sanctioning or rewarding controlees’ outcomes and processes accordingly [55].
The exercise of such formal control modes with its evaluating and correcting activities is often
associated with feelings of oppression that reduce controlees’ self-confidence and sense of
belonging [69]. In contrast, self-control is by definition devoid of such infringements by the
controller. Instead, given the enhanced degrees of freedom through self-regulation and the lack of
tedious obligations, controlees are more likely to continue working even in the face of negative
experiences [92]. This likelihood suggests that third-party developers will have a higher tendency
to keep contributing to and stay with a software platform (e.g., by submitting further applications
or updates to the platform) under self-control than under formal control modes. Therefore, we
postulate the following:
H2: Third-party developers will have a higher continuance intention under self-control than under
formal control.

Perceived Autonomy
Self-determination theory [28, 31] provides a useful psychological framework for understanding
the role of autonomy for individuals’ intrinsic motivations. Previous empirical studies drawing on
self-determination found that perceived autonomy is associated with less tension, higher self-
esteem, more creativity, and higher overall job satisfaction [3, 29]. In addition to individuals’
perceived competence and relatedness, it is individuals’ experience of autonomy in particular that
promotes intrinsic motivation for activities that lead to enhanced outcomes [31]. Although
autonomy refers to the general degree to which a job provides freedom, independence, and
discretion to the individual [41], it is the subjective perception of autonomy that empowers and
enables initiative and self-regulating work [59, 78]. In contrast to self-control, which is a means by
which a controller devolves control agency to controlees (e.g., through liberal goal setting and
procedures or a lack thereof), perceived autonomy taps into controlees’ subjective assessment of
how much independence and autonomy from the controller they generally feel.
Any infringements on individuals’ goals and endeavors from outside can reduce individuals’
perceived autonomy and satisfaction with their work. Self-control enables individuals to set their
own goals and to regulate themselves concerning their development activities. Such control is thus
likely to create a working environment that will be more favorable in supporting individuals’
desire to work autonomously in pursuit of their self-interests. Such support is realized largely
because self-control helps individuals strengthen their perception of autonomy through a feeling of
choice in initiating and regulating work-related activities or actions [29, 59]. Other forms of
regulations or procedures, such as formal control modes, can result in infringements on
individuals’ activities that are likely to hamper them from perceiving and exercising autonomy in

2
Negative effects would also occur if developers switched to other platform ecosystems based on
the same platform core (e.g., from Google Play to another Android-based platform ecosystem such
as Amazon Appshop) or if employed developers switched to another development studio to
contribute to a different software platform. We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this
consideration.

9
their daily work [69]. Applied to platform ecosystems, if platform owners implement self-control,
developers are likely to perceive and appreciate a higher degree of autonomy compared with
situations in which formal control modes are predominantly exercised. Accordingly, we suggest
the following:
H3: Third-party developers will perceive higher autonomy under self-control than under formal
control.
3.2 Mediation Effect Hypotheses
According to Ryan and Deci [76], the experience of competence and particularly autonomy are
essential for intrinsic motivation. Intrinsically motivated behaviors through higher autonomy are
usually considered more enjoyable, energizing, and self-fulfilling than are extrinsically motivated
behaviors [19, 28] and often lead to greater persistence in increasing the quality of the behaviors’
performance outcomes [67]. Employees are more likely to focus longer on a task and to go the
extra mile when they feel autonomous and intrinsically motivated [78], which in turn is likely to
result in better and more positive outcomes [31]. Studies even found a direct link between
autonomy together with creativity and innovativeness [2, 4]. Transferring these arguments to
software platforms, we argue that developers’ perceived autonomy plays a mediating role between
self-control and developers’ work-related outcomes. When third-party developers work under self-
control, they will initially recognize and appreciate a more autonomous working environment that
will then empower developers to put more effort into their activities and to improve the quality of
their outputs. Therefore, we suggest that self-control will result in higher quality applications
because of higher perceived autonomy.
H4: The effects of control modes (i.e., of self-control in particular) on application quality are
mediated by third-party developers’ perceived autonomy.
Feelings of autonomy help individuals to realize their own goals better in a social working
environment in which they are able to better identify themselves with the outcomes of their work
[3, 29]. Previous empirical research has shown that employees feel more satisfied with their
workplace in an organization when they are not under permanent scrutiny but have greater
freedom to act of their own volition to reach their personal achievements [41]. Individuals who are
intrinsically motivated through higher perceptions of autonomy perform a task out of interest,
enjoyment, and satisfaction [28] and are more likely to continue working even in the face of
negative experiences [92]. Such motivation is likely to be energized and sustainable over time and
is typically reflected in an individual’s intention to act [30]. Given that third-party developers
under self-control are less urged to deliver evaluation information to the platform owner and feel
fewer infringements, we argue that they will perceive higher autonomy. This higher autonomy, in
turn, is likely to translate into higher intentions to stay and keep contributing to the platform and
its ecosystem, given that they feel more self-determined and more committed under such
circumstances. We thus suggest that self-control will lead to higher continuance intentions because
of a higher perceived autonomy.
H5: The effects of control modes (i.e., of self-control in particular) on third-party developers’
continuance intention in platform ecosystems are mediated by developers’ perceived autonomy.

4 Research Studies and Results

To test our research hypotheses, we designed and conducted two empirical studies. The first study
is based on a controlled laboratory experiment (N = 138) in a mobile platform context that we
explicitly designed to establish a causal link between our principal independent and dependent
variables. We manipulated different control modes and isolated their effects from possible
confounding factors to provide the high internal validity required for applying and testing theories.
Because of the limitation of a rather artificial laboratory experiment, the focus of our second study
was to replicate and verify our laboratory findings in a context with high external and ecological
validity. We therefore employed a field survey (N = 230) with app developers of the Google
Android platform to analyze perceptions of control modes and their effects on application quality
and continuance intention through perceived autonomy in a natural platform ecosystem setting.
4.1 Study 1: Laboratory Experiment
4.1.1 Experimental Design, Treatments, and Subjects
The laboratory experiment simulated an Internet-based app development platform based on a self-
programmed mock-up designer who allowed potential developers to design and submit apps with

10
the aim of selling their app through a platform store. Although the mock-up designer was not a
perfect representative of a real and fully fledged app development environment, it reproduced the
most important app developing and publishing tasks to examine our research questions in a
controlled environment ensuring high internal validity. We used email and social network sites to
recruit subjects from a German university in exchange for a small participation fee (5€). Subjects
were seated in front of a laboratory computer and were introduced to the three parts of the
experiment.
The first part started with a pre-experimental questionnaire covering socio-demographic and
experience questions. Thereafter, each participant was exposed to the same baseline setup of our
development platform, which served as a common experience based on adaptation theory [45].
Thus, participants were able to establish a common frame of reference, ensuring that the context
and background of their experimental experiences were homogeneous across conditions and that
the disparities across different conditions were caused by our treatments. Participants were
instructed to step into the shoes of app developers to create a mobile app mock-up for a new
mobile platform and were introduced to the platform and its mock-up designer, including a tutorial
video. As incentive for creating the app, subjects were informed that the best app would be entered
into a lottery to win a tablet. In the second part, developers’ concrete task was to design a hotel app
for a customer with a freely chosen functionality and look-and-feel. On the basis of the results of a
pretest with 10 subjects, in which we varied the length of design time, participants were allowed
20 min to design the hotel app. Elements for the app could be filled in through drag-and-drop by
using the design kit from our self-programmed app designer. Typical design elements included
background styles, text fields, buttons, a selection of icons and images, and specific mobile
elements. Inserted elements could be further modified by changing their size, color, and style. A
pop-up window regularly reminded the subjects about the remaining time. In the third part,
subjects were forwarded to a postexperimental questionnaire. Subjects were surveyed on questions
concerning their perceived autonomy and continuance intention with the platform and
manipulation checks.
We employed control modes (i.e., output, process, and self-control) as treatments in a single-factor
between-subjects design [54]. Instructions for our treatments were consistent with
conceptualizations of control modes used in previous studies [e.g., 55]. They were presented as
platform owner guidelines on recommendations on how to be published in the platform store. All
instructions were inspired by the design guidelines of Apple or Google. After following these
instructions, participants still had sufficient time to follow their own ideas. In the process control
group, participants were required to follow a specific sequence of tasks to create their mobile app
mock-up. However, no specific output criteria (e.g., about the final design and appearance of the
mock-up) had to be fulfilled. For example, subjects should initially choose the background color of
the app, then write a title, insert buttons, and similar. In contrast, participants in the output control
condition were guided to fulfill specific output criteria. However, the sequence of implementing
these output standards was not prespecified but instead could be freely chosen by the participants.
For example, the app should have a bluish background and navigation buttons at the bottom of the
app screens. In the self-control condition, participants were instructed to organize themselves and
choose goals and procedures on their own when creating the app mock-up. The abovementioned
pretest also served to check and refine the wording of the instructions and to fine-tune the
experimental procedure using think-aloud methods. To obtain groups of approximately the same
size, we implemented a blocked randomization process [54]. Participants were assigned to a group
according to randomly permuted lists of the three groups.
In total, 145 students participated in our controlled laboratory experiment. The average duration of
the experimental sessions was 33.53 min (SD = 3.37). We dropped seven cases because of
technical problems during the experiment or inconsistencies in survey responses. This action
resulted in our final sample of 138 participants with an average age of 22.6 (SD = 4.5) years. We
had 48 in the process control group, 45 in the output control group, and 45 in the self-control
group (see Table 1). Eighty-three percent of the participants were male, and the gender distribution
was similar compared with real world app development [9, 25]. The majority of participants (i.e.,
90%) had a technical background involving studying computer science, business informatics, or
business engineering. Furthermore, approximately 75% (N=106) of the participants reported
strong experience in software development, app development, or design prototyping3.

3
Although student subjects may limit the generalizability of our findings, we considered
appropriate the use of student subjects for conducting an initial laboratory experiment [26].
11
4.1.2 Measurement Characteristics and Validation
For all latent constructs in the survey instrument, we adapted established and reflectively measured
scales from published studies (see Table 5 of the Appendix). Measures for continuance intention
were based on the behavioral intention construct of Agarwal and Karahanna [1] and adapted in
wording to continuance intention constructs used in previous studies (e.g., [8, 33, 50]).
Developers’ perceived autonomy was measured using three items derived from the self-
determination literature [31]. All questions were measured using a five-point Likert scale
(anchored at (1) = strongly disagree to (5) = strongly agree). Additionally, we collected control
variables and included manipulation checks in our experiment (see Control and Manipulation
Checks). Because of the pretest and manipulation checks, we are overall quite confident that the
participants correctly understood the survey items, instructions, and procedures.
For application quality, five experts (two IS academics and three IS practitioners) were invited
after the experiment to rate the designed apps from a customer’s point of view. We created a web-
based survey that randomly displayed the app screens together with a six-point Likert scale
[anchored at (1) = strongly disagree to (6) = strongly agree]. To induce a common baseline
understanding of application quality, the experts were shown 20 mock-up examples in advance,
together with a common definition of application quality with its key facets (i.e., functionality,
usefulness, ease of use, and design of the app [50, 63]). On the basis of the notion of capturing an
overall perception of application quality rather than specific facets, we measured the quality of the
app mock-up with a single item adapted from Wells, Valacich and Hess [94] together with
presenting the key facets of application quality. Given the high number of app mock-ups that had
to be evaluated, a one-item assessment was an acceptable compromise to balance expert rating
efforts with measurement accuracy. Previous studies showed that the predictive validity of single
items is comparable to multi-item measures [11, 77], in particular, when the rating object (e.g., the
app) and the rating attribute (e.g., application quality) are sufficiently concrete. The inter-rater
reliability among the five experts resulted in a Cronbach’s alpha of α = 0.85, indicating high
consistency between the raters [61].
The psychometric properties for all latent constructs were assessed by examining content validity,
convergent validity, and discriminant validity. For content validity, we developed questions for
indicators from previous research and performed pretests with 10 participants to check for
ambiguities. Convergent validity was evaluated using three criteria by Fornell and Larcker [34].
All loadings of the measurement items on their respective factors were significant (p < 0.05) and
above the recommended threshold value (should exceed 0.70), with the exception of one item in
perceived autonomy (0.691) that, however, remained in an acceptable range [22]. Composite
reliabilities of the constructs were all above 0.806 (should exceed 0.80), and the values for AVE
ranged from 0.582 to 0.819 (should exceed 0.50) (see Table 1 of the Appendix). Providing
evidence for discriminant validity, Table 2 of the Appendix shows that the square roots of the
AVE exceeded the corresponding interconstruct correlations. These results suggest that the latent
constructs in this study represent theoretically and empirically distinguishable concepts.
4.1.3 Control and Manipulation Checks
To confirm random assignments of subjects to the different experimental conditions, we performed
several one-way ANOVAs. There were no significant differences among the experimental
conditions in gender (F = 0.01, p > 0.05), age (F = 0.57, p > 0.05), usage of a smartphone
(F = 0.93, p > 0.05), experience in prototyping (F = 1.35, p > 0.05), or experience in software and
app development (F = 1.31, p > 0.05; F = 0.17, p > 0.05). Therefore, neither participants’
characteristics nor experience caused differences in their perceptions and intentions. To check the
manipulation of the different experimental conditions, we ran a MANOVA. We found a significant
overall effect (λ = 0.72, F [4,133] = 13.24, p < 0.001). Subjects in the process and output control
conditions indicated that they perceived significantly higher levels of external control than did
subjects in the self-control treatment. In summary, these results indicate that participants
understood the corresponding group instructions correctly and that the manipulations were
successful.

Students (in our case from a technical university with an IS or computer science background) often
develop web or mobile applications, and their general decision-making should be similar to a more
general population of app developers. Furthermore, students have been an important group of
subjects for experimental laboratory studies and field surveys in platform-related app development
[9, 90].

12
4.2 Laboratory Study Results
4.2.1 Comparison of Control Modes’ Differential Effects
First, a MANOVA test was conducted to test the differential effects of the control modes. The p-
values of Pillari’s trace, Wilks’ lambda, Hotelling’s trace, and Roy’s largest root were all
significant (p < 0.05). Second, the subsequent ANOVA tests conducted on our dependent variables
(see Table 1) revealed that control modes significantly affect perceived autonomy, application
quality, and continuance intention. Third, results of a follow-up planned contrast analysis (see
Table 2) further detailed the difference among the control groups; we observed that perceived
autonomy, application quality, and continuance intention were rated significantly higher in the
self-control condition compared with formal control, under both the process control and the output
control conditions. On the basis of these results, we could support H1, H2, and H3.
Process (N = 48) Output (N = 45) Self (N = 45) ANOVA
M(SD) M(SD) M(SD) df F Sig.
Perceived Autonomy 3.00 (0.76) 3.07 (0.88) 3.47 (0.88) 2 4.16 0.018
Application Quality 3.28 (0.89) 2.95 (0.89) 3.62 (0.74) 2 5.64 0.005
Continuance Intention 3.15 (0.83) 2.95 (0.98) 3.53 (0.95) 2 4.59 0.012
Table 1: ANOVA Results: Process vs. Output vs. Self-Control

Perceived Autonomy Application Quality Continuance Intention

Process vs. Self-Control Contrast 0.467 0.342 0.373
Sig. 0.004 0.0475 0.026
Output vs. Self-Control Contrast 0.467 0.677 0.578
Sig. 0.013 0.001 0.003
Table 2: Results of Planned Contrast Analysis among the Control Groups

4.2.2 Structural Model Assessment

For testing our full research model including the mediation mechanism, we used structural
equation modeling with partial least squares (PLS). With PLS, it is possible to test the
measurement model and the estimation of the structural model simultaneously (i.e., the
psychometric properties of the measurement scales and the strength and direction of the
relationship between the variables). Compared with covariance-based methods (e.g., LISREL),
PLS maximizes the explained variance of endogenous variables in the structural model [22], which
enables us to understand the amount of variance explained in the constructs, and PLS does not
make distributional assumptions for the data [22]. Despite recent criticism of using PLS-SEM and
follow-up rebuttals to this criticism ([47, 73]), Bodoff et al. summarized that “an emerging
balanced perspective on the main issues seems to have appeared, and PLS-SEM remains a
popular tool in IS research” [14, p. 401]. We used the software SmartPLS 2.0 M3 [71]. Some of
the main issues seen are sign-change correction, small sample size, non-normality, and formative
measures ([74]), none of which are applicable to our study (or analysis). For robust PLS
calculation, a minimum sample size of 10 times the maximum number of any paths in the model is
suggested [43], which our data exceeded, with N=138. Given that we could not find any significant
difference in comparing process and output control in our contrast analysis, we combined the
formal control groups into one group. To analyze the structural model, we created a binary dummy
variable (1=formal control, 2=self-control) to distinguish between the experimental conditions of
formal and self-control, which is in line with previous studies [10, 52]. For assessing the
significance levels of the paths, we used a bootstrapping procedure with no sign changes, mean
replacement algorithm, and 5000 resamples following recommendations by Hair, Sarstedt, Ringle,
and Mena [43]. In step 1, we analyzed the differential effects of the control modes on perceived
autonomy, application quality, and continuance intention. In step 2 and following
recommendations by Preacher and Hayes [70], we introduced perceived autonomy as mediating
mechanism into the structural model by inserting the path from perceived autonomy to
continuance intention and application quality.
The results in step 1 were consistent with our ANOVA findings concerning path coefficients. We
found positive and significant direct effects of self-control on perceived autonomy (β = 0.26,
p < 0.01), on application quality (β = 0.31; p < 0.001), and on continuance intention (β = 0.24;
p < 0.001). The structural model successfully explained variances in perceived autonomy
(R2 = 0.07), in application quality (R2 = 0.10), and in continuance intention (R2 = 0.06). In step 2
(shown in Figure 2), perceived autonomy had a significantly positive effect on application quality
(β = 0.32, p < 0.01) and on continuance intention (β = 0.40, p < 0.001). Because of perceived
autonomy’s effect, the model successfully explained a considerably higher portion of variance in

13
application quality (R2 = 0.17) and continuance intention (R2 = 0.21). Concerning our mediation
hypotheses, we found a significant indirect effect of control modes on application quality through
perceived autonomy (β = 0.08, p < 0.05), with a decreased significant direct effect on application
quality (β = 0.18, p < 0.05). Perceived autonomy thus partially mediated the relationship between
control modes (i.e., self-control) and application quality in support of H4. Furthermore, we found a
significant and fully mediated indirect effect (β = 0.11, p < 0.01) from control modes to
continuance intention through perceived autonomy, given that the direct effect on continuance
intention became nonsignificant (β = 0.13, p > 0.05), in support of H5.

0.18* Application
quality
R2 = 0.17
0.32***
0.26** Perceived
Control modes
autonomy
(1= FC, 2=SC)
R2 = 0.07
0.40***
Continuance
0.13n.s.
Intention
R2 = 0.21
Note. *** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05; non-sig., sig.
FC = formal control; SC = self-control.

Figure 2: Final Results of Laboratory Study SEM Analysis

The laboratory experiment in this first study speaks to the internal validity by establishing a causal
link between our principal independent and dependent variables in a controlled environment.
However, the rather artificial characteristics of a laboratory experiment (e.g., students as
participants and the self-programmed mock-up designer to manipulate control modes) limit the
external validity of this study, and one might wonder whether the observed relationships are
replicable in a natural mobile platform ecosystem setting with real-life developers. Consequently,
we conducted a follow-up field survey with app developers of a real software platform to replicate
and verify our laboratory findings and to provide external and ecological validity. The pairing of
laboratory and field studies allows compensating for the disadvantages of one study with
advantages of the other study (i.e., providing internal and external validity) and represents a form
of triangulation.

4.3 Study 2: Field Survey

4.3.1 Data Collection and Sample Description
To analyze our hypotheses in the field, we created an online survey instrument to collect data with
Android app developers. As is typical for a two-sided platform, third-party developers are enabled
to develop third-party apps for Android devices through provided software development kits.
Developed apps can then be published and sold through the Google Play Store to the platform’s
customer base. The usage of the Android OS is mostly free and open source. However, device
manufactures and app developers must rely on or cooperate with platform owner Google;
proprietary and nonopen software is also published through the Play Store [12]. The Play Store
offered more than 2.6 million apps at the end of 2016 [81]. Since its launch in 2008, the Play Store
has experienced more than 65 billion app downloads worldwide, and Google has generated more
than $31 billion with its operating system [13, 80]. We therefore believe that Android app
developers are an appropriate surrogate for the mobile app market in our field study.
To obtain contact details of Android app developers and consistent with previous app developer
studies [9], we randomly collected data in the Google Play Store (i.e., contact information and data
concerning their published apps) from Android app developers by using a self-developed web-
crawler. We sent a link to our online survey questionnaire to approximately 8000 developers.
Following up with a description of the study’s purpose and its anonymity and confidentiality, we
asked recipients to send the survey link to their lead developer, who could serve as key informant
[62]. As incentives, participants could receive a management report with the core results of the
study and were entered into a lottery for a tablet, an e-book reader, or Amazon gift cards. Our
survey was started by 526, resulting in a common response rate in such settings of 6.58%. A total
of 236 developers finished the survey, from which we removed six cases due to implausibly short
completion times or inconsistencies in survey responses, resulting in a final sample size of N=230.
Nonresponse bias [5] was assessed by comparing socio-demographics and responses to principal
study constructs of early (first 50) and late respondents (last 50). T-tests between the means of the

14
two groups showed no significant differences (all p > 0.05), which indicated that nonresponse bias
was unlikely to be an issue in this study.
Participants in our field study were largely male (93.5%), similar to our laboratory experiment and
to real word app development [66, 67], and aged between 25 and 34 (38.3%). The largest fractions
of respondents were hobby/private (42.6%) and self-employed app developers (33%), followed by
employed developers (17.4%). This breakdown into hobby, self-employed/freelance, and
employed developers is consistent with previous field survey studies in a Google Android platform
context (e.g., Benlian et al. 2015)4. Experience in software development was generally greater than
5 years and from 1 to 5 years for app development in particular. Participants have mostly
developed apps for the Android platform; 51.7% have developed exclusively for Android. Sample
demographics are shown in Table 3.
Gender N % Software development experience N %
Male 215 93.5% < 1 year 22 9.6%
Female 10 4.3% 1–3 years 39 17.0%
Age N % 3–5 years 30 13.0%
15–24 42 18.3% 5–7 years 26 11.3%
25–34 88 38.3% > 7 years 113 49.1%
35–44 61 26.5% App development experience N %
44–64 37 16.1% < 1 year 23 9.1%
65+ 1 0.4% 1–3 years 99 43.0%
Employment N % 3–5 years 65 28.3%
Employed (company) 40 17.4% 5–7 years 24 10.4%
Independent/freelancer 16 7.0% > 7 years 19 8.3%
Hobbyist or private 98 42.6% Number of developed apps for … Mean SD
Self-employed 76 33.0% … Android 7.11 8.88
Multiple Platforms N % … Apple 2.37 6.03
Yes 111 48.3% … Windows Phone 0.50 3.22
No 119 51.7% … Blackberry 0.06 0.68
Table 3: Sample Demographic (N = 230)

4.3.2 Measurement Characteristics and Validation

Measures for the three control modes were adapted from Tiwana and Keil [87], which were based
on the original control measures of prior studies from Kirsch, Sambamurthy, Dong-Gil, and Purvis
[59]. Measures for perceived autonomy and continuance intention were analogous to our
laboratory study with only slight adjustments to the field setting, and all questions were measured
with a seven-point Likert scale. We again conducted a pretest to check and refine the wording of
the instructions and to ensure that participants correctly understood the survey questions.
Construct items and their sources are shown in Table 6 of the Appendix. For application quality,
we based our measurement on objective data from the Google Play Store. We ran our web crawler
again after the survey was conducted, collected participants’ app portfolio data, and averaged the
rating scores of their published apps5. To account for alternative explanations, we included the
following control variables: participants’ age, gender, years of experience in app development, size
of their app portfolio in the platform store (i.e., the number of published apps), and the average
number of installations of apps in their app portfolio.
Psychometric properties were assessed analogously to our laboratory study and are presented in
Table 3 of the Appendix together with the means of the provided answers. All loadings of the
measurement items on their respective factors were significant (p < 0.05). However, we dropped
one item of perceived autonomy and one item of process control due to a low factor loading (<
0.60). All other loadings of the measurement items on their respective factors were on par with or
greater than the recommended threshold value. Composite reliabilities were all greater than 0.813,
and AVE values ranged from 0.691 to 0.910. Table 4 in the Appendix indicates that all square

4
Although hobby and self-employed/freelance app developers may have a higher level of
autonomous decision-making than do employed app developers, we nevertheless believe that
employed developers also have a substantial amount of leeway in how they continuously engage in
a mobile platform ecosystem and in how they ensure application quality.
5
As a robustness check against potential distortions from using the mean of rating scores, we ran
an alternative model by using the median of rating scores as a measure for application quality,
which is statistically less prone to distortions. The results did not change qualitatively.

15
roots of the AVE exceeded the corresponding interconstruct correlations. Hence, the constructs in
our second study represent theoretically and empirically distinguishable concepts.
4.4 Field Study Results
Analogously to our laboratory study, we used SEM-PLS (SmartPLS) with a bootstrapping
procedure with no sign changes, mean replacement algorithm, and 5000 resamples. Before
analyzing our hypotheses, we initially tested for alternative explanations by analyzing the effects
of our control variables on the model’s dependent variables. We did not find any significant effects
of developers’ age, gender, experience in app development, app portfolio size or number of app
installations on perceived autonomy, application quality, or continuance intention (all p > 0.05).
In the structural model of step 1, we found significantly positive effects of self-control on
perceived autonomy (β = 0.41; p < 0.001) and on continuance intention (β = 0.24; p < 0.01),
whereas the effect on application quality was only marginally significant (β = 0.23; T = 1.84,
p < 0.10). With regard to process and outcome control, we could not identify any significant
effects on perceived autonomy, continuance intention, or application quality (all p > 0.05). The
structural model successfully explained variance in perceived autonomy (R2 = 0.19), in
continuance intention (R2 = 0.09), and in application quality (R2 = 0.06).
To analyze the differential effects of formal versus self-control in our PLS Model, we followed
procedures recommended by Sarstedt and Wilczynski [77] by comparing bootstrapping results for
the path coefficients of the control modes based on paired sample t-tests. As given in Table 3, self-
control had a consistently and significantly stronger effect on perceived autonomy, continuance
intention, and application quality than did process and output control. We repeated all paired t-
tests based on Bonferroni-adjusted significance tests and found no substantial differences. These
findings are in support of H1, H2, and H3.
Path coefficient 1 Path coefficient 2 t-value p-value
From To β-value From To β-value
SC PA 0.41 PC PA 0.08 171.19 <0.001
SC PA 0.41 OC PA -0.04 379.81 <0.001
SC CI 0.24 PC CI 0.09 8.47 <0.001
SC CI 0.24 OC CI 0.16 4.90 <0.001
SC AQ 0.21 PC AQ 0.03 98.55 <0.001
SC AQ 0.21 OC AQ 0.08 86.16 <0.001
Note(1): SC = self-control; OC = output control; PC = process control; PA = perceived autonomy;
CI = continuance intention; AQ = application quality
Note(2): t- and p-values in this table refer to bootstrapping results for comparing path coefficients 1 and
2 of the different control modes based on paired sample t-tests [77].
Table 4: Results from Paired T-Tests of Path Coefficients

For analyzing our mediation hypothesis, we again followed recommendations by Preacher and
Hayes [70]. After introducing perceived autonomy as a mediator variable in step 2 (see Figure 3),
the variance explained in continuance intention slightly increased (R2 = 0.11) due to the significant
positive effect of perceived autonomy (β = 0.18; p < 0.05). However, we found no significant
effect of perceived autonomy on application quality (β = -0.003; p > 0.05). Self-control had neither
an indirect nor a direct significant effect on application quality (both p > 0.05); thus, H4 must be
rejected. However, self-control had a significant indirect effect on continuance intention through
perceived autonomy (β = 0.07; p < 0.05), whereas self-control’s direct effect on continuance
intention decreased and became nonsignificant (β = 0.16; p > 0.05). Perceived autonomy thus fully
mediated the relationship between self-control and continuance intention, supporting H5.6

6
As a post hoc remedy against selection bias, we calculated our model including only employed
app developers. Results are qualitatively consistent with our full model. Self-control has stronger
or similar effects compared with formal control modes and has a significant indirect effect on
continuance intention through perceived autonomy. This provides evidence that selection bias may
not be a major issue.

16
 0.11n.s.

0.04n.s. Application
quality
Process R2 = 0.06
control 0.06n.s.
-0.003n.s.
0.08n.s.

Output
.18n.s.
Control

-0.03n.s.
Perceived 0.18* Continuance
autonomy Intention
R2 = 0.19 R2 = 0.11
0.41***
0.16n.s.
Self -
control
0.23n.s.

Note. *** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05; non-sig., sig.

Figure 3: Final Results of Field Study SEM Analysis

5 Discussion
5.1 Key Findings
The main objectives of this research were to investigate whether and why formal and self-control
modes exert differential downstream effects on developers’ individual work outcomes and
continuance intention in mobile platform ecosystems and to examine the role of third-party
developers’ perceived autonomy as a crucial underlying theoretical mechanism. Two key findings
can be derived from our studies. First, our findings show that self-control is not only superior to
formal control in strengthening developers’ continuance intention in mobile platform ecosystems
but also simultaneously enables a similar, if not even higher, level of application quality. In
particular, the results of both studies revealed that self-control exhibited consistently stronger
effects on developers’ continuance intention and delivered relatively better application quality than
did formal control. Second, our studies show that developers’ perceived autonomy serves as an
important driving force and enabler through which self-control affects developer outcomes and
intentions. More specifically and because we found evidence for significant mediation
mechanisms for application quality (in our laboratory study) and for continuance intention (across
both studies), developers’ perceived autonomy provides a central explanatory argument for why
self-control is more effective than formal control in enhancing developers’ work outcomes and
continuous intentions.
Two specific findings merit further discussion. First, it is noteworthy that the results of the
laboratory experiment show that the link between control modes and continuance intention is fully
mediated by perceived autonomy, but the link between control modes and application quality is
only partially mediated. We surmise that perceived autonomy may only partially mediate the
effects of control modes on application quality because application quality is a more distal
outcome variable than continuance intention and might be affected by control modes through
various other (as-yet-undiscovered or unexamined) mediating mechanisms as well (e.g.,
developers’ overall creativity, capabilities in user experience design, and capabilities in product-
market fit assessment) [99]. Continuance intentions, on the other hand, are developers’ behavioral
intentions to keep contributing to a platform, which is we believe more directly and more
immediately affected by developers’ perceived autonomy. Given that perceived autonomy is an
essential factor fostering individuals’ intrinsic motivation to engage in behavioral intentions and
actual behaviors [30], it is conceivable that it captures much of the effects of control modes on
developers’ continuance intention. The implication of this difference is that, through the impact of
control modes, platform developers’ perceived autonomy is differentially effective in increasing
application quality and continuance intention. Although control modes seem to be closely related
to and associated with continuance intention through perceived autonomy, this chain of
relationships is comparatively weaker for application quality, which means that factors other than
perceived autonomy have to be taken into account to influence application quality.

17
Second, with regard to the null results for the direct and indirect effects of control modes on
application quality in our field study, a plausible explanation could be that various other and
arguably more important factors affect application quality in app development settings in general
and in the Android context in particular. As such, factors such as developers’ financial resources or
expected reputational rewards might have overridden the effects of control modes and perceived
autonomy on application quality altogether [38, 49].
In summary, our research findings provide insights into the efficacy of different control modes on
mobile app platforms and present a step forward in understanding the tension between retaining
and relinquishing control in platform ecosystems.

5.2 Theoretical Contributions

From a theoretical standpoint, our findings show that self-control rather than formal control is
conducive to increasing both developers’ objective work outcomes (i.e., application quality) and
subjective perceptions about their behaviors (i.e., developers’ continuance intention) in software
platform ecosystems. These findings are all the more important to understand because platform
ecosystems cannot exist or prosper without the contributions of developers who are willing and
able to continuously contribute high-quality applications to the platform and its marketplace [21,
88]. Previous studies of control effects in IS development have only touched upon whether control
modes differentially relate to developer performance outcomes and behaviors (e.g., [53]).
However, to understand better the relative efficacy of control modes, it is important to fathom
whether all types of controls shape developer outcomes and behaviors differentially or similarly.
On the basis of our analysis, we find that the emergence of software platform ecosystems causes
some types of control to be more prominent than others are. We also show that it is advantageous
in heterogeneous and distributed networks of work to rely more on developers’ self-control and
perceived autonomy than on more stringent and stricter measures of control. Our study is one of
the first we are aware of to establish the heightened importance of self-control and perceived
autonomy as drivers to increase third-party developers’ intentions to contribute continuously to a
software platform ecosystem and its delivered output quality.
Our study responds to several research calls on analyzing control modes in a mobile software
platform context [89, 93] and therefore contributes to IS control theory [27] by analyzing different
control modes in a yet underexplored setting. Our study thereby advances the platform governance
literature by highlighting the shifting balance between formal and informal control mechanisms in
platform ecosystems with regard to their effects on developers’ outcomes and behaviors. More
broadly, our study’s findings point toward a more balanced, more cooperative, and less
hierarchical power relationship between platform owners and third-party developers, which is in
line with the assumption that conventional control mechanisms might be less viable in loosely
coupled organizational structures [69]. Thus, our study also responds to calls for research into the
mechanisms through which self-control might lead to positive outcomes in terms of output quality
in software development [64]. In a similar vein, Tiwana [85] noted that the exercise of traditional
control modes might be hampered in a software platform context. Nevertheless, platform owners
should not solely build on self-regulating control modes, given the possible adverse effects of
insufficient or too liberal control [18].
A second theoretical contribution of this study relates to the explanation of why control modes
affect third-party developers’ behaviors and performance. Previous control studies in IS research
have treated the relationship between control modes and performance outcomes largely as a black
box. However, our study took a theory-driven approach to identifying third-party developers’
perceived autonomy from self-determination theory as an explanatory mechanism, thereby
contributing to an advanced understanding of why self-control affects developers’ behaviors and
their performance outcomes in platform ecosystems. To self-determination theory, we contribute
the finding that perceived autonomy is not only an important motivational force in traditional
organizational settings but also in platform-related contexts. Finally, in contrast to beliefs that self-
control mechanisms attract masses of third-party developers who produce only poor quality
applications due to a lack of direction and integrity [42], our findings provide initial evidence that
self-control seems not only to increase developers’ continuance intention in platform ecosystems
compared with formal control but can also facilitate the contribution of higher quality applications
to the platform. This finding underscores the importance of self-regulatory forces in directing
developers’ work [64, 98] and shows that, stated colloquially, letting a thousand flowers grow can
be positive for the health of platform ecosystems [16, 51].

18
5.3 Practical Contributions
Our results also have important implications for practice. For platform owners who are trying to
attract and motivate developers to contribute to their platform or to sustain developers’
commitment, it is imperative to understand which types of control modes are likely to generate
more (or less) output quality and developer participation. Our study suggests that self-control is
more effective than formal control modes in generating higher continuance intention, but
simultaneously encouraging developers to deliver higher quality applications. Platform owners
might therefore benefit from this study by carefully testing and monitoring the relative
effectiveness of different formal control mechanisms vis-à-vis self-control on their software
platforms in different areas. For encouraging and supporting third-party developers in exercising
self-control, platform owners might structure the platform environment appropriately. They might
provide crucial informational cues and statistics that are necessary and useful for making self-
directed decisions (e.g., contribution and performance statistics, data from market research, and
user behaviors) and offer training for self-management and examples for best-practice behaviors
and decisions.
Second, our experimental findings underscore the need for software platform owners to recognize
and leverage third-party developers’ autonomy as a critical asset. On the basis of our studies’
findings, too much infringement on developers’ plans and endeavors could undermine their
willingness to stay with and contribute higher quality apps to a platform ecosystem and thus might
backfire in the end. Consequently and consistent with previous recommendations [98], we
therefore suggest that in contrast to classical hard power instruments such as financial incentives
or sanctions, platform owners should increasingly embrace more soft power instruments to bring
developers onto a common path. Such social governance instruments can emphasize the use of
intangible resources (e.g., private market intelligence or planning information) to build legitimacy
and trust and persuade developers to consider shared goals and a compelling platform vision. We
emphasize, however, that managers should not treat self-control mechanisms as the only or central
governance device [23] but rather as an integral component next to other traditional governance
mechanisms such as programming guides, design guidelines, or even contractual arrangements in
the sense of boundary resources [36].
5.4 Limitations and Further Research
Although our study offers several important contributions, we here note limitations that provide
opportunities for future research. First, although we were able to examine our hypotheses across
two different mobile platform settings, our study results might not be representative for all types of
software platform ecosystems. Although the field survey was able to reproduce our findings of the
laboratory study with strong external validity, entailing strong internal validity for analyzing
causal relationships, one must be cautious when transferring results of the rather artificial
laboratory study (e.g., students as participants and self-programmed mock-up designer to
manipulate control modes) to other contexts. To strengthen further the external validity of our
findings, we advise future research to compare the relative effectiveness of control modes on other
real-world platform ecosystem settings. These settings could be, for example, not only other
mobile platforms (e.g., Apple App Store) but also Internet browsers (e.g., Mozilla Firefox), social
networking sites (e.g., Facebook), or platforms in a business-to-business context (e.g.,
AppExchange from Salesforce). Given that our participants in the field study were predominately
hobby and self-employed developers, further studies might also include a broader mix of
professionally employed and independent third-party developers to shed more light on the
differential effects of control modes for different types of developers.
Second, to investigate the distinct effects of control modes, we treated formal and self-control
mechanisms as dichotomous, mutually exclusive phenomena. However, we are aware that in
reality, a variety of different controls are not only applied simultaneously as part of larger control
portfolios but also used at different levels of control (i.e., organizational, group, or individual
level). A fruitful avenue for future research might thus be to study the complementary or
substitutive effects of different control modes in platform ecosystems that can transcend multiple
levels of analysis and influence developer decisions accordingly. This avenue also includes
hitherto largely neglected control modes in IS research such as clan control and input control [85,
95]. Likewise, platform boundary resources [36] might complement traditional formal control
modes in platform ecosystem settings. Future research might therefore incorporate the effects of
programming interfaces, module structures, or partner programs into their studies. Our measures of
development experience used in the field study were also relatively vague and abstract and could
have been more nuanced. Future studies may investigate how different types of development
experience (e.g., experiences in backend vs. frontend development or in (operating) system vs.
19
web vs. mobile app programming) are associated with different control modes and how they
differentially affect perceived autonomy, continuance intention, and application quality.
Third, just as selection biases distort almost all surveys because of different motives and the cost
to participate in surveys, our field study results might have been distorted by a self-selection bias
as manifested in the high proportion of independent third-party developers in our dataset.
Although we performed a post hoc remedy against selection bias and our sample distribution is
similar to previous app developer studies (e.g., [9]), future research should take care that the
sample is more representative of the larger base population. Finally, the variance explained in the
dependent variables in our structural models was rather low. While the focus of our study was to
analyze the differential effects of control modes, many other factors obviously influence
developers’ continuance intention in platform ecosystems and the quality of their work outcomes,
particularly in a real-life platform ecosystem setting. Although we controlled for several important
confounds, future studies are advised to consider additional factors and moderators to maximize
the variance explained in our dependent variables (e.g., competitive intensity between developers,
multihoming scenarios, customer demands and willingness to pay, other financial incentives and
reputational rewards, or marketing and cross-selling strategies). Further down this value chain, it
would also be interesting to understand how different control modes affect other success indicators
of platforms, such as app downloads and platform owners’ revenues over time.

6 Conclusion
We believe that examining the differential effects of control modes in software platform
ecosystems is a rich avenue for future research. By using the synergistic properties of a laboratory
and field study, we attempted to address this gap in the IS control literature. Overall, our results
highlight the importance of examining the relative effectiveness of distinct control modes across
different mobile platform settings and of uncovering the explanatory mechanisms that account for
such effects. We hope this study provides fresh impetus to researchers and practitioners to refine
our understanding of third-party developer behaviors and contributions with regard to platform
ecosystems.

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Appendix

Mean (SD) Loading Range Composite Average Variance

Reliability Extracted
Control Modes (CM) Single-item
Perceived Autonomy (PA) 3.20 (0.85) 0.691–0.831 0.806 0.582
Continuance Intention (CI) 3.21 (0.94) 0.855–0.933 0.931 0.819
Application Quality (AQ) 3.31 (0.88) 0.712–0.868 0.907 0.646
Table 1: Reliability and validity and distribution statistics of latent variable scores of the laboratory
study

CM PA CI AQ
Control Modes (CM) single-item
Perceived Autonomy (PA) 0.259 0.763
Continuance Intention (CI) 0.235 0.432 0.905
Application Quality (AQ) 0.268 0.370 0.154 0.804
Table 2: Square root of AVE (bolded cells) and correlations of latent variable scores of laboratory
study

Mean (SD) Loading Range Composite Average Variance

Reliability Extracted
Process Control (PC) 4.76 (1.20) 0.863–0.890 0.907 0.765
Output Control (OC) 3.34 (1.47) 0.816–0.859 0.905 0.704
Self-Control (SC) 6.28 (1.00) 0.808–0.886 0.891 0.732
Perceived Autonomy (PA) 4.76 (1.14) 0.693–0.951 0.813 0.691
Continuance Intention (CI) 6.26 (1.06) 0.919–0.980 0.968 0.910
Application Quality (AQ) 4.02 (0.62) Single item
Table 3: Reliability and validity and distribution statistics of latent variable scores of the field study

PC OC SC PA CI AQ
Process Control (PC) 0.875
Output Control (OC) 0.252 0.839
Self-Control (SC) 0.168 -0.203 0.856
Perceived Autonomy (PA) 0.138 -0.098 0.432 0.831
Continuance Intention (CI) 0.159 0.147 0.213 0.432 0.954
Application Quality (AQ) 0.103 0.069 0.214 0.092 -0.035 single item
Table 4: Square root of AVE (bolded cells) and correlations of latent variable scores of field study

25
Constructs Indicators Source
Perceived While designing the app, I felt that I was influenced. (Reversed coded) [31]
autonomy While designing the app, I felt independent.
While designing the app, I was autonomous to decide on my course of
actions.
Continuance If available, I would expect my use of such a platform including similar [1]
Intention instructions to continue in the future.
If available, I would intend to continue using such a platform including
similar instructions in the future.
If available, I would plan to keep using such a platform including similar
instructions in the future.
Manipulation The instructions on the app development platform indicated me to Developed by
checks … follow a specific sequence of tasks/steps to create the app. the authors
… fulfill specific output criteria regarding the app’s design.
Application The app mock-up has a high overall quality. [94]
quality
Note: All items measured with a 5-point Likert scare, anchored at (1) = strongly disagree and (5) = strongly agree
Table 5: Measurement items and sources of the laboratory study

Construct Indicators Source

Process The platform owner Google ... [59, 87]
Control ... expects developers to follow an understandable written sequence of steps
toward developing and publishing apps on the platform.
... expects developers to follow an understandable written sequence of steps
to ensure the satisfaction of the users.
... expects developers to follow an understandable written sequence of steps
to ensure the success of the platform.
*... assesses the extent to which developers follow existing written
procedures and practices during the development and publishing process.
Output The platform owner Google places significant weight on ... [59, 87]
Control … timely project completion (app development, app updates).
... completion within development budget.
... meeting functional and visual requirements.
... accomplishing pre-established targets as benchmarks for app evaluations.
Self-Control I self-manage my app development process on the platform. [59, 87]
I set specific goals for my app project without the platform owner’s
involvement.
I define specific procedures for my app project’s activities without the
platform owner’s involvement.
Perceived During app development for the Android platform... [31]
autonomy ... I’m autonomous to decide on my own course of actions.
... I feel independent from the platform owner Google.
* ... I feel influenced from the platform owner Google. (Reverse coded)
Continuance I plan to use the Android platform for app development in the future. [1]
Intention I intend to continue using the Android platform for app development in the
future.
I expect my use of the Android platform for app development in the future.
Note: All items measured with a 7-point Likert scare, anchored at (1) = strongly disagree and (7) = strongly agree
* Dropped due to low factor loading (<0.60)
Table 6: Measurement items and sources of the field study

26
Author Information

Tobias Goldbach – Darmstadt University of Technology (TU Darmstadt), Darmstadt, Germany

Tobias Goldbach is a PhD candidate at the Chair of Information Systems and Electronic Services,
Darmstadt University of Technology (TU Darmstadt), Germany. He graduated in Applied Computer
Science (Diploma) at the University of Applied Sciences Fulda and in Information Systems (M.Sc.) at the
University of Bamberg. His work has been published in international conference proceedings such as in the
proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) and the European Conference
on Information Systems (ECIS). His research interests include software platforms, platform governance,
and IS control modes.

Darmstadt University of Technology (TU Darmstadt)

Department of Business, Economics and Law
Chair of Information Systems & E-Services
Hochschulstr. 1
64289 Darmstadt, Germany
goldbach@ise.tu-darmstadt.de
phone +49 – 6151 16–75900
fax +49 – 6151 16–4301

Alexander Benlian – Darmstadt University of Technology (TU Darmstadt), Darmstadt, Germany

Alexander Benlian is a chaired Professor of Information Systems, especially Electronic Services, at

Darmstadt University of Technology (TU Darmstadt), Germany. His work has been published in
international journals such as Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of Service Research,
Decision Support Systems, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Journal of the Association for
Information Systems, European Journal of Information Systems, Information Systems Journal, and Journal
of Business Economics. His research interests include software platforms, software-as-a-service, and digital
business models.

Darmstadt University of Technology (TU Darmstadt)

Department of Business, Economics and Law
Chair of Information Systems & E-Services
Hochschulstr. 1
64289 Darmstadt, Germany
benlian@ise.tu-darmstadt.de
phone +49 – 6151 16–4309
fax +49 – 6151 16–4301

Peter Buxmann – Darmstadt University of Technology (TU Darmstadt), Darmstadt, Germany

Peter Buxmann is a Professor at the Technische Universität Darmstadt (TU Darmstadt). His research
interests are the economic principles of the Software and Social Media Industry as well as Information
Management and the Future Internet Economy. Peter is an author and a coauthor of more than 200
publications in international journals such as Information Systems Research (ISR), Information Systems

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Journal (ISJ), European Journal on Information Systems (EJIS), Journal of Information Technology (JIT),
and in proceedings of international conferences (e.g. ICIS, ECIS).

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Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge the House of IT e. V. for supporting this work with a research grant.
The second author’s research is supported by a grant of the German Science Foundation (DFG) for
the research project “OpenEco: Input Control Practices and their Implications for Software
Platform Ecosystems”7 (Grant No. BE 4308/3-1).

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http://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/321298175?language=en

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