From Drift to Central Guidance: A Path Constitution Perspectivce on the Platformization on an Information Infrastructure

Responding to competitive pressures arising from digitalization, traditional companies are increasingly turning towards platform strategies to gain speed in the development of digital value propositions and overcome rigidities of pre-existing information technology landscapes. Based on a case study of the LEGO Group’s digitalization journey, this paper elaborates how brick-and-mortar companies can break away from a drifting information infrastructure and trigger its transformation into a digital platform. The case analysis conceptualizes information infrastructure evolution as a path-dependent process and develops a process model on the creation of a new ‘platformization’ path through mindful deviations by architects that guide collective action. This perspective depicts the transformation journey as a process of socio-technical path constitution that is shaped by deliberate human interventions and emergent forces from path dependencies.