A Platform for The Greater Good: How Can Digital Platforms Facilitate Social Innovation?
(A2025-125136)

AUTHORS

Ruiqi Wei, Emlyon Business School

ABSTRACT

This study examines the role of digital platforms as facilitators of social innovation, focusing on how they can drive sustainable and scalable solutions to societal challenges. Through a longitudinal case study of a logistics company’s carbon management platform, the study explores how digital platforms support social innovation by connecting stakeholders, providing governance mechanisms, and leveraging network effects to scale sustainable solutions. The findings reveal that digital platforms serve as critical enablers for fostering collective responsibility and vision, enhancing legitimacy and creating scalable impacts through network effects. This study proposes a platform-based approach to addressing grand challenges. It enriches the platform literature by linking the literature to the sustainability perspective. The study also contributes to the B2B literature by proposing how platforms can function as infrastructure for collective participation and stakeholder governance.