Understanding Digital Platforms: Types of Platforms and Their Evolution in the Organizational Context

Introduction

Innovations in multimedia have been spreading around organizations in different forms and shapes. Gradually, knowledge management tools became cornerstones within organizations to ensure that professionals can leverage organizational knowledge to its most. Among the emerging multimedia innovations adopted by organizations, the use of digital platforms became one of the most promising ones. Thus, the purpose of this chapter is to provide the reader with an overview of what digital platforms are and how the concept of platform evolved over time. First, in this chapter we provide a literature review that studied platforms over the last decades; second, we elaborate on why it is crucial to understand how platforms function; third, we provide the reader with some real examples of knowledge sharing platforms to illustrate their knowledge management potential; and finally, we provide perspective on promising research streams within this field.