Barriers for the Advancement of an API Economy in the German Automotive Industry and Potential Measures to Overcome these Barriers

摘要

The API Economy is a type of service ecosystem that emerged due to organizations using Web APIs to provide third parties with access to their resources, i.e., functionality or data. It is argued that participation in the API economy creates value and offers strategic advantages to API providers. However, there are sectoral differences within the API Economy, with specific sectors being more advanced than others. Since there are currently no explanations for these differences between sectors, this research aims at providing insights into barriers inhibiting the advancement of the API Economy as well as potential measures to overcome these barriers for a specific sector, the automotive industry. We apply a Grounded Theory Methodology approach based on interviews with 21 experts from OEMs, automotive suppliers, consultants, mobility start-ups, and insurance firms. As a result, we present 14 legal, economic, social, technological, and organizational barriers. Furthermore, we derive five measures to overcome these barriers.