Digital platforms hold a central position in today's world economy and are said to offer a great potential for the economies and societies in the global South. Yet, to date, the scholarly literature on digital platforms has largely concentrated on business while their developmental implications remain understudied. In part, this is because digital platforms are a challenging research object due to their lack of conceptual definition, their spread across different regions and industries, and their intertwined nature with institutions, actors and digital technologies. The purpose of this article is to contribute to the ongoing debate in information systems and ICT4D research to understand what digital platforms mean for development. To do so, we first define what digital platforms are and differentiate between transaction and innovation platforms, and explain their key characteristics in terms of purpose, research foundations, material properties and business models. We add the socio-technical context digital platforms operate and the linkages to developmental outcomes. We then conduct an extensive review to explore what current areas, developmental goals, tensions and issues emerge in the literature on platforms and development and identify relevant gaps in our knowledge. We later elaborate on six research questions to advance the studies on digital platforms for development: on indigenous innovation, digital platforms and institutions, on exacerbation of inequalities, on alternative forms of value, on the dark side of platforms and on the applicability of the platform typology for development.

中文翻译：

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促进发展的数字平台：基础和研究议程

数字平台在当今世界经济中占据中心地位，据说为全球南方的经济和社会提供了巨大的潜力。然而，迄今为止，关于数字平台的学术文献主要集中在商业上，而其发展影响仍未得到充分研究。在某种程度上，这是因为数字平台是一个具有挑战性的研究对象，因为它们缺乏概念定义，它们遍布不同地区和行业，并且与机构、参与者和数字技术交织在一起。这篇文章的目的是为了促进信息系统和ICT4D的研究正在进行辩论，以了解数字化平台是指用于发展。为此，我们首先定义什么是数字平台并区分交易平台和创新平台，并从目的、研究基础、材料特性和商业模式等方面解释它们的主要特征。我们添加了社会技术背景数字平台的运作以及与发展成果的联系。然后，我们进行了广泛的审查，以探索有关平台和发展的文献中出现的当前领域、发展目标、紧张局势和问题，并确定我们知识中的相关差距。我们随后详细阐述了六个研究问题，以推进关于数字平台促进发展的研究：关于本土创新、数字平台和机构、关于不平等的加剧、关于替代价值形式、