A Sandboxing Canvas for Value‐Sensitive Designs of Launching Digital Platforms

ABSTRACT Launching a new digital platform business comes with a range of complex challenges: How to overcome the chicken‐or‐egg dilemma of simultaneously attracting value providers and consumers? How to create a unique customer experience, orchestrate value creation, reach and maintain a critical mass of users, and foster positive network effects? While various strategic guidelines address these business challenges individually, growing concerns about the ethical implications of platform power dynamics have highlighted the need for more holistic guidelines to pursue value‐oriented and responsible digital platform launch strategies. In response to that, this paper makes a novel contribution by proposing a canvas addressing the dual role of launching digital platform entrepreneurs as both designers and strategists. It builds on the principles of value‐sensitive design (VSD) and manifests the idea behind moral sandboxing within a practical canvas instrument, aiming to increase reflexivity in digital platform design processes. The canvas' applicability is consequently demonstrated through the illustrative analyses of two early‐stage digital platforms. All in all, this application‐oriented study enhances the discussion on VSD in the context of digital platform design from an emergent perspective combining information systems, business ethics and entrepreneurship research.