The success of digital platforms depends on their generativity - the capability and mechanisms that enable unbounded growth in both the scale and diversity of functions embedded within the digital platforms. Motivated by its importance, generativity has attracted extensive scholarship. Time inherently plays a role in such work, as descriptions of generativity (and how it arises and unfolds) naturally have at least some temporal dimensions. However, our literature review shows that past research has not studied digital platform generativity in a way that reveals its full temporal complexity, because it has focused mainly on the platform’s service layer (rather than also the infrastructure), the platform as a whole (rather than the process of configuring modular digital resources), and a passive (rather than active) view of time. We show the value of addressing these tendencies to provide a richer temporal perspective. Following a grounded theory approach, we conducted longitudinal studies of two Australian platform organizations. A number of temporal concepts emerged from the data, allowing us to see the multi-temporal dynamics inherent in the process of digital platform generating. We develop a process model to understand these dynamics of configuring digital resources for platform generativity. This study contributes to the innovation literature by highlighting the critical role of temporality in platform generativity and providing insights for organizations aiming to harness temporal dynamics for generativity.
