Abstract
Competitive advantage of platform ecosystems is mostly argued to stem from network effects that may lead to winner-take-all competition or from the distinctive positioning of its value proposition toward a niche market. While these views have been informative, they are disintegrated from earlier, influential theories of competitive advantage like resource-based view (RBV) and relational view. While RBV and relational view have been informative to competitive advantage in general, the assumptions that underpin them do not fully hold in the context of platform or managed ecosystems. Instead of relying just on their internal VRIN resources, focal firms in such ecosystems move the bulk of value creation outside the firm to external 3rd parties that they orchestrate. Despite this, focal firms do not engage in building idiosyncratic characteristics of the dyadic one-to-one relationships with each external 3rd party, like relational view would suggest. Boundary resources (BR) theory from IS helps explain how digital platform firms foster and govern value creation even at large scale and without resorting to building idiosyncrasy of individual relationships. Yet, while BR theory includes both resource and relational perspectives—it does not directly engage with either RBV or relational view, nor does it address competitive advantage explicitly. We draw inspiration from BR theory and develop a boundary resources view to competitive advantage in managed ecosystems that integrates RBV, relational view, and BR theory, adapting their implications to fit managed ecosystems context. We found our theorizing on the concept of paradyadic relationships, the asymmetric, one-to-many (where the many may equal millions) relationships that are prevalent in platform ecosystems. BRs are the digital lever ‘in the middle’ of paradyadic relationships. We contribute to discussion of competitive advantage in platform ecosystems, providing an additional lens to its determinants beyond pure scale (winner-take-all logic) or positioning the platform ecosystem value proposition in relation to competition (distinctive positioning). We also contribute to literature streams that extend either relational view or RBV outside their original explicit or implicit boundaries to new contexts. Further, we extend BR theory from its original confines in software-based platform ecosystems to cover all kinds of platform ecosystems, and all kinds of value creation in
platforms, also by platform customers.
platforms, also by platform customers.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Number of pages | 23 |
Publication status | Published - 6 Sept 2024 |
MoE publication type | Not Eligible |
Event | Symplatform - Politecnico Milano, Lecco, Lecco, Italy Duration: 3 Sept 2024 → 6 Sept 2024 https://symplatform.com/#previous-editions |
Conference
Conference | Symplatform |
---|---|
Country/Territory | Italy |
City | Lecco |
Period | 03/09/2024 → 06/09/2024 |
Internet address |
Keywords
- digital platforms
- competitive advantage
- ecosystems
- boundary resources