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Industry platforms are technological building blocks (that can be technologies, products, or services) that act as a foundation on top of which an array of firms, organized in a set of interdependent firms (sometimes called an industry “ecosystem”), develop a set of inter-related products, technologies and services (Gawer, 2009b, 2009c).

Theories of platform strategy and adoption have been largely derived from studies of their application in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector. These platforms vary in openness, with the model of open source software providing the best-known exemplar for open platforms.

This exploratory field study examines the degree to which nine attributes of ICT platforms are applicable to open platforms in biotechnology. Using a combination of interview and secondary data, it identifies three patterns of such biotechnology platforms – IP commons, hackerspaces, and crowdsourced patient registries – and the degree to which these nine attributes apply. It shows the impact of ICT platforms and open source software on open source approaches to biotechnology, and how the latter are affected by the technical, legal, and institutional differences between information technology and biotechnology.

Instead of open source software platforms organized around modular interfaces, complements, ecosystems, and two-sided markets, this study instead suggests a model of open source knowledge platforms which benefits from economies of scale but not indirect network effects. From this, it discusses the generalizability of the ICT-derived models of open source platforms and offers suggestions for future research.

Rather than organize as traditional firms, many of today’s companies organize as platforms that sit at the nexus of multiple exchange and production relationships. This chapter considers a most basic question of organization in platform contexts: the choice of boundaries. Herein, I investigate how classical economic theories of firm boundaries apply to platform-based organization and empirically study how executives made boundary choices in response to changing market and technical challenges in the early mobile computing industry (the predecessor to today’s smartphones). Rather than a strict or unavoidable tradeoff between “openness-versus-control,” most successful platform owners chose their boundaries in a way to simultaneously open-up to outside developers while maintaining coordination across the entire system.

Purpose – This chapter discusses the difference between a product strategy and a platform strategy, relying on examples from the history of Apple and Microsoft in personal computers and other devices as well as Sony and Japan Victor Corporation in videocassette recorders.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter begins with a review of how the term “platform” has been used in the management literature and defines an industry-wide platform (as compared to an in-house company product platform) as a foundation technology (or service) that brings multiple parties in a market together for a common purpose. An industry-wide platform can generate powerful network effects between the platform and complementary products and services that make the platform increasingly valuable. Apple, with the Macintosh computer, and Sony with the Betamax VCR as well as other products, such as the Walkman media player, are examples of firms that developed excellent products but followed a product-first strategy and ended up losing in these markets or becoming niche players. They paid relatively little attention to opening up their technology to outside firms and cultivating an ecosystem of partners. Apple changed in the early 2000s with the iPod and iTunes, and then the iPhone and iPad, and has risen from near bankruptcy to become an enormously valuable and profitable platform leader.

Findings – Historical examples suggest that, in a platform market, the winner is not the firm with the best product, but rather the firm with the best platform – that is, the foundation technology or service that is most open to outsiders and which stimulates development of the most compelling complements.

Originality/value – This result extends the literature's understanding of platform strategy.

The platform economy reflects the business model of some of the largest and fastest-growing firms in the economy. Platform business models emerge and thrive because of the potential profit in taking advantage of transactions cost reductions to connect people for mutual benefit, and this value creation is best understood by thinking about the epistemology of decentralized market processes. Three essential aspects of knowledge are relevant to platform business models: (1) knowledge can be private and diffuse; (2) knowledge can be contextual; and (3) knowledge may not exist outside of the economic process. After defining and analyzing the technology, economic, and institutional aspects of platforms the author defines and applies market epistemology to explore how platforms harness technological and organizational features to create value-enhancing market platforms by exploiting the epistemic benefits of technology-enabled decentralized market processes. The author concludes by using this epistemic framework to propose an electricity distribution platform business model – the retail electricity industry is undergoing a process of technological dynamism, and as a regulated infrastructure industry, evolving into a decentralized market industry is presenting challenges to which this epistemic framework can bring increased understanding.

This study aims to map and assess the conceptual development of the innovation ecosystem literature.

A bibliometric analysis was performed using the VOSviewer, RStudio software, Bibliometrix and Biblioshiny packages. To accomplish this, 367 publications published between 2006 and 2020 and indexed in the Web of Science and Scopus databases were assessed.

The results demonstrate a rise in research during 2016, with almost 30% of publications concentrated in only six journals. The co-citation analysis presented four clusters: case studies, business and innovation ecosystems (platform approach), open innovation and national and regional innovation systems (territorial approach). We proposed a theoretical framework based on two approaches in the innovation ecosystem literature based on co-citation analysis: platform, which has its roots in the literature on strategy, and territory, grounded in research on economic geography literature.

One of the limitations of the study is that only articles published in journals were analyzed, leaving out of the sample those published in congresses, books and other sources.

This paper contributes to the literature by presenting and clarifying the different conceptual trajectories of research in innovation ecosystems. We also proposed an analytical framework based on the two main approaches to innovation ecosystems – platform and territory. This framework presents the critical elements of managing innovation ecosystems from both perspectives.

The recent emergence of Chinese digital platform firms, whose size rivals that of the US platform giants, has attracted much popular interest. Given the size and increasing technical sophistication of these firms, there has been increasing interest in whether they have developed sufficient capacities and resources to become global-class competitors for the reigning US platform giants. The authors assembled a database of all overseas operations of the Chinese platform firms. Nine of them have foreign operations, with Tencent and Alibaba being the most important offshore investors. The authors describe the globalization patterns of these firms and analyze the strengths and obstacles to their globalization. Their globalization has proceeded on a number of vectors: first, these firms, with a few exceptions, when they have global strategies, have largely invested in firms with useful technology or content. One common strategy has been to follow Chinese customers abroad. Second, Chinese firms have made equity investments in a number of foreign Internet firms. And yet, in nearly all foreign markets, Chinese websites and apps still trail the US firms in market share and salience. Finally, Chinese investments are concentrated in proximate countries. Chinese platform firms, while having some state-of-the-art technologies, have a far smaller foreign presence than their US competitors do. Finally, the authors consider the implications of their research for discussions of whether emerging nation multinational firms require new theories for explaining their globalization.

Contends the Internet is a medium for commerce, marketing, advertising and distribution, as well as invention, entertainment and discussion. Reckons that on the Internet there is only on certainty – when creative destruction reigns it is business as usual. Concludes that succeeding in the global Internet economy is very difficult, and survival is far from assured.