UCL School of Management

Research project

Platform strategy and competition

Summary

Digital platforms are charactized by their multi-sidedness; various user groups (including buyers and sellers) use platforms to connect and transact with each other. This multi-sidedness can trigger distinct market and competitive dynamics, including (indirect) network effects and winner-takes-all competition, which hold strategic implications for both the firms that control these platforms and the ones operating within them. How do platforms successfully compete with each other? How can platforms effectively govern their ecosystems? How are complementors affected by platform-level dynamics? Under what conditions do winner-take-all dynamics emerge in platform competition?

Relevance

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Selected publications

Rietveld, J., & Eggers, J. P. (2018). Demand Heterogeneity in Platform Markets: Implications for Complementors. Organization Science, 29 (2), 304-322. doi:10.1287/orsc.2017.1183 [link]
Rietveld, J., Schilling, M. A., & Bellavitis, C. (2019). Platform strategy: Managing ecosystem value through selective promotion of complements. Organization Science, 30 (6), 1232-1251. doi:10.1287/orsc.2019.1290 [link]
Rietveld, J., Ploog, J., & Nieborg, D. (2020). Coevolution of Platform Dominance and Governance Strategies: Effects on Complementor Performance Outcomes. Academy of Management Discoveries, 6 (3), 488-513. doi:10.5465/amd.2019.0064 [link]
Rietveld, J., & Schilling, M. A. (2021). Platform Competition: A Systematic and Interdisciplinary Review of the Literature. Journal of Management, 47 (6), 1528-1563. doi:10.1177/0149206320969791 [link]
Last updated Thursday, 29 April 2021

Author

Research groups

Strategy & Entrepreneurship

Research areas

Strategic management

Research topics

Information systems; Business strategy; Competitive advantage; Complementary assets and complementors; Innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems; Technology strategy; Value creation and capture; Platforms and two-sided markets