Year: 2018
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Attention to Two-Sided Markets and digital platforms is growing both from scholars and practitioners due to their ability to rapidly scale up and challenging existing traditional businesses.In the field of technological development, huge attention has been offered to strategic alliances and interfirm collaborations to create standards and dominant designs.This research aims at shedding lights on the opportunities and challenges related to inter-firm collaboration in the development and launch of a two-sided platform.Based on a single case study, this exploratory research highlights the existence and the role of a new group of players: platform enhancers.They are companies that collaborate with the platform provider to develop and launch the two-sided structure.These companies offer many opportunities for the entire system, such as the chance to share the effort to overcome the chicken and egg paradox, as well as to leverage on the traditional benefits of strategic collaborations.Still, this may create new challenges for the platform provider, who needs to design and adequately manage at least three different value propositions (to the first and the second side, plus the enhancers) while increasing the complexity of the system.Theoretical and empirical contributions are discussed, along with limitation and avenues for further research.
Language: English
Subfield: Strategy and Management
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3048431477