مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

How do platform leaders deploy technological, strategic, and network factors to manage their industry platforms during a battle for market dominance? Are industry platforms that attain market dominance managed differently from those that do not? To answer these questions, we extend existing literature by providing an integrated approach, taking technological, strategic, and network factors, as well as their interactions into account. We introduce the concept of central and distributed control modes to manage platforms, and we discuss the relationship between control mode choice, platform flexibility, and the stage of technology evolution. We indicate implications for the tension between standardization and innovation.

andardization and innovation. Competition between de facto standards often takes place at the platform level, i.e., among industry networks that form around the standards (Gomes-Casseres, 1994; Vanhaverbeke and Noorderhaven, 2001). When multiple industry platforms emerge to meet a comparable market need, such competition may take the shape of a battle for market dominance. Usually, in such battles, a few major companies act as platform leaders: they invest in technological innovation during the risky early stages of the battle, they maneuver strategically, and they shape the network (Gawer and Cusumano, 2008). Other companies act as platform followers, supporting one or more of the emerging industry platforms by providing complementary hardware, software, or services.

Researchers of battles for market dominance have identified technological, strategic, and network-related factors for winning or losing such battles (for overviews, see Schilling (1998), Suarez (2004), Van de Kaa et al. (2011)). While the importance of these factors is supported by empirical research, researchers do not always agree on their effects. Although technological superiority is recognized as an important factor (Suarez, 2004), many researchers report that technology in general, or technical performance specifically is not decisive for winning or losing the battle, certainly not on its own (Cusumano et al., 1992; Gallagher and Park, 2002; Sillanpää and Laamanen, 2009). Strategic maneuvering is generally found to be important, but entry timing-one of the most important strategic decisions – is sometimes reported not to be decisive (Cusumano et al., 1992; Gallagher and Park, 2002). Likewise, some researchers report that the network of complementary partners is important (Cusumano et al., 1992; Gallagher, 2012; Rosenkopf and Tushman, 1998), whereas others find it to be of limited importance (e.g., Suarez, 2005). A possible explanation for these non-convergent results is that, next to the direct effects of the individual factors, interaction effects are important.