@article{aa52c04bda214a2aa49c6c7659b0ba32,
title = "Platform strategy: Managing ecosystem value through selective promotion of complements",
abstract = "Platform sponsors typically have both incentive and opportunity to manage the overall value of their ecosystems. Through selective promotion, a platform sponsor can reward successful complements, bring attention to underappreciated complements, and influence the consumer's perception of the ecosystem's depth and breadth. It can use promotion to induce and reward loyalty of powerful complement producers, and it can time such promotion to both boost sales during slow periods and reduce competitive interactions between complements. We develop arguments about whether and when a platform sponsor will selectively promote individual complements and test these arguments on data from the console video game industry in the United Kingdom. We find that platform sponsors do not simply promote {"}best in class{"} complements; they strategically invest in complements in ways that address complex trade-offs in ecosystem value. Our arguments and results build significant new theory that helps us understand how a platform sponsor orchestrates value creation in the overall ecosystem.",
keywords = "Complements, Ecosystems, Endorsements, Platforms, Value capture, value creation",
author = "Joost Rietveld and Schilling, {Melissa A.} and Cristiano Bellavitis",
note = "Funding Information: The authors thank Marshall van Alstyne, Genevieve Bassellier, J. P. Eggers, Brad Greenwood, Masakazu Ishihara, and Bill Greene for feedback on this paper. The authors thank Suzanne M{\"u}ller for helping to collect data. The authors also thank all their industry informants for insights into the video game industry and for sharing data to facilitate the authors' research. Finally, the authors thank Senior Editor Gary Dushnitsky and two anonymous reviewers for constructive and helpful feedback. The paper benefited from feedback received during various presentations including an SMS special conference in Rome (2016), the Platform Strategy Research Symposium in Boston (2016), the Academy of Management meeting in Anaheim (2016), the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Conversation at Imperial College London (2017), and the Sumantra Ghoshal conference at London Business School (2017). The paper also benefited from seminar presentations at the Strategy Unit of Harvard Business School, the Strategy and Entrepreneurship Department at University College London, the Strategy Area at INSEAD, the Strategy Department at IESE, the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Department at Imperial College London, the Management School of the University of Liverpool, and the Stern School of Business of New York University. All mistakes are the authors'. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 The Author(s).",
year = "2019",
month = nov,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1287/orsc.2019.1290",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "30",
pages = "1232--1251",
journal = "Organization Science",
issn = "1047-7039",
publisher = "INFORMS Inst.for Operations Res.and the Management Sciences",
number = "6",
}