Multi-actor collaboration in platform-based ecosystem: opportunities and challenges

The flexibility offered by the combination of platform and enabling ecosystems allows multiple competing and collaborating organizations from different industries to achieve rapid innovations. This article highlights key technical and business model attributes of the platform and how these can be exploited by the platform leader for achieving improved performance with limited coordination overhead. Research shows that only a few platforms are managed effectively; as it involves balancing conflicting demands related to the platform owner’s interest and overall health of the ecosystems. We discuss the key governance challenges for a sustainable platform leadership strategy that leads to benefits for the platform leader as well as for the ecosystem partners. Research shows that an effective platform governance i.e. decision rights and accountability to encourage desirable behavior in the use of the platform, addresses the above challenges effectively. This article goes on to identify different types of control mechanisms used in the context of platform ecosystem. While doing so, we highlight the important contextual differences related to the application of control mechanism in platform-centric ecosystems. Unlike other inter-organizational partnership (i.e. outsourced software development); ecosystem leaders do not have formal authority over a large number of application developers and other partners (Mukhopadhyay et al., 2016a). We conclude by proposing several complementary research questions for better understanding of the control–governance dimensions of platform ecosystem business models.