![]() Research shows that the hybrid structure of digital platforms and the need for external diversification together lead to a platform’s resilience strategy. On this basis, a theoretical model of the profit of a digital platform is constructed. This article will analyze the bottom layer of the digital economy and, by identifying the various drawbacks of the traditional industrial economic monopoly theory, propose three key factors for the profitability of platform companies in the digital age: flexible strategy, digital capabilities, and symbiotic synergy capabilities. In this new profit framework, we first use the symbiotic logic of value sharing to explain the underlying logic of platform profitability secondly, from the perspective of resource complementarity, we find that the key to digital platform companies’ profitability lies in the symbiotic synergy between platform companies and massive userbases lastly, our study finds that the profit condition of platform enterprises is digital capability, not system possession. ![]() The main contribution of this paper is to propose a framework model for the profit mechanism of digital platforms, which to a certain extent solves the problems essential to the digital realm faced by many traditional enterprises in the Internet age-knowing that the profit theory of traditional monopolies is not suitable for the rapidly changing internet economy, but that most of the time people still must use it. Although digital platforms have already entered people’s daily lives, the profit mechanism of digital platforms remains a black box to be cracked for the industry. The sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic in early 2020 has added a strong impulse to the acceleration of this process, highlighting the unique characteristics of the platform economy in resource allocation. ![]() With the advent of the smart economy, Chinese digital platform companies have begun the process of digital innovation. Our study also shows the dualistic role of power in the distributed tuning process. Our analysis reveals that boundary resources of service systems enabled by digital technology are shaped and reshaped through distributed tuning, which involves cascading actions of accommodations and rejections of a network of heterogeneous actors and artifacts. We conduct an embedded case study of Apple's iOS service system with an in-depth analysis of 4,664 blog articles concerned with 30 boundary resources covering 6 distinct themes. Drawing on Pickering's (1993) and Barrett et al.'s (2012) conceptualizations of tuning, the paper seeks to forward our understanding of how heterogeneous actors engage in the tuning of boundary resources within Apple's iOS service system. In this study, we explore the evolution of boundary resources. Boundary resources play a critical role in managing the tension as a firm that owns the infrastructure can secure its control over the service system while independent firms can participate in the service system. The cocreation of service within these service systems takes place in the context of a paradoxical tension between the logic of generative and democratic innovations and the logic of infrastructural control. The digital age has seen the rise of service systems involving highly distributed, heterogeneous, and resource-integrating actors whose relationships are governed by shared institutional logics, standards, and digital technology.
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