Complementor competitive advantage: A framework for strategic decisions

Cenamor, Javier

doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.09.016

Cited by 73 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 103 publications

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“…The current study results provide a detailed understanding of complementor engagement and the role of PBRs in facilitating that engagement. Hence, we reflect the results in light of the recently growing discussion on complementor engagement and complementary strategy (Cenamor, 2021;Saadatmand et al, 2019;Wang and Miller, 2019) and link these findings to the process of distributed tuning of PBRs (Eaton et al, 2015). Furthermore, the study provides additional insights into the use of PBRs by complementors, the design decisions of platform owners to balance scalability via standardization with individual needs of complementors, and links these insights to the multihoming of complementors.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 74%

“…Complementor resourcing denotes the process by which the innovativeness and commercial success of a complementor's products and services is enhanced. That way, PBRs support complementors to create and sustain competitive advantages through their engagement (Cenamor, 2021). Our study found that platform owners provided PBRs comprising benchmarking tools and market analysis to complementors to support them in their differentiation efforts.…”

Section: Complementor Resourcing Complementor Securing and The Tuning Of Platform Boundary Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 75%

“…Another critical use of PBRs lies in their potential to motivate and incentivize complementors to interact and commit to the platform ecosystem on an ongoing basis (Schulz et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2021). Examples are manifold, including supporting successful complementors with dedicated individual resources, such as customer referrals that further enhance their positioning and differentiation within the network (Cenamor, 2021;Huber et al, 2017). Lastly, the ways complementors use and engage with PBRs provided by the platform owner has consequences for their design, giving rise to the distributed tuning of PBRs (Eaton et al, 2015).…”

Section: Engagement Of Autonomous Complementorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, the connections between the types of PBRs and the different engagement interactions of complementors contribute to striking a balance between openness and control of external contributions (Boudreau, 2010;Ghazawneh & Henfridsson, 2011. Further, the use of PBRs for different engagement types informs the development of complementor strategies and clarifies the nature of their platform dependency (Cenamor, 2021;Nambisan et al, 2018). Therefore, we pose the following guiding research question to be explored with the current study:…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Engagement of Complementors and the Role of Platform Boundary Resources in e-Commerce Platform Ecosystems

et al. 2022

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The success of digital platforms can be attributed to the engagement of autonomous complementors as exemplified by e-commerce Content Management System (CMS) platforms such as WordPress and Shopify. Platform owners provide Platform Boundary Resources (PBRs) to stimulate and control complementor engagement. Despite the increasing scholarly interest in digital platform ecosystems, their exact role in facilitating and channeling complementor engagement remains unclear. Therefore, we conducted an embedded case study on CMS platform ecosystems, comprising a total of 24 interviews with platform owners and complementors. We inductively derive five types of complementor engagement and their respective manifestations and two overarching engagement goals of complementors. Moreover, we determine the different types of PBRs utilized, including their critical effects, and distinguish between uniform and individual PBRs reflecting their respective generalizability and scalability. We discuss the findings by introducing the concepts of complementor resourcing and complementor securing and shed light on the standardization-individualization tension of PBRs faced by platform owners.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 74%

Section: Complementor Resourcing Complementor Securing and The Tuning Of Platform Boundary Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 75%

Section: Engagement Of Autonomous Complementorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Engagement of Complementors and the Role of Platform Boundary Resources in e-Commerce Platform Ecosystems

et al. 2022

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“…The use of mobile apps is increasing in business communities at a tremendous pace during the COVID-19 pandemic ( Cenamor, 2021 , Talwar et al, 2020 , Talwar et al, 2020 , Talwar et al, 2020 ). It is evident that mobile apps are useful for everything: selling and purchasing goods, booking transportation, booking restaurants, and food deliveries, and obtaining shared accommodations ( Khaskheli, Jun, & Ahmed Bhuiyan, 2017 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mobile apps for SME business sustainability during COVID-19 and onwards

Rakshit

Islam

Mondal

et al. 2021

Journal of Business Research

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How optimal distinctiveness shapes platform complementors' adoption of boundary resources

Kang,

Grodal

2024

Strategic Entrepreneurship

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Research SummaryWhat drives platform complementors to adopt boundary resources? We address this question by drawing on optimal distinctiveness. We suggest that competitors' adoption of a platform boundary resource on the one hand increases the legitimacy of the resource, but on the other hand decreases a focal complementor's ability to differentiate by adopting it. We therefore hypothesize an inverted U‐shaped relationship between prior and future adoption of a platform boundary resource. In a dataset of health and fitness apps on the Apple iOS platform and through three online experiments, we find support for this relationship and for the existence of two important complementor‐specific contingencies that moderate this relationship. This paper expands our understanding of how optimal distinctiveness drives the dynamics of platform‐mediated markets.Managerial SummaryIn platform markets, complementors face a dilemma: which of the available platform boundary resources should they adopt? We show that a focal complementor's decision to adopt a boundary resource is the result of a strategic trade‐off between the desire to be both legitimate and to be differentiated from competitors. The result is that initially many complementors adopt the boundary resource and it becomes viewed as increasingly attractive by other platform complementors. However, over time as many complementors have adopted the boundary resource, the remaining complementors begin to shy away from adopting it because they worry that doing so might hurt their ability to be differentiated on the platform. These results are shaped by the complementors' performance and how dedicated they are to the platform.

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Complementor competitive advantage: A framework for strategic decisions

Cited by 73 publications

References 103 publications

The Engagement of Complementors and the Role of Platform Boundary Resources in e-Commerce Platform Ecosystems

The Engagement of Complementors and the Role of Platform Boundary Resources in e-Commerce Platform Ecosystems

Mobile apps for SME business sustainability during COVID-19 and onwards

How optimal distinctiveness shapes platform complementors' adoption of boundary resources

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