Understanding platform business models: A mixed methods study of marketplaces

Abstract

Recent technological advances have enabled the emergence of novel business models based on digital platforms. Marketplace like Airbnb or Uber offer such digital platforms to connect previously unmatched demand-side and supply-side participants through innovative forms of value creation, delivery and capture. While countless firms claim to offer the next 'Airbnb for X' or 'Uber for Y', we lack knowledge about the defining business model characteristics of these marketplaces. To close the gap, this paper provides a conceptually and empirically grounded taxonomy of their business models. Applying a mixed methods approach, it first develops an integrative framework of marketplace business models. Guided by the framework, the research systematically analyzes 100 randomly selected marketplaces with content analysis and binary coding. The gathered data is analyzed with cluster analysis techniques to develop a taxonomy for marketplace business models. The clustering process reveals six clearly distinguishable types of marketplace business models and thus shows that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to creating, delivering, and capturing value with marketplaces and platforms in general. We characterize these distinctive types on basis of the qualitative and quantitative findings. Among others, we find that two of these types are highly aligned with business model characteristics associated with the so-called sharing economy. The findings are discussed against platform, marketplace, and sharing economy literature to contribute to a higher integration of different literature streams that are concerned with similar organizational types and phenomena.

The impact of blockchain technology on business models – a taxonomy and archetypal patterns

“…Hence, we first defined meta-characteristics (step 1 of Nickerson et al (2013)). We chose the business model elements value proposition, value creation and delivery, and value capture as commonly used in other business model taxonomies (Täuscher and Laudien 2018;Remané et al 2017) and in business model frameworks (Bocken et al 2014;Wirtz et al 2016). Second, we defined ending conditions for the iterative method (step 2 of Nickerson et al (2013)), where we followed the conditions according to the authors.…”

“…Second, our widely applicable research approach shows how to develop a business model taxonomy and how to identify business model patterns for a particular field of application. Hence, we contribute to the business model literature and the growing field of enterprise classifications based on business models (Täuscher and Laudien 2018).…”

Sharing economy: seeing through the fog

“…In this perspective, companies may capture value exploiting the value of the huge amount of data, which they collect on buyers, sellers and the data generated through their interactions (Trabucchi et al, 2017(Trabucchi et al, , 2019. The literature on marketplaces (e.g., Viswanathan et al, 2010;Täuscher and Laudien, 2018) may help to understand companies belonging to this cluster.…”

Identification of prospective industrial clusters in Slovakia

“…A geographical concentration of economic actors allows personal contacts but also cheaper and more flexible deliveries (SIEA, 2009). It is indubitable that a purely quantity-oriented approach is incorrect as it could lead to forcibly created artificial clusters; on the other hand, the literature emphasises a more in-depth understanding of industry linkages (Munnich & Iacono, 2016) or a mix of quantitative and qualitative factors (Täucher & Laudien, 2018). In this article, the concentration of businesses is considered the basis for the identification of potential clusters, supplemented with a proper linkage to current strategic perspectives and priorities of regional self-governance institutions.…”