The DOI matches its Crossref record; 92 of the 98 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Bridging differing perspectives on technological platforms: Toward an integrative framework
Open accessAbstract
An integrative framework is proposed to advance management research on technological platforms, bridging two theoretical perspectives: economics, which sees platforms as double-sided markets, and engineering design, which sees platforms as technological architectures. While the economic perspective informs our understanding of platform competition, the engineering design perspective informs our view of platform innovation. The article argues that platforms can be usefully conceptualized as evolving organizations or meta-organizations that: (1) federate and coordinate constitutive agents who can innovate and compete; (2) create value by generating and harnessing economies of scope in supply or/and in demand; and (3) entail a modular technological architecture composed of a core and a periphery. In support of this conceptualization, a classification system is presented, indicating that technological platforms appear in a variety of organizational forms: within firms, across supply chains, and across industry innovation ecosystems. As an illustration, the framework is then applied to derive a simple model highlighting patterns of interaction between platform innovation and competition, yielding hypotheses that could be tested empirically by future scholars.
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“Because of their central role in encouraging project development, they are often thought to foster an ecosystem under the sponsorship of a platform leader which develops and provides specific functionality to smaller projects (Gawer, 2014).”
From The sustainability of open source commons (2023) · cites this paper as Gawer, 2014
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
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“It also shows that content creators face a ‘winner-take-all’ situation (Cennamo and Santalo 2013, p. 1331; Gawer 2014, p. 1241).”
From Content Creators Between Platform Control and User Autonomy: The Role of Algorithms and Revenue Sharing (2023) · cites this paper as Gawer 2014
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn the citing paper
“Even in the service innovation literature (Barrett et al. 2015;Lusch and Nambisan 2015), where value-in-use is emphasized, and in the platform and network effects literature (Gawer 2014;Parker et al. 2016), where demand and user adoption are important, there is a lack of a vocabulary and coherent framework for dealing with use recombination and how it relates to value creation and capture in digit”
From Recombination in the open-ended value landscape of digital innovation (2018) · cites this paper as Gawer 2014
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Cites
A resource‐based view of the firm
Wernerfelt, B. (1984) · Strategic Management Journal · doi:10.1002/smj.4250050207 · Cited by 25,635 · cited 1×
“Given the entrality of economies of scope in theories of organizations (Teece, 980; Wernerfelt, 1984; Helfat and Eisenhardt, 2004), this comon underpinning provides the intuition that an organizational ens might be useful to develop a unifying framework for platforms. y organization I do not…”
BackgroundSocial Structure and Competition in Interfirm Networks: The Paradox of Embeddedness
Uzzi, B. (1997) · Administrative Science Quarterly · doi:10.2307/2393808 · Cited by 9,853
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Interorganizational Collaboration and the Locus of Innovation: Networks of Learning in Biotechnology
Powell, W. W., Koput, K. W., & Smith-Doerr, L. (1996) · Administrative Science Quarterly · doi:10.2307/2393988 · Cited by 8,499
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Platform Competition in Two-Sided Markets
Rochet, J.-C., & Tirole, J. (2003) · Journal of the European Economic Association · doi:10.1162/154247603322493212 · Cited by 5,642
On the criteria to be used in decomposing systems into modules
Parnas, D. L. (1972) · Communications of the ACM · doi:10.1145/361598.361623 · Cited by 4,838
The Architecture of Complexity
Simon, H. A. (1991) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-1-4899-0718-9_31 · Cited by 4,479 · cited 2×
“…by breaking up a complex system into discrete components, which interact through standardized interfaces within a standardized architecture, one can eliminate what would otherwise be an unmanageable spaghetti tangle of systemic interconnections (Simon, 1962; Parnas, 1972; Langlois, 2002).”
BackgroundOpen Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology
Badawy, A. M. (2004) · Journal of Engineering and Technology Management · doi:10.1016/j.jengtecman.2004.05.003 · Cited by 3,637
Design Rules: The Power of Modularity
Baldwin, C. Y., & Clark, K. B. (2000) · doi:10.7551/mitpress/2366.001.0001 · Cited by 3,504
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- Baldwin, 2000, vol. 1
- Zaheer, 2000, Strategic networks, Strategic Management Journal, 21, 203, 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0266(200003)21:3<203::AID-SMJ102>3.0.CO;2-K · DOI
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Towards a theory of ecosystems
Jacobides, M. G., Cennamo, C., & Gawer, A. (2018) · Strategic Management Journal · doi:10.1002/smj.2904 · Cited by 3,724
“…also considers how technological interfaces (and which parts of the technology are “open” or “closed”) or governance (such as membership and participation rules) shape collective outcomes (Ceccagnoli et al ., 2012; Cennamo, 2016; Gawer & Cusumano, 2002; Gawer, 2014; Wareham et al ., 2014).”
InfluentialSelf-citationTeece, D. J. (2018) · Research Policy · doi:10.1016/j.respol.2017.01.015 · Cited by 1,823
The Digital Platform: A Research Agenda
de Reuver, M., Sørensen, C., & Basole, R. C. (2018) · Journal of Information Technology · doi:10.1057/s41265-016-0033-3 · Cited by 1,681
“Some scholars use ecosystems to denote the organisational form associated with an industry platform (Gawer, 2014) or as an unspecific notion of a collection of assets (Thomas et al., 2014).”
BackgroundInfluentialThe Platformization of the Web: Making Web Data Platform Ready
Helmond, A. (2015) · Social Media + Society · doi:10.1177/2056305115603080 · Cited by 1,100
“…Gawer argues, platforms have often been theorized from two distinct perspectives: “economic theory conceptualizes platforms as markets (Rochet & Tirole, 2003),” whereas “engi-neering design theorizes them as ‘modular technological architectures’ (Baldwin & Woodard, 2009)” (Gawer, 2014, p. 1240).”
BackgroundInnovation ecosystems: A conceptual review and a new definition
Granstrand, O., & Holgersson, M. (2019) · Technovation · doi:10.1016/j.technovation.2019.102098 · Cited by 1,360
Metadata
- Authors
- Gawer, A.
- Affiliations
- Imperial College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Gawer, Annabelle
- ORCID
- Gawer, Annabelle
- Venue
- Research Policy
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2014-09
- Volume
- 43
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 1239-1249
- ISSN
- 0048-7333 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2052419127
- Cited by
- 1,869
- References
- 98
- Citations by year
- 2026: 184 · 2025: 181 · 2024: 193 · 2023: 213 · 2022: 223 · 2021: 274 · 2020: 197 · 2019: 137 · 2018: 115 · 2017: 80 · 2016: 38 · 2015: 28 · 2014: 4
- FWCI
- 153.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Research Policy (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Surrey Research Insight Open Access (The University of Surrey) (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Spiral (Imperial College London) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- EPSRC NEMODE Network+
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Digital Platforms and Economics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Innovation and Knowledge Management
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Management of Technology and Innovation › Product Development and Customization
- Keywords
- technology platforms, technical architecture, platform competition, platform innovation, meta-organizations, economies of scope, modular architecture, core-periphery, platform classification, supply chain platforms, innovation ecosystems, integrative framework
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