Digital platforms are an ubiquitous phenomenon that threatens incumbent firms. Among digital platform providers, the competition is fierce. Platform giants such as Google, Amazon, or Microsoft strive for platform leadership. The question of how to achieve platform leadership is equally essential for platform companies and incumbent firms transforming into platform business models. This thesis aimed to provide a fundamental building block for the analysis of this question. In the first step, a taxonomy that conceptualizes platforms from a business model perspective was created. In the second part of this thesis, this taxonomy was used to analyze configurations of successful and leading platform business models. This thesis found multiple configurations of platform leaders within an ecosystem-level and firm-level model. The two models extended existing theory on the causal relation of factors on platform leadership.
Inhaltsverzeichnis (Table of Contents)
- Introduction
- Motivation
- Research questions
- Research overview & philosophy
- Theoretical background - digital platforms
- Background, definitions & types of digital platforms
- Perspectives on digital platforms
- Platform ecosystems & dynamics
- Determinants of platform leadership
- Hypothesized configurational propositions for platform leadership
- Research design – taxonomy development
- Overview of the taxonomy development
- Taxonomy development methodology
- Grounded-theory literature review
- Case database
- Validation interviews
- Results - Taxonomy development
- Conceptual-to-empirical iteration
- Empirical-to-conceptual iteration
- Final iteration
- Research design - fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis
- Introduction and overview of fsQCA
- fsQCA analysis steps
- Results - fsQCA
- Ecosystem-level model
- Firm-level model
- Derived configurational propositions for platform leadership
- Discussion
- Contribution to theory and practice
- Limitations
- Outlook & further research
Zielsetzung und Themenschwerpunkte (Objectives and Key Themes)
This thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of digital platform leadership. It focuses on analyzing successful platform business models from a business model perspective and investigates the factors that contribute to platform leadership.
- Developing a comprehensive taxonomy of digital platforms based on business model perspectives
- Analyzing configurations of successful platform business models using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA)
- Identifying key factors influencing platform leadership at both the ecosystem and firm levels
- Deriving configurational propositions for platform leadership based on empirical findings
- Contributing to the existing body of knowledge on digital platform leadership and providing insights for practitioners.
Zusammenfassung der Kapitel (Chapter Summaries)
The thesis begins by introducing the motivation behind the study and outlining the research questions. It then provides a theoretical background on digital platforms, exploring their definitions, types, perspectives, ecosystems, and dynamics. The thesis also examines determinants of platform leadership and presents hypothesized configurational propositions.
Chapter 3 details the research design for developing a taxonomy of digital platforms, outlining the methodology, literature review, case database, and validation interviews. Chapter 4 presents the results of the taxonomy development, showcasing the iterations and the final derived dimensions.
Chapter 5 introduces the research design for the fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) and outlines the analysis steps. Chapter 6 presents the results of the fsQCA analysis, focusing on both the ecosystem-level and firm-level models. It also derives configurational propositions for platform leadership based on the findings.
Finally, Chapter 7 discusses the contribution of the thesis to theory and practice, addresses limitations, and outlines future research directions.
Schlüsselwörter (Keywords)
The key concepts and terms explored in this thesis include taxonomy, digital platforms, business model perspectives, platform leadership, fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), configurational analysis, ecosystem-level model, firm-level model, and configurational propositions.
- Quote paper
- Jonas Kaufmann-Ludwig (Author), 2020, Digital Platform Leadership: Exploring the Role of National Factors, Platform, and Customer Type, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1239799
