Platform Governance Design in Platform Ecosystems: Implications for Complementors’ Multihoming Decision
研究了平台所有者治理设计如何影响互补者的多归属决策，发现开放治理增加生态系统复杂性，降低互补者多归属意愿，但互补者经验和互补模块化程度会削弱这种负面效应。
Extant platform research focuses on how platform owners’ governance behaviors directly affect complementors. This study explicates the multilateral interdependence among different groups of producers within a platform ecosystem. We theorize about how platform owners’ governance design may create frictions between platform providers and complementors. While open governance grants greater autonomy to platform providers, it also cultivates a more complex ecosystem for complementors. Since ecosystem complexity raises the cost of product customization, complementors will be less willing to port an existing complement to a more complex ecosystem, that is, less likely to multihome. The negative effect is weakened as the complementor has greater experience with the destination ecosystem or when the complement exhibits a greater level of modularity. Our analysis of newly launched apps in Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android smartphone ecosystems finds supportive evidence. We discuss implications for the burgeoning literature on platform ecosystems and complementors.