Value Creation Tradeoff in Business Ecosystems: Leveraging Complementarities While Managing Interdependencies
研究了商业生态系统中互补技术对创新价值创造的双重影响：既帮助创新为用户创造更多价值，也可能因技术架构演变导致性能瓶颈。基于苹果iPhone生态系统中244,034个应用的数据，揭示了利用互补性与管理技术相互依赖之间的权衡。
Complementary assets play an important role in shaping an innovation’s commercialization success. In this paper, we broaden the locus of complementarities to examine the role of complementary technologies residing in the business ecosystems that are becoming an important source of value creation for innovating firms. We argue that, on one hand, complementary technologies help innovations create more value for their users. On the other hand, they can also limit the focal innovation’s value creation by exposing them to performance bottlenecks as the underlying technological architecture of the ecosystem evolves. We further extend the notion of specialization of complementary assets to ecosystems by considering complementary technologies that are specialized to a focal ecosystem and those that are available across multiple ecosystems. We highlight that, although the complementary technologies that are specialized to an ecosystem facilitate greater value creation, they are more likely to subject the focal innovation to performance bottlenecks. Evidence from 244,034 apps launched by software developers for Apple’s iPhone ecosystem during 2008–2015 offers strong support for our framework. In summary, the study sheds light on the value creation tradeoff for firms innovating in business ecosystems—the opportunities associated with leveraging complementarities and the challenges associated with managing technological interdependencies. Funding: S. Agarwal was funded by the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin [Research Excellence Grant].