Digital platform ecosystems: A systemic view of power wielded by the platform orchestrators over complementors

Abstract

In the rising shaped-by-platforms landscape, increasing power has been concentrated in the hands of a few dominant digital platform orchestrators. This growing dominance has brought the issue of power asymmetries between platform orchestrators and complementors to the forefront of economic and managerial literature. Although most studies attribute the dominant position of platform orchestrators primarily to their economic power, it represents only one source of a broader multidimensional power. This study unveils a critical literature gap: the lack of systemic frameworks enlightening the multiple sources of the platform orchestrators' power. The research addresses this gap, adopting the systems thinking perspective that enables to enrich literature in two ways: first, to move beyond a monolithic definition of the platform orchestrator's power by identifying three different sources from which it emerges (economic, technological and regulatory); and second, to integrate the static view of platform orchestrators' power by enlightening how each source affects the other according to recursive interdependent feedback loops. The originality of this work is double: 1) it provides an insightful taxonomy of the three main sources of the platform orchestrator's power; 2) it develops a 3 × 3 matrix shedding light on the interdependences and feedback loops among the three sources of power.