Dependency Challenges, Complementor Maturity and Response Strategies: Joining a Multi-Sided Platform Ecosystem

Complementors gain market opportunities by joining ecosystems; they also face challenges from relationships with multi-sided platform ecosystems. This research focuses on managerial challenges and strategic and organizational... [ view full abstract ]

Complementors gain market opportunities by joining ecosystems; they also face challenges from relationships with multi-sided platform ecosystems. This research focuses on managerial challenges and strategic and organizational responses of complementors joining ecosystems. Asymmetries lead to dependencies, which I categorize into three types: 1) technological, 2) information, and 3) values-based. Based on a longitudinal qualitative inductive field-based study, this research finds that over time the organization passes through three phases of complementor maturity. These phases correspond with three response strategies: compliance, influence, and innovation. This paper contributes to platform, ecosystem, complementor, and organizational theory research by: 1) exploring relationships between complementors and dependencies, 2) introducing phases of complementor maturity, and 3) articulating complementor response strategies and outlining how, when, and why an organization moves through maturity phases executing these strategies.