• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.220-241
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• 2019

In order to provide theoretical guidance to research in platform strategy, we build the conceptual framework based on the organizational ecology and analyze symbiotic/competitive relationship between platform entities. Platform owner and service provider (i.e. complementors) make symbiotic relationship, where platform owner provide service provider user-base and platform resources such as marketing tools and platform technology, and service provider provide platform owner services which users utilize. In addition to symbiotic relationships, platform owner has competitive relationship with other platform owners, and service provider builds competitive relationship with other service providers. In these relationships, the strategy of platform owner affects service provider and service provider builds a strategy for their own survival and success. This type of interaction makes competitive dynamics in platform. However, previous platform literature focuses on strategies to enhance network effect from the perspective of platform owner. Thus, there is little attention on interaction among the service providers. Using the framework based on community ecology of organizational ecology, we analyze interaction and strategy between platform owner and service provider in the viewpoint of platform openness strategy and platform pricing strategy. This research contributes to the literature of platform strategy by providing a theoretical framework based on organizational ecology to deeply understand the dynamics of platform.