Research On Value Creation And Value Capture Of Platform Enterprises:Theoretical Model And Antecedent Configuration Analysis

In the Internet era,as an important carrier for the development of sharing economy,the platform enterprises have become a hot topic in academic and practical fields in recent years.On the one hand,platform enterprises emerge in the global economic market and become a popular business model with their creativity and vitality.More than 70% of the 100 unicorn companies around the world have adopted the platform business model.On the other hand,the platform enterprises have the "destructive power" and the network effect of cross-border operation,which accelerates the "winner-take-all" pattern of the platform market,and makes very different performances of different platform enterprises in the same market.In the area of e-commerce,for example,Alibaba,the No.1 market player,accounts for 58.2 percent of the market with Taobao and Tmall,with 530 million registered users,and Tmall has 213.5 billion yuan in sales on November 11,2018 alone.By contrast,Pinduoduo,also at the top of the market,only has a market share of 1.8%,with less than 100 million registered users.Therefore,it is of great practical significance for enterprise’s platform-based management practice and promoting the development of sharing economy to analyze the "black box" of platform enterprise’s competitive advantage and explain the reasons and mechanism of platform enterprise’s performance difference.At the same time,the theoretical research shows that the competitive advantage of the enterprise is closely related to value creation and value capture process,but how the enterprise creates and obtains greater value has not formed the final conclusion.Existing studies often focus on the single perspective analysis of transaction costs,resources,capabilities,innovation,inter-organizational relationships and other factors in the process of value creation and value capture,lack of a more systematic and comprehensive understanding.Thus,the whole picture of value creation and value capture is blurred.On the other hand,the research progress of value co-creation and value-based theory in recent years provides a new thought for the research of value creation and value capture.Management specialists have reconsidered and called for a more objective and better understanding through theoretical integration to uncover the "process black box" of value creation and value capture.In addition,the platform research,which originated in the 1990 s,focuses on the network effect,platform openness,platform launch and so on.The significant differences between platform enterprises and traditional enterprises in connotation and extension have been clearly clarified,and many unique research teams and research results have been formed at home and abroad.However,because the platform research focuses on the analysis of the attributes of "platform" and lacks the connection and integration with the classical theory,the research system is scattered and the "black box" of the competitive advantage of the platform enterprises is still not opened.Therefore,by combing the platform research and the research of value creation and value capture,this paper finds that the value-based theory is based on two general formulas(value creation= willingness to pay-opportunity cost;value capture= price-opportunity cost)is analyzed in a more general form,which provides a good basic framework for the study of value creation and value capture.At the same time,there is "common" explanatory logic between the classical theories such as TCE,PFI,RDT in value creation and value capture,while the platform studies depict the "platform" attribute in detail.Therefore,based on "basic framework","common" explanation logic and "platform" attribute,this paper tries to integrate the classical theory through grounded theory analysis,and constructs the theoretical model of platform enterprise value creation and value capture.At the same time,based on the empirical analysis of fsQCA,this paper verifies the theoretical model and analyzes the antecedent configurations,key factors and critical paths of the platform enterprise value creation and value capture,in order to provide a better theoretical reference for the value creation theory and platform business practice.Through theoretical and empirical analysis,this paper draws the following conclusions:(1)Through grounded theory analysis,the elements and the theoretical dimensions of the value creation and value capture of the platform enterprise are clarified.In this paper,we find that the value creation and value capture of the platform enterprise mainly includes seven elements.The "entrepreneurial opportunity" and "resource base" are the intervention conditions,"platform construction"(including three dimensions of "platform openness","demand matching" and "interaction guidance"),"user engagement"(including three dimensions of "knowledge-sharing","complementarity supply" and "continuous commitment")and "platform control"(including three dimensions of "rule dominance","network effect" and "user Lock-in" are the course of action that directly influences value creation and value capture results,while the "user’s cognitive value" and the "platform-specific profits" reflect the specific results of the value creation and the value capture,respectively.(2)Through the dialogue and integration between coding conclusion and classical theory,we construct the theoretical model of platform enterprise value creation and value capture.This paper finds that the platform enterprise value creation and value capture process follow different dominant logic.Among them,the platform enterprise value creation process implies "efficiency" and "innovation" dual logic.Specifically,the "efficiency" logic,which takes the platform enterprise as the main body of action,constructs an effective platform service market through platform openness,demand matching and interaction guidance,thus creating favorable conditions for stimulating users’ interactions.Its theoretical basis mainly comes from the transaction cost economics(TCE);The "innovation" logic,which takes the users of the platform as the main body,actively participates in the interaction and continuously provides complementary resources through knowledge sharing,complementarity supply and continuous commitment,thereby enhancing the cognitive value of the users.Its theoretical basis is mainly derived from the profiting from innovation theory(PFI).Similarly,this paper finds that,on the basis of value creation,the platform enterprise control the platform by rule dominance,network effect and user lock-in.Competitive resources(isolation mechanism)and persuasive resources are used to improve the dependence advantages of platform enterprises on supply-side users and demand-side users,so as to enhance bargaining power and gain exclusive profits of the platform.This theoretical basis is mainly derived from the theory of resource dependence theory(RDT).At the same time,efficiency logic is the necessary condition of innovation logic,and value creation is also the necessary condition of value capture.(3)Through fsQCA analysis,we verify the theoretical model of platform enterprise value creation and value capture,and analyze the antecedent configurations of platform enterprise value creation and value capture.In this paper,it is found that promotion and inhibition of value creation and value capture are not the same configurations.Among them,active user engagement(high knowledge-sharing,high complementarity supply and high continuous commitment)is the key factor to promote the platform enterprise value creation;Passive platform construction(low platform openness,low demand matching and low interaction guidance)is the key factor to restrain the platform enterprise value creation.At the same time,active platform control(high rule dominance,strong network effect and high user lock-in)is the key factor to promote the platform enterprise value capture.Negative user cognitive value(negative systematic evaluation and low willingness to pay)is the key factor to restrain the platform enterprise value capture.In general,To realize the maximization of value creation and value capture by platform enterprises require attention and active development of platform construction,user engagement and platform control,all of which are indispensable.The main contributions of this paper include:(1)We explore the elements and theoretical dimensions of the platform enterprise value creation and value capture,and improve the micro understanding of the platform enterprise strategic management process.Due to the limitation of theoretical perspective,previous studies often emphasize the role of a single factor in value creation and value capture,and lack of systematic investigation of the elements and theoretical dimensions.At the same time,the existing research is mainly based on literature derivation when analyzing the influencing factors,and has strong subjectivity,which widens the "gap" between the theory of value creation and value capture and the business practice of platform enterprises.Combined with theoretical literature and exploratory case studies,this paper constructs a theoretical framework from the factual experience of interviews to identify the elements and theoretical dimensions of the platform enterprise value creation and value capture.(2)We integrate the classical theory and construct the theoretical model of the platform enterprise value creation and value capture,which uncovers the "process black box" of the platform enterprise value creation and value capture.Previous studies focused on a single perspective to analyze enterprise value creation and value capture,because of the lack of theoretical integration,it is difficult to clearly explain the dominant logic of value creation and value capture.Therefore,this paper takes the platform enterprise as the research scene,combines the "platform" attribute,uses the basic analysis frame of the value-based theory,integrates classical theory such as PFI,TCE and RDT,which clarifies the relationship between the elements and the dominant logic of value creation and value capture,and forms a relatively better theoretical model of value creation and value capture for platform enterprises.From this point of view,it is of positive significance to construct the theoretical model of platform enterprise value creation and value capture for promoting the platform theory,value creation and value capture theory,and strategic management theory at the same time.(3)We verify the theoretical model and analyze the antecedent configurations,key factors and critical paths that affect the "success" and "failure" of value creation and value capture,which provides a higher fine-grained understanding for deepening the theory of value creation and value capture.In the previous theoretical and empirical studies of value creation and value capture,it is often emphasized that there is a symmetrical causal relationship between the antecedents and the outcome variables,thus neglecting the deeper internal relationship(causal complexity).Therefore,after constructing the theoretical model and putting forward hypothesis,this paper examines and analyzes the two dimensions of "promoting"(leading to "success" result)and "restraining"(leading to "failure" result),respectively.It is found that the antecedent configurations,key factors and critical paths are both different between "promoting" and "restraining" platform enterprises value creation and value capture.At the same time,because value creation and value capture are indispensable to the construction of sustainable competitive advantage,the conclusion of this paper has a strong guiding significance for the strategic management and business practice of platform enterprises.