Crafting Agent-based Models to Analyze Service Platforms

New service platforms have emerged in, and transformed, economic activities ranging from hospitality (i.e., AirBnB) to lending (i.e., Lendingclub.com). Understanding and managing the dynamics and functioning of service platforms poses a novel challenge for academic research and managerial practice alike, thus requiring new interdisciplinary research methods and approaches. Here, we address this challenge by demonstrating how agent-based modelling (ABM) can be used to study the intricate nature and dynamics of service platforms. Our contribution consists of a novel conceptualization of service platforms as platform-based service ecosystems, as well as guidelines on how to delineate ABM models of service platforms, including a grid that enables future researchers to study their underlying dynamics and functioning. Finally, our study advances current theoretical and practitioner thinking about how platform-based service ecosystems may enable, transform, and facilitate value cocreation in service.