Digital Platforms and Market Dominance: Insights from a Systematic Literature Review and Avenues for Future Research

Authors

Sebastian Hermes, Technical University of MunichFollow
Simon Pfab, Technical University MunichFollow
Andreas Hein, Technical University of MunichFollow
Jörg Weking, Technical University of MunichFollow
Markus Böhm, Technical University of MunichFollow
Helmut Krcmar, Technical University of MunichFollow

Abstract

Companies that take advantage of digital platforms have rapidly gained a dominant position in their respective markets. While research on digital platforms yielded new insights into winner-take-all markets, envelopment, openness, or governance, no study provided a framework that integrates those aspects and links them to market dominance. We, therefore, conduct a literature review to assess how platform owners attain market dominance. We integrated our findings into a framework that depicts the interrelations between environmental factors and firm-level strategies as well as firm-level strategies and their effects for market dominance. The framework conceptualizes platform dominance to help a) attain it from a platform owner perspective, b) cope with it from a competitive perspective, and c) regulate it from a policy perspective. We propose three avenues for future research: (1) the role of national factors in attaining dominance; (2) factors enabling platforms to sustain dominance; and (3) strategies to dethrone dominant platforms.

Recommended Citation

Hermes, Sebastian; Pfab, Simon; Hein, Andreas; Weking, Jörg; Böhm, Markus; and Krcmar, Helmut, "Digital Platforms and Market Dominance: Insights from a Systematic Literature Review and Avenues for Future Research" (2020). PACIS 2020 Proceedings. 42.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/pacis2020/42