The Evolution of Digital Platform Ecosystems: An Identity Domain Perspective

Research on digital platform ecosystems (DPEs) often assumes convergence toward optimal architectural and governance solutions driven by network effects and competition dynamics. However, evidence shows that there is heterogeneity in the strategies that platform sponsors take to navigate the tension between value creation and value capture in their ecosystem. Such heterogeneity generates distinct, nonequifinal evolutionary trajectories for DPEs. In this paper, we theorize this heterogeneity by examining the evolution of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android over the period 2007–2024. Drawing from research on organizational identity, we develop an identity domain model of DPE evolution. The model theorizes that the identity domain of a DPE frames the strategic choices that the platform sponsor makes to resolve the value creation-capture tension in the ecosystem, resulting in architectural and governance adaptations to the DPE. The identity domain of a DPE offers a powerful perspective to understand which strategic choices are most salient to each platform sponsor and what degrees of freedom they have for strategic variation and distinctiveness. We extract theoretical conjectures from the model that are applicable to other platform ecosystems and discuss the boundary conditions of the model for further research.

History: Youngjin Yoo, Senior Editor; Robert Gregory, Associate Editor.

Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2024.1022.