Make, Buy, or Join: Evaluating Platform Strategies of Established Companies

数字平台正在越来越多的行业中占据一席之地。传统的非平台商业模式的老牌公司面临着应对基于平台的竞争对手的压力。出租车行业与Uber等移动服务数字平台竞争，老牌银行公司面临被金融科技公司绕过的风险，这些公司为金融服务创建数字平台。我们可以观察到，老牌公司的反应要么是建立自己的数字平台（制造战略），要么是收购数字平台以在竞争中站稳脚跟（购买战略），要么是加入现有平台以从其影响力中获益（加入战略）。然而，这些战略的成功是喜忧参半，它仍然不清楚从文献中什么战略是有前途的，在什么情况下。我提出了一个研究问题“如何做不同的平台战略（即，制造、购买或加入）影响老牌公司的业绩？在这个项目中，我将对成熟企业的不同平台战略的成功进行定量的行业层面的研究。我将为这个项目访问宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院，考虑到广泛的数据访问和领先的管理研究，我可以合作。基于现有的理论和我以前的工作，我将提出假设，将不同的平台策略与绩效联系起来。因此，我会考虑公司和行业的具体因素，例如现有数字平台的主导程度。然后，我将收集有关财务业绩和公告数据的行业数据，以确定成熟公司实施平台战略的情况。基于这些数据，我将进行一个事件研究与线性回归分析和测试的假设。与结果，我有助于正在进行的讨论，在管理和信息系统研究的界面上，通过提供平台战略的成功推广的结果。通过这个项目，首先，我将能够多样化我的研究方法组合。在我的论文中，我主要从事定性工作，该项目将提高我在定量方法方面的技能。第二，这个项目将帮助我提高我的能力，发展理论和写作的顶级网点，鉴于我的密切合作，在沃顿商学院的高出版学者。第三，我将加强我的学术网络，与沃顿商学院的学者建立联系，并跟进我2019年在波士顿逗留期间在麻省理工学院和哈佛建立的联系。沃顿商学院在研究和教学方面都是世界上最好的商学院之一。因此，除了与管理研究领域的一些最优秀的学者合作外，参观沃顿商学院将使我对世界一流的教学有更深入的了解，这将成为我自己教学风格的灵感来源。

Digital platforms are gaining ground in more and more industries. Established companies with traditional, non-platform business models are under pressure to react to platform-based competitors. The taxi industry competes with digital platforms for mobility services such as Uber and established banking companies are at risk to be bypassed by fintech companies that create digital platforms for financial services. We can observe established companies reacting either by building their own digital platform (make strategy), acquiring digital platforms in order to gain a foothold in the competition (buy strategy) or joining an existing platform to benefit from their reach (join strategy). However, success of these strategies is mixed and it remains unclear from literature what strategy is promising under what circumstances. I pose the research question ‘how do different platform strategies (i.e., make, buy, or join) impact the performance of established companies?’In this project, I will conduct a quantitative, industry-level study on the success of different platform strategies of established firms. I will visit the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania for this project, given the extensive data access and the leading management research I can collaborate with. Building on existing theories and my previous work, I will develop hypotheses that link different platform strategies to performance. Thereby, I take company- and industry-specific factors into consideration such as the degree of domination by existing digital platforms. I will then collect industry data with regard to financial performance and announcement data to identify the implementation of platform strategies by established companies. Based on this data I will conduct an event study with linear regression analysis and test the hypotheses. With the results, I contribute to ongoing discussions at the interface of management and information systems research by providing generalizable findings on the success of platform strategies. With this project, first, I will be able to diversify my portfolio of research methods. I have worked mainly qualitatively during my dissertation and the project will enhance my skills with regard to quantitative methods. Second, the project will help me to enhance my capabilities to develop theory and to write for top-tier outlets, given my close collaboration with highly-published scholars at the Wharton School. Third, I will strengthen my academic network by connecting with scholars at the Wharton School and by following up on contacts at MIT and Harvard that I initiated during a stay in Boston in 2019. The Wharton School is one of the best business schools in the world both with regard to research and teaching. Thus, besides working with some of the best scholars from the field of management research, visiting the Wharton School will grant me insights into world-class teaching which will be an inspiration for my own teaching style.