Effectiveness of Ecosystem Strategies for the Sustainability of Marketplace Platform Ecosystems

Yuki Inoue, Masataka Hashimoto and Takeshi Takenaka
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Yuki Inoue: Graduate School of Social Sciences, Hiroshima University, Higashi-senda, 1-1-89, Naka-ku, Hiroshima 730-0053, Japan
Masataka Hashimoto: Graduate School of Global Business, Meiji University, 1-1, Surugadai, Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-8301, Japan
Takeshi Takenaka: Human Augmentation Research Center, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, 6-2-3, Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-0882, Japan

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 20, 1-33

Abstract: Physical intermediary firms, such as logistics firms, are the foundation of marketplace platform ecosystems. This study introduces the case of a delivery crisis caused by the withdrawal of major logistics firms from the Japanese marketplace platform. To address such a problem, this study considers the application of an “ecosystem strategy”. We define an ecosystem strategy in this situation, as “the strategy by which the platform owner cooperates with logistics firms to standardize logistics services and provides a platform system to improve cooperation among them”. We constructed an agent-based simulation system customized by a dataset of Japanese platform-based markets to test the effectiveness of the proposed strategy. The results indicate that the introduction of the ecosystem strategy postponed the start of the collapse. It also increased the number of platform users by roughly 1.10 times and increased the total profits of logistics firms about 1.22 times. Additionally, it removed the trade-off relationship between platform users and the profits of logistics firms and allowed the maximization of both. This study contributed to the research stream of platform ecosystems by defining an ecosystem strategy, including physical intermediary firms, and verifying the effectiveness of the strategy for ecosystem evolution and sustainability.

Keywords: platform-based market; platform ecosystem; marketplace platform; e-commerce; delivery crisis; ecosystem strategy; service open innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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