The Research Of The Process Of Platform Firm's Value Capture

With the rise of the Internet and also labor division and specialization continues to impact the world,the traditional value chain has become the value network.The connection between market participants is enhanced.Platform,known as a traditional commercial carrier,also changed from a simple platform for sellers to a two-sided trading platform,and now being regarded as a multi-sided market with network externality which is multichannel,customer-oriented and information-converging.Under the effect of new industrial structure and IT,platform becomes a part or even the entire company,instead of inter-organizational form.In this situation comes the platform firm.With the constant rise of platform firms,the competition between them is becoming fiercer.How platform firms survive in this competition?How platform firms capture value?These problems are needed to be studied.The main problem of this study,there are two:how to define a platform firm,and how platform firms capture value?The first problem means that we need to study who is running these platforms and who can have the job done perfectly.The second problem focuses on how platform firms capture value by establishing platforms.Through the literature review and the combination of value-net theory and modularity theory,we give platform firms a definition.According to the different positions in the value net,we divide platform firms into the ones not connected terminal consumer and the ones connected to terminal consumer.We studied their conduct in the process of reconstruction of value net and the form of platform after the reconstruction.Based on the modularity theory and resource dependence theory,we get the three channels and the process of value capture of platform firms,and make a compare between two kinds of platform firms.In the end,we chose QME and Amazon as two cases represent for two kinds of platform firms to verify the conclusions.The innovation points of this study are the definition of platform firms,the reasons,process and results of the reconstruction of value net,and the process of value capture of platform firms.Also,this study finds a way to avoid cash subsidy.This study defined the platform firm as an enterprise with the capacity to reconstruct the value net and gather information,playing the role of rule designer,running multiple platforms,customer oriented and regard solution as their production.The channels of value capture of platform firms are three:authority of value distribution,the rule design,the extension of value prospect.Platform firms use the authority of value distribution to distribute more value for themselves,occupy higher value-added sectors and form the original externality through the extension of value prospect,form the network externality and asymmetric advantage through rule design.These three channels constitute the main structure of the process of value capture of platform firms.Externality can replace the cash subsidy.This study stated the process of value capture of platform firms,but still a little superficial.The meaning of costumer value needs to be further studied,and the characterization of the whole value network is not comprehensive enough.More theories should be used in the study.