Richard D. Wang

Management Division, Babson College

Cameron D. Miller

Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University

In ecosystems, tensions between value creation and appropriation can arise when complementors form relationships with a partner that benefits from network effects. While creating value collectively, these relationships strengthen the network effects, which increase the partner's ability to appropriate value. We posit that complementors strategize their product offerings to benefit from the relationship with the partner while preserving bargaining power by keeping relationships with other partners as outside options. We examine book publishers' product portfolios in the Amazon Kindle e-book and the printed book ecosystems. Our results illuminate specific product offering decisions by large publishers that are more protective of the printed book ecosystem and less conducive to Kindle's success. This research adds to the literature on interorganizational relationships, platform ecosystems, and managing digital innovations.

How do book publishers deal with Amazon? This paper compares book publishers' product offerings on Amazon's Kindle digital platform and in the physical print channel. We find that publishers offer high demand products as e-books on Kindle to benefit from logistics savings. Yet, relative to small publishers, large publishers product decisions that support Kindle less, such as withholding some of their greatest revenue generating books. Such decisions could both limit Kindle's attractiveness to the consumers and preserve the economic viability of the print channel as an outside option. These findings improve our understanding of how companies can leverage their product portfolios to both benefit from digital technology efficiencies and maintain their bargaining power vis-à-vis digital platforms.

数字创新、网络效应、平台生态系统、产品提供决策、价值创造和分配

Keywords: digital innovation, network effects, platform ecosystems, product offering decisions, value creation and appropriation

• 平均而言，出版商倾向于提供高需求产品类别的电子书。高需求产品的发现表明，出版商可以利用Kindle的经济效率来增强价值创造。

• 一般而言，出版商也倾向于提供具有竞争力的产品类别，这表明出版商就像在物理渠道中一样，在数字平台上相互竞争。

• 产品对出版商的重要性与Kindle上提供产品的可能性之间存在倒U型关系。这一发现表明，出版商拒绝了Kindle的最畅销产品，这与出版商保护其最重要的产品不受数字平台占用的观点是一致的。

• 大型和小型出版商在产品提供决策方面既有相似之处，也有差异。他们都倾向于在Kindle上提供高需求的产品类别。但大型出版商不太愿意在Kindle上提供其竞争产品，从而削弱了平台的成功机会，抑制了网络效应的影响。另一个区别是，大型出版商更可能保留占其收入高比例的产品。

本文研究了亚马逊Kindle电子书生态系统，并证明了互补者做出的产品提供决策将限制与数字平台的互动程度，同时在印刷图书生态系统中促进其他合作伙伴作为外部选择。这一机制具有重要的战略意义，因为它有助于互补者管理与受益于网络效应的生态系统伙伴关系中的价值创造和价值分配的紧张关系。

本研究也有助于平台生态系统和多边市场的研究。之前的研究通常集中在平台对互补者具有议价能力的情况下，而我们关注的是在多个不同生态系统中的互补者参与——数字平台和物理渠道——提高了我们对一个未被充分研究的议价能力来源的理解。在此过程中，我们结合了互补者的价值分配问题如何影响他们的策略和结果。重要的是，我们关于产品扣留的结果强调了当双方对共同创造的价值具有相当的议价能力时，互补者和平台之间的价值创造活动可能会停滞。

总之，本研究以互补者的视角来评价其与数字平台的组织间关系，强调了网络效应所产生的价值创造与价值分配之间的紧张关系。亚马逊Kindle电子书上的证据支持这样一种观点，即互补者利用产品提供决策作为一种战略机制来管理这种紧张关系。研究结果对平台生态系统互补者策略的理论研究具有重要的指导意义。

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