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| The Impact of Governance Mechanism on Opportunity Set in Digital Platforms：The Perspective of Multi-actor Interaction |
| Yang Yaqian1,Cai Li1,2,Chen Ziying1 |
| (1.School of Business and Management,Jilin University;2.Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research Institute,Jilin University,Changchun 130012,China) |
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Abstract In recent years, the rapid development of digital technology has promoted the emergence of platform entrepreneurship. Platform firms represented by ByteDance and Xiaomi set up digital platforms to effectively interact with other actors, promote a series of related products/services and form opportunity sets. The formation of opportunity set is conducive to the rapid growth of actors in platforms in the highly uncertain entrepreneurial environment, and also plays an important role in promoting social and economic development. However, practice is ahead of theory. The existing literature mainly explores the concept, dimensions and influencing factors of opportunity set from the single-actor perspective. In digital platforms, digital technology makes the products/services highly related, and the characteristics of opportunity set are particularly obvious. Moreover, the digital platform is a typical multi-actor interaction form, and multiple actors′ effective interaction is particularly important for the formation of opportunity set. Yet few scholars have explored the formation mechanism of opportunity set of digital platform from the multi-actor interaction perspective. Governance mechanism is an important means to ensure the effective interaction between platform firms and other actors and promote the formation of opportunity set. However, previous studies mainly focus on the influence of governance mechanism on opportunity development of a single actor in the platform, while the governance mechanism on opportunity set is still unclear.#br#Therefore, this paper uses the multi-case study method, taking ByteDance and Xiaomi digital platforms as research objects, to analyze the concept and dimension of opportunity set from the multi-actor interaction perspective and reveal the influence mechanism of governance mechanism on opportunity set. By collecting the secondary data of these two digital platforms from multiple sources, and conducting the coding analysis based on grounded theory, we get the following research conclusions.#br#Firstly, the opportunity set is an organic set of a series of opportunities (including developed opportunities and potential opportunities to be developed) developed by multiple actors interacting on the basis of resources on digital platforms, and its dimensions include opportunity scale, innovativeness, variety and relevance. Secondly, formal governance mechanism, informal governance mechanism and their interaction have positive impacts on opportunity set by promoting resource exchange between platform firms and other actors in platforms. Specifically, as the institutional guarantee and internal motivation of resource exchange between platform firms and other actors, formal governance mechanism facilitates resources′ efficient integration through rapid exchange of resources, promotes the continuous discovery and creation of more innovative, varied and relevant opportunities, and positively influences opportunity set′s four dimensions. Informal governance mechanism can provide emotional support and direction guidance for resource exchange between platform firms and other actors, which facilitates resources′ efficient configuration through rapid exchange of resources, promotes the continuous development of more innovative, varied and relevant opportunities, and positively influences opportunity set′s four dimensions. The interaction between formal and informal governance mechanism provides institutional guarantee for resources exchange between platform firms and other actors, and also enhances the flexibility. It is conducive to flexible resources configuration through resources′ rapid exchange in the uncertain environment, deriving more innovative, varied and relevant opportunities, and positively influencing opportunity set′s four dimensions.#br#This research makes contributions in both theory and practice. Theoretically, on the one hand, this paper improves the concept of opportunity set, systematically puts forward the dimensions of opportunity set and reveals its connotation from the multi-actor interaction perspective based on digital platforms (relevance is a new dimension; other dimensions are concepts put forward by existing research and redefined in this paper), which lays the foundation for the construction of opportunity set theory. On the other hand, following social exchange theory andconsidering the important role of resource exchange in transforming governance mechanism into resource action and promoting the formation of opportunity set, this paper opens the black box of the influence of governance mechanism on opportunity set from the perspective of resource exchange, and enriches opportunity development theory. In practice, this study can help platform firms to understand formal and informal governance mechanism and their relationships, and consider the logic of opportunity setformation from the multi-actor interaction perspective. These are beneficial for platform firms to promote efficient resource exchange by rationally utilizing two complementary types of governance mechanism, and facilitate the formation of opportunity set.#br#
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Received: 28 March 2022
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