Bounded to the Buy Box: Entrepreneurial Strategies and Power within Platform-based Ecosystems

Abstract

Contemporary entrepreneurs operate in a consumer culture mediated by a growing number of platform ecosystems. Furthermore, platform survival is dependent upon attracting such entrepreneurial complementors to their ecosystems. Yet, scholars are only recently beginning to grapple with the fundamental differences between traditional and platform-dependent entrepreneurship, particularly the fundamental power asymmetry between platform owners and platform dependent entrepreneurs. To explore power within platform ecosystems, I conducted a field-level ethnography of Amazon seller conferences, complemented by “zooming into” interview and archival data of platform-dependent entrepreneurs. Qualitative analysis revealed ambiguous understandings by all ecosystem members about the domains of actions and interests between the seller, Amazon as the platform owner, and other members of the ecosystems, such as third-party Amazon couriers and overseas manufacturers who often operate on other platforms such as Alibaba. Seller strategies for coping with the ambiguity required manipulation of the boundaries of the platform ecosystem to create a domain for action and shared interest. This research is particularly relevant because the impact of entrepreneurial firms’ embeddedness in platform ecosystems is largely unknown from a sociological perspective.