Orchestrating ecosystem resources in a different country: Understanding the integrative capabilities of sharing economy platform multinational corporations

Abstract

This paper investigates how sharing economy platform multinational corporations (SEP-MNCs) orchestrate ecosystem resources to drive sustainable growth in a different country, through a dynamic capability perspective. Based on a multiple-case design, we offer a process perspective that identifies three sets of distinct integrative capabilities that come to the fore at different stages of the SEP-MNC's ecosystem development in a different country. By arguing that dynamic capabilities need to be co-created, we posit that, ultimately, the platform ecosystem value creation requires collective engagements of both internal and external resources of the platform ecosystem in building and preserving the collaborative action that amplified their individual resources to identify new and novel opportunities. We therefore re-conceptualizing dynamic capabilities of SEP-MNCs resides at the ecosystem level where the capabilities become an emergent and highly integrated property, with recurrent patterns that only become apparent from continuous interactions with their ecosystem partners. We also contribute to the IB literature by offering a holistic view that infuses dynamic capabilities with the themes of interdependence, sub-national network coordination, and data intelligence; themes that are yet to be fully incorporated into IB scholarship.