Coordination in a Digital Platform Organization

A digital platform (DP) generates value by facilitating direct interactions between two or multiple platform sides. While previous studies have expounded upon how platform sides can be coordinated at a collective level (i.e., by pricing strategy and modular architecture), digital platform owners must not neglect the dynamics within the platform sides and their interactions. Through an in-depth case study of one of the largest e-commerce platforms worldwide, we develop a process model that explains digital platform coordination in terms of the mechanisms that describe the emergence of coordination issues as a result of the enactment of the platform sides’ agency and how these issues can be circumvented. This study makes two contributions. First, this study challenges the existing DP literature concerning the assumption of exogenous platform sides, highlighting the agency of the sides as a source of misalignment that must be managed. Second, the model complements the platform coordination literature focusing on enabling/constraining the actions of sides by conceptualizing a digital orienting mechanism. By adopting a meta-organizational view of digital platforms, this empirical work is among the few studies that report from the inside of a digital platform organization and adopt a processual account.