The language of platform governance: An economics-based scoping review of SME value creation and dependency in digital platform ecosystems

Digital platforms have become a dominant form of economic organization, yet small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) often participate in platform ecosystems without clear guidance on how platform governance changes value creation and value capture. This study develops an original economics-based scoping review of peer-reviewed, DOI-bearing literature to explain how platform participation affects SME performance, innovation, and dependency. Drawing on transaction cost economics, institutional economics, resource-based theory, dynamic capabilities, multi-sided market theory, and ecosystem strategy, the article asks: What economic mechanisms explain SME value creation on platforms, what governance tensions affect value capture, and what research agenda follows for business management scholarship? A theory-led scoping method was used to synthesize 40 DOI-verified sources, including foundational economics articles and contemporary digital platform studies. The synthesis identifies five connected mechanisms: transaction-cost economizing, network-effect scaling, boundary-resource governance, ecosystem complementarities, and SME platform capability. It also shows that platforms do not simply reduce market frictions; they relocate coordination, bargaining, and innovation risks from traditional firm boundaries into platform rules, interfaces, data architectures, and complementor relationships. The article contributes a three-layer framework - economizing, orchestrating, and capability-building - and proposes testable propositions for future empirical research. The findings suggest that SMEs benefit most when digital platform capability and network capability are combined with institutional safeguards against platform-owner opportunism, opaque algorithmic governance, and complementor displacement. The study concludes that platform participation is best understood not as a purely technological adoption decision but as a governance choice shaped by transaction costs, capabilities, and ecosystem power.