Resumo

The term ‘platform’ has proliferated in management research. Scholars from diverse fields have become interested in these organization types and even suggest that they can become a central concept for a new economy. They are new foundations for value creation and possibly will develop more power than was that of the factory owners in the early industrial revolution, and many companies consider platforms business model as a prospect for successful development.

Recent researches identified a link between literature about platform and research on business models, suggesting the necessity of future research focusing on the discussion of the theoretical connections between these two concepts to provide for further consolidation of literature. Thus, the purpose of this paper was to review the existing literature about platforms and business models and to propose a definition and framework to analyze platform business models.

Two distinct theoretical perspectives dominate platform research: one inspired from economic theory, and have conceptualized platforms as types of markets, and the other from engineering design, have conceptualized platforms as modular technological architectures. A socio-technical vision defines platforms as evolving organizations or meta-organizations with a modular architecture that multiple coordinate agents. One of the most accepted definitions for “business model” is proposed by Teece (2010): “design or architecture of the value creation, delivery, and capture mechanisms it employs”.

Based on the findings, we identified that the literature about business model and platform researches is classified in three groups: antecedents, process, and outcomes of the business model. The antecedents group identify technology platforms as drivers of the novel business model; the process group research elements of the business model, their evolution and taxonomy; the outcomes group concluding that platform business model generate consequences to firm (client loyalty, profit, organizational success), and to industry (transformation and organization of the informal sector).

We elaborate a framework that presents the drivers, enables, barriers, and consequences of the platform business model. We identify that more researches need to be done to explore all the elements of the proposed framework, mainly focusing on innovations in managerial practices and the dynamic capabilities of the focal company as a driver for the platform business models, and in the barriers and enablers of this type of business model and the negative impacts it generates.

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