The Antecedents and Consequences of Multi-Firm Technology Coordination: An Ecosystem Perspective

Multi-party technology coordination bodies that bring together hundreds of firms to define the technical rules of interaction between components in a product-system, are an increasingly influential organizational arrangement, as exemplified by the market success of technology standards such as WiFi, Bluetooth, and HDMI. Yet we are limited in our understanding of the antecedents to such coordination, and, conditional on formation of a coordination structure, the factors that enable its success. We propose a conceptual framework that integrates research on alliances, coopetition, and ecosystems, and builds on the tension between value creation and value capture that is specific to the multilateral technology coordination context. Our two-part framework first proposes that the impetus to create value using multi-firm coordination forums is spurred by the modular structure of the ecosystem, the distribution of firms' knowledge and competitive positions within this structure, and the extent to which potential complementarities from coordination are multilateral. We then suggest that the effectiveness of the decisions that emerge from these forums may ultimately be constrained by asymmetries across participating firms, both in terms of their potential for future value capture and their adjustment costs of existing resources and capabilities as a consequence of the proposed rules.