Platform market: The evolution of research paradigms

Advancement of digital technologies and introducing them into the industrial production strenuously transforms not only the productive forces but the production relations as well. The paper aims to lay the conceptual foundations for the research paradigm of platform market. Methodologically, the study relies on the paradigmatic approach, the industrial organisation theory, new microeconomics, new institutionalism, theories of economic development and management concepts. The methods encompass bibliometric, semantic and theoretical-methodological analysis. The paper presents the developed conceptual foundations of the research methodology for exploring industrial markets development under the new technological paradigm. It reveals the distinguishing features of the platform market, which include technology’s key role and presence of external and internal interaction contours, which determine the coordination mechanism of a platform market, its actors’ strategic behaviour, as well effects of its development at micro and macro levels. The study formulates a research paradigm, which allows for a new approach to studying platform markets and is positioned as a basis for the markets’ analysis under the conditions of Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0. The findings extend the theoretical notion about the evolution and structural peculiarities of platform markets as a new object in economic analysis against the background of the economy experiencing the effects of digitalisation and industrialisation.