Toward the Governance of Digital Platforms Operating as Social Enterprises: A Systematic Literature Review and Synthesis

To address societal challenges, digital platforms increasingly operate as social enterprises, combining economic and social goals. However, existing platform governance research provides limited guidance for managing settings characterized by diverse actors and plural goals. This study conducts a systematic literature review of 73 articles on governance mechanisms in digital platforms and social enterprises. It identifies distinct functions of governance mechanisms and the governance challenges they address in each stream. Based on this analysis, we develop four propositions: the first two abstract the underlying logic of governance mechanisms, highlighting how behavior-oriented mechanisms support ecosystem stability and structure-oriented mechanisms enable flexibility between competing goals. The latter two propositions synthesize these insights to inform the governance of digital platforms operating as social enterprises. The study advances theoretical understanding of platform governance and offers practical implications for platform owners and policymakers navigating the faces of creating economic and social value.