This paper analyses strategies for platform owners to increase complementor participation on the platform. Specifically, it draws on open innovation (OI) and the resource-based view (RBV) to isolate three drivers of complementor participation, namely breadth of content offerings and boundary resources (related to OI), and exclusive content (associated with RBV). We hypothesize that higher levels of each of these drivers increase the platform's attractiveness to future complementors and increase complementor participation. Based on negative binomial fixed effects regressions in the context of video game consoles, we find that boundary resources and exclusive content, but not breadth of content offerings, are positively related to complementor participation. This shows that drivers from both OI and RBV relate to complementor participation. The results have implications for the orchestration of platform ecosystems.

This paper analyses how the factors breadth of content offerings, boundary resources, and exclusive content explain complementor participation in platform-based ecosystems, in the context of video game consoles. Fixed effects regressions on a panel comprising two generations of consoles across six platforms show that the breadth of content offerings positively affects complementor participation. We find that breadth of content offerings, but not boundary resources and exclusive content, are positively related to complementor participation. When studied in one model, breadth of content offerings dominates the relationship. Our results show how complementor ecosystems can be orchestrated to proliferate a variety of complementary product offerings.