What’s the tally? An Investigation into the Field(s) of Dominant Designs and Platforms

Abstract

Dominant designs and platforms are two distinct scientific fields in the analysis of innovation of and competition between technologies. Responding to calls for more synthesis in management research, we study the commonalities and differences between the fields surrounding these concepts. To this end, we develop a framework for the comparison of concepts and apply it to dominant designs and platforms. We show that dominant designs and platforms differ most prominently regarding their central mechanisms, their unit and level of analysis, and the timeframe. We will elaborate how they are complementary by developing a research agenda.