Leveraging interdependencies among platform and complementors in innovation ecosystem

In the platform-based innovation ecosystem, the symbiotic evolution and interaction between the participating entities have drawn extensive attention. However, there is a lack of understanding of the co-specialization and co-innovation among members of the innovation ecosystem. This paper addresses this gap. In this paper, the collaborative innovation between a platform firm and different kinds of complementors, and its effects on the performance of the innovation ecosystem are simulated through an improved NK model. The result shows that the co-innovation performance between generalist complementors and the platform firm is generally outperformed than that between the specialist complementors and the platform firm. As the interdependencies between the complementary components get stronger, the innovation performance of the innovation ecosystem influenced by the interaction between different types of complementors and platform firms tend to be an inverted U-shape.