Platform Strategy, Niche Strategy, and Firm Growth: A Business Ecosystem Positioning Perspective

As digital technology brings firms interconnected, the business ecosystem attracts increasing academic attention. Using survey data from 334 Chinese firms, we examine the growth effect of platform strategy and niche strategy in business ecosystem structure. In this article, we also explore the contingent roles of technological modularization and legal enforcement inefficiency. Our findings show that both platform strategy and niche strategy can enhance firm growth. Specifically, platform strategy achieves growth by promoting the entire ecosystem's prosperity, whereas niche strategy relies on heterogeneity and expertise to grow. Legal enforcement inefficiency limits the niche strategy's ability to achieve growth but provides the platform strategy with greater opportunities to grow. We expect technological modularization to promote the positive effect of platform strategy on firm growth but weaken the positive growth effect of niche strategy. Results support all of our hypotheses but refute our prediction concerning the moderating effect of technological modularization on the growth effect of niche strategy. This article contributes to the positioning school of literature for firm growth by extending the strategy positioning perspective from the industry chain to the business ecosystem. Our findings also identify two boundary conditions for platform strategy and niche strategy to promote firm growth in business ecosystem structure.