Research on platform owners’ entry into complementary markets points in divergent directions. One strand of the literature reports a squeeze on post-entry complementor profits due to increased competition, while another observes positive effects as increased customer attention and innovation benefit the complementary market as a whole. In this research note, we seek to transcend these conflicting views by comparing the effects of the early and late timing of platform owners’ entry. We apply a difference-in-differences design to explore the drivers and effects of the timing of platform owners’ entry using data from three entries that Amazon made into its Alexa voice assistant’s complementary markets. Our findings suggest that early entry is driven by the motivation to boost the overall value creation of the complementary market, whereas late entry is driven by the motivation to capture value already created in a key complementary market. Importantly, our findings suggest that early entry, in contrast to late entry, creates substantial consumer attention that benefits complementors offering specialized functionality. In addition, the findings also suggest that complementors with more experience are more likely to benefit from the increased consumer attention. We contribute to platform research by showing that the timing of the platform owner’s entry matters in a way that can potentially reconcile conflicting findings regarding the consequences of platform owners’ entry into complementary markets.

中文翻译：

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比较平台所有者早期和晚期进入互补市场的情况

关于平台所有者进入互补市场的研究指向不同的方向。一篇文献报道称，由于竞争加剧，进入后互补者的利润受到挤压，而另一篇文献则观察到，随着客户关注度的增加和创新有利于整个互补市场，会产生积极影响。在本研究报告中，我们试图通过比较平台所有者早期和晚期进入的影响来超越这些相互矛盾的观点。我们采用双重差异设计，利用亚马逊进入其 Alexa 语音助手互补市场的三个条目的数据，探索平台所有者进入时机的驱动因素和影响。我们的研究结果表明，早期进入是由促进互补市场整体价值创造的动机驱动的，而后期进入则是由获取关键互补市场中已经创造的价值的动机驱动的。重要的是，我们的研究结果表明，与较晚进入相比，早期进入会引起大量消费者的关注，这有利于提供专业功能的补充者。此外，研究结果还表明，经验丰富的互补者更有可能从消费者关注度的增加中受益。我们通过表明平台所有者进入的时机很重要，从而可以潜在地调和有关平台所有者进入互补市场的后果的相互冲突的发现，从而为平台研究做出贡献。