What drives platform complementors to adopt boundary resources? We address this question by drawing on optimal distinctiveness. We suggest that competitors' adoption of a platform boundary resource on the one hand increases the legitimacy of the resource, but on the other hand decreases a focal complementor's ability to differentiate by adopting it. We therefore hypothesize an inverted U-shaped relationship between prior and future adoption of a platform boundary resource. In a dataset of health and fitness apps on the Apple iOS platform and through three online experiments, we find support for this relationship and for the existence of two important complementor-specific contingencies that moderate this relationship. This paper expands our understanding of how optimal distinctiveness drives the dynamics of platform-mediated markets.

中文翻译：

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最佳独特性如何塑造平台互补者对边界资源的采用

是什么促使平台互补者采用边界资源？我们通过利用最佳独特性来解决这个问题。我们认为，竞争对手对平台边界资源的采用一方面会增加该资源的合法性，但另一方面会降低焦点互补者通过采用该资源来实现差异化的能力。因此，我们假设平台边界资源的先前采用和未来采用之间存在倒 U 形关系。在 Apple iOS 平台上的健康和健身应用程序数据集中，通过三个在线实验，我们发现了对这种关系的支持，以及调节这种关系的两个重要的互补者特定偶发事件的存在。本文扩展了我们对最佳独特性如何驱动平台中介市场动态的理解。