平台到底是什么——基于分工与协调视角

What Exactly is the Platform:based on the Perspective of Division of Labor and Coordination

以技术管理、战略管理、产业组织和生态系统为代表的研究视角,对平台本质的限制性理解直接导致学术界对平台到底是什么存在异议,将平台本质限制性理解为特定情境的平台功能是导致上述问题的根本原因。突破现有研究视角局限,引入分工与协调视角,对平台本质特征进行阐释是解决这个问题最好方案。在梳理平台本质特征的基础上,认为平台是一个以共享界面和接口为黏合剂的互补性自治主体进行分工与协调的元组织。通过解决平台本质研究中存在的争议与问题,揭示平台到底是什么,进而深化对平台的理解及在现实中的应用。

As the basis and logical starting point of platform research,there is no widely accepted interpretation of what platform is.Since the 21st century,Amazon,Google,Alibaba,Jingdong,Uber,Airbnb and other enterprises have successfully applied the platform concept into practice.Platform has become an important economic phenomenon and received wide attention from the academic community.However,according to the existing platform research,the cognition and understanding of the nature of platform are different.Then,it is vital that we could recognize the differences and explore essential characteristics,and finally define what platform is.Exploring the nature of platform is the basis for promoting academic research on platform.Therefore,a large number of scholars have explored the nature of platform from different perspectives,but they are limited to a specific context or field of research,and have not formed a recognized definition of"what platform is".In fact,due to the limitations of history and context,existing studies on the nature of platform only focus on some images of platform functions at different levels,leading to disagreement on the understanding of the nature of platforms.At the same time,most of the existing theories of platform nature regard the platform as a static structure,which is obviously inconsistent with the continuous evolution of the reality.We found that although the platform is characterized by various forms under different perspectives,each platform is characterized by division of labor and coordination,namely division of labor is represented by the division of labor between a set of core"components of a platform with a few variants and a set of complementary peripheral components with multiple variants.In essence,platform is represented as platform division of labor within enterprises from the perspective of technology management and strategic management,at the same time,platform is represented as platform division of labor among enterprises from the perspective of industrial organization and ecosystem.Therefore,the division of labor and coordination are intrinsically linked,which constitutes the essential characteristics of platform,solves the problem of lack of connection between existing researches on the nature of platform from different perspectives,and creates opportunities to explore and reveal what platform really is.This paper reviews and sorts out the research status of platform nature theory,explores"what platform really is",and finally draws two main conclusions.First,the essential characteristics of platform from different research perspectives are all manifested as division of labor and coordination.From the perspective of division and coordination,technology management is the division of labor and coordination of product platform;strategic management is the division of the labor and coordination of platform enterprises;industrial organization is the division and coordination of bilateral(multilateral)market platform,and ecosystem is the division of the labor and coordination of platform ecosystem.Second,the nature of platform is a kind of meta-organization.Based on the essential characteristics of platform,platform is a meta-organization which takes the shared interface and interface as the glue of the complementary autonomous body to carry out the division of labor and coordination,different from the two traditional organizational modes of bureaucracy and market.By conceptualizing the platform as a meta-organization,two basic problems facing the nature theory of platform could probably be solved.First of all,platform,as a meta-organization,can cover and include the basic theoretical elements of the four research perspectives of technology management,strategic management,industrial organization and ecosystem,and find a common basis and joint point for these research perspectives,which provides a direction for the construction of the universally recognized nature theory of platform.Secondly,the conceptualization of platform as a kind of meta-organization can break the static view prevailing in most of the existing platform research.According to the organization theory,we can deeply understand the evolution process of platform and further explore the nature of platform.The main theoretical contributions of this paper are as follows.Firstly,it reviews and sorts out the nature theory of platform from different perspectives,and clarifies the research context of nature theory of platform.Secondly,it explores the essential characteristics of platforms from the perspective of division of labor and coordination among the four research perspectives of technology management,strategic management,industrial organization and ecosystem,and deepens the research on the nature of platforms.Finally,by redefining the connotation of platform,it advances the exploration of the research question"what platform is".