Original title: How entrepreneurial SMEs compete through digital platforms: The roles of digital platform capability, network capability and ambidexterity
The study looks at small businesses that use digital platforms. It finds that platform skills can help financial performance indirectly by helping firms build networks. A focus on exploring new opportunities strengthens this link, while a focus on exploiting current activities weakens it. The results suggest firms should match their platform skills to their strategic focus.
Imagine running a small café that joins a local food market. The stall helps only if you use it to build useful relationships, and your focus matters: improving the menu you already sell is different from trying new dishes. In this paper, using the market stands for using a digital platform, the relationships stand for a business network, and the café’s focus stands for its strategic orientation.
Small businesses often lack the resources to make the most of digital platforms. The findings suggest that building relationships through platform use may help improve financial performance, but the effect depends on whether a business focuses on improving current activities or exploring new ones.
The abstract reports results from 230 entrepreneurial SMEs and describes relationships among platform capability, network capability, orientation, and financial performance. It does not specify where the firms are from, how the data were collected, or whether the findings apply to other types of businesses or settings.
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How entrepreneurial SMEs compete through digital platforms: The roles of digital platform capability, network capability and ambidexterity — Javier Cenamor, Vinit Parida, Joakim Wincent — Journal of Business Research — doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.03.035
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.