Interactive Evolution of Marketing Functions between Platforms and Individual Business Operators

Abstract

This paper discusses the interactive evolution of marketing functions between platforms (PFs) and individual business operators. The purpose is to present a new model and hypotheses that differ from the “PF-centered view of the relationship between a PF and its complements,” upon which existing interaction-type platform studies basically rely. For this purpose, the paper conducts a case study of interactive development of customer-interaction functions between PFs and individual business operators in the restaurant chain industry. As a result of the case study, we argue the following propositions: marketing functions of interaction-type PFs and individual business operators develop through interactive competition for functional expansion; and individual business operators may collaboratively develop PF functions to take advantage of the network effects of the PF.

Keywords

• interaction-type platform
• complementor (individual business operator)
• marketing function
• interactive evolution
• restaurant chain industry