Digital market intermediation has emerged as the dominant coordination mechanism in contemporary business environments, fundamentally altering how firms identify, create, and capture value. Traditional firm-centric value chains are giving way to platform-dominated ecosystems in which digital intermediaries orchestrate multi-sided interactions, govern complementor participation, and redistribute strategic agency across previously independent actors. This theory-development article synthesizes insights from platform ecosystem research to reconceptualize the evolving role of firms as active participants rather than autonomous orchestrators. We argue that digital intermediation transforms value creation from sequential, firm-controlled processes into distributed, ecosystem-embedded mechanisms that rely on platform governance, complementor coordination, and dynamic strategic positioning. By integrating literature on platform strategy, ecosystem governance, and value-chain reconfiguration, the article develops a novel theoretical framework centered on six propositions that explicate causal relationships between intermediation intensity, governance alignment, and sustained value appropriation. The proposed conceptualization advances digital business theory by shifting analytical focus from firm-level capabilities to platform-mediated relational dynamics. Theoretical and managerial implications highlight the necessity for firms to develop intermediation-specific competencies to maintain competitive relevance in platform-dominated markets. Future research directions emphasize longitudinal examination of governance evolution and cross-platform value migration.
Institute for Management, Business, and Accounting Studies