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In digitally networked economies, competitive advantage has shifted from firm-level resources to ecosystem-level orchestration, where platform leaders and complementors navigate interdependent value creation and capture. This theory-development article synthesizes recent advances in platform research to propose an evolutionary framework that explains how competitive advantage emerges, sustains, and erodes across three stages: firm-centric, platform-centric, and ecosystem-centric competition. Drawing on network effects, multi-sided market dynamics, and governance mechanisms, the framework highlights strategic positioning within platform hierarchies as the central driver of sustained advantage. Five core propositions articulate causal relationships between network intensity, complementor dependence, data-driven feedback loops, and value-capture asymmetry. The analysis reveals that platform leaders maintain dominance not through ownership of scarce resources but through selective promotion of complements, ecosystem governance, and orchestration of indirect network effects. Complementors, in turn, secure advantage by exploiting platform openness while mitigating lock-in risks. By integrating insights from peer-reviewed studies, this article advances a novel theory of ecosystem-driven competitive advantage that accounts for the dynamic interplay of technological affordances, strategic interdependence, and regulatory pressures. The resulting framework offers actionable guidance for platform leaders and complementors seeking to reposition within rapidly evolving digital markets.

The digital transformation of the economy has fundamentally altered the logic of business models, shifting the focus from linear, firm-centric value chains to complex, networked architectures. This narrative review synthesizes contemporary literature to conceptualize digital business models, framing the interplay between digitalization and business model design. We explore how platforms, data, and ecosystem-based value creation have become the central pillars of modern business strategy. The review identifies three core architectural shifts: the emergence of platform-based models that orchestrate value exchange, the rise of data as a primary resource for value propositions and monetization, and the transition from dyadic firm-customer relationships to multi-actor ecosystems. We analyze inherent tensions in these models, such as balancing openness with control and scalability with value capture, which present novel strategic challenges. By integrating findings from key references, this article clarifies the conceptual landscape of digital business models and highlights a departure from traditional configurations. We conclude by outlining implications for strategic management and proposing future research directions to address conceptual fragmentation and dynamic governance issues in digital business model innovation.

Platform-based business models have become central to digital competition because they reorganise how firms create, coordinate, and appropriate value across multi-sided ecosystems. Unlike traditional pipeline models, platforms depend on interactions among users, complementors, developers, advertisers, and other external actors. This shift has made platform competitiveness a strategic phenomenon that cannot be explained only by internal resources or product-market positioning. This systematic review examines how platform-based business models generate and sustain firm competitiveness through three interrelated mechanisms: network effects, ecosystem governance, and value capture. The objective is to synthesise fragmented evidence from strategy, information systems, innovation, and management research. The review focuses on how these mechanisms operate individually and how their interaction shapes platform performance and durability. The findings show that platform competitiveness is supported by architectural design, multi-sided participation, network effects, ecosystem orchestration, and monetization choices. However, the evidence also reveals tensions between openness and control, growth and quality, value creation and value capture, and network expansion and strategic vulnerability. Five tables summarise the review method, platform typology, network effects, governance mechanisms, and value capture models. The review concludes that platform competitiveness should be understood as a dynamic system rather than as the automatic result of scale. Network effects require governance, governance shapes value capture, and value capture can either strengthen or weaken ecosystem health. Future research should therefore examine platform success and failure through longitudinal, comparative, and context-sensitive designs.