Johannes Loh
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Department of Management & Organization
Strategic Management Section
Research.
Published
Platform competition and strategic trade-offs for complementors: Heterogeneous reactions to the entry of a new platform
(with Ambre Elsas-Nicolle)
Strategic Management Journal (2026), 47(6): 1671-1729
Abstract
We study how the entry of a rival platform affects the strategies of the incumbent’s complementors. The latter face a trade-off: While the entry threatens their benefits from indirect network effects, it also allows them to escape intense within-platform competition. Studying Epic Games’ entry into the PC video game market—until then dominated by Steam—we show that this trade-off does not resolve uniformly, driving heterogeneity in strategic reactions. Complementors with weaker strategic resources (independent developers) were more likely to multihome and became less responsive to the incumbent’s attempts to orchestrate collective action through platform-wide sales promotions. In contrast, complementors more reliant on indirect network effects (multiplayer developers) were less likely to multihome and became more responsive to orchestration attempts.
Online Communities on Competing Platforms: Evidence from Game Wikis
(with Tobias Kretschmer)
Strategic Management Journal (2023), 44(2): 441-476
Abstract
Many platforms rely on volunteer contributions for value creation. Thus, unpaid contributors are valuable for the platform, but control over their activities is limited. We study whether and how volunteer communities can provide a competitive advantage and ask how contributor behavior depends on platform competitive position. We propose two channels: First, a stronger competitive position facilitates contributor coordination, leading to a larger active community. Second, a platform’s competitive position is related to contributor motivation, which drives how much individuals contribute. Studying two competing game wiki platforms, we find that a platform’s stronger competitive position is associated with higher activity, primarily driven by the number of contributors, which in turn triggers increased contributions by existing contributors. Further, high-productivity contributors are especially active on a stronger platform.
Working Papers
Value capture restrictions and complementary innovation in platform ecosystems
(with Lena Abou El-Komboz and Anna Kerkhof)
Revise and resubmit at Research Policy
Abstract
Platform ecosystems depend on the innovative activity of autonomous complementors, yet platform owners retain control over how these complementors capture value. By restricting value capture, platforms directly reshape the incentives underlying complementary innovation. Yet it remains unclear how this form of platform control – restricting value capture – translates into changes in complementors’ innovative behavior. We study this question in the context of YouTube’s 2018 policy change to its partner program, which abruptly restricted value capture opportunities for a subset of complementors. Using a regression discontinuity design, we compare complementors just below and just above the new eligibility threshold and examine their subsequent innovative activity. We find that the policy change significantly reduced both the rate and variety of new product releases among affected complementors. These negative effects are stronger for complementors facing greater competition in the ecosystem and for more experienced complementors. Our findings provide novel insights into how platform governance of value capture shapes innovation incentives and complementary innovation in platform ecosystems.
Peer influence, product prices, and the exploration of unfamiliar products: A dyadic approach
Revise and resubmit at the Journal of Business Research
Abstract
We study peer influence in an online social network where users purchase experience goods and follow others to observe their choices. While observational learning is known to shape consumption, how product price moderates peer influence and the exploration of unfamiliar products remains unanswered. Our framework contrasts two mechanisms: an awareness effect, in which peer purchases expand users’ choice sets, and a signaling effect, in which peer choices reduce uncertainty about quality and preference match. We derive hypotheses about how these mechanisms vary with users’ product familiarity and product prices. Using a difference-in-differences design using user–peer dyads, we estimate the causal impact of observing peer purchases. We find that peer influence is stronger for unfamiliar products but weaker for higher-priced items. This implies that peer influence creates awareness for unfamiliar products, but does not reduce uncertainty enough to raise willingness to pay.
Competition-as-a-Service: How subscription bundles reshape platform competition and seller performance
(with Ambre Elsas-Nicolle)
Abstract
Digital platforms compete on both sides of the market, i.e., for consumers and sellers. A major recent development is the rise of subscription models that provide catalog-wide access for a fixed monthly fee. While subscriptions have transformed consumption, their competitive effects on products outside subscription platforms remain unclear. We examine how the entry of a major digital subscription service affects the performance of à la carte products on a competing transaction platform. Our empirical setting is the launch of Microsoft’s Game Pass for PC, a subscription service for video games. We show that as the subscription catalog expands, sales and user engagement decline for Steam games that are more exposed to competition from similar games offered in the subscription catalog. The adverse effects are particularly strong when the subscription catalog contains many high-quality or high-value titles. These findings suggest that subscription services exert powerful off-platform competitive pressures and reconfigure market dynamics following entry. The study contributes to our understanding of platform competition and seller performance by showing how access and pricing strategies on one platform affect rival ecosystems.
Backseat gaming: How complement design affects inter-platform complementarity
(with Joe Ploog)
Abstract
Digital platforms interact in ecosystems, yet research has focused on complementarities within single platforms. We introduce inter-platform complementarity: consumption on one platform shifts consumption of related complements on another. We argue that cross-platform consumption can reduce uncertainty and coordination frictions but can also substitute for consumption elsewhere when it delivers value directly. We test our theory in the video-game ecosystem linking Twitch (stream viewing) and Steam (game play). Using pre-release controls and matching, we find that greater consumption on Twitch predicts greater consumption on Steam, especially for network games. However, this relation weakens when attention on Twitch is highly concentrated, consistent with social viewing substituting for social play. Our findings contribute to research on platform strategy and network effects by clarifying when inter-platform complementarity is positive.
Skill Disruption and Post-Acquisition Employee Exit
(with Pooyan Khashabi & Tobias Kretschmer)
Abstract
In knowledge-intensive industries, many acquisition targets are selected for their human capital. Acquisitions can also, however, trigger employee departure, reducing the very asset the acquirer originally wanted to obtain. To better understand this issue and its underlying factors, we argue that, when acquisitions disrupt the complementarity between employee skills and employer activities, they diminish human capital productivity in the value-creation process, which ultimately drives exit decisions. We predict that employees with specialized skills are more strongly affected by disruption than generalists, while the effect of individual disruption on employee exit becomes weaker if the acquisition target as a whole is more distant to the acquirer. Analyzing vertical acquisitions in the U.S. video-game industry, we find strong evidence for our hypotheses. Our findings have implications for the likely success of related and unrelated acquisitions.
Work in Progress
Project on the merger of two community-driven platforms (Fandom and Gamepedia)
(with Chiara Belletti & Tobias Kretschmer)
Project on how ve rtically integrated products can be leveraged to enter platform markets
(with Ambre Elsas-Nicolle)
Project on the interplay of architectural and complementary innovation in modular products
Johannes Loh 