City Research Online ***TEST***

Abstract

In multi-platform markets, complementors often choose to offer their products or services across several platforms—a strategy known as complementor multihoming. This approach has recently attracted much attention from both industry practitioners and management scholars. Building on existing research regarding the factors that influence complementors’ decision to multihome and the associated performance implications, this study specifically examines the timing strategies involved in complementors’ multihoming decisions. We investigate the drivers of the timing of complementors’ sequential multihomings, focusing on the factors that affect the timing of their first and subsequent multihoming. The empirical context of our research is the ecosystem of platforms and complementors in the nascent smart home market. Our results show that early entrants transition more quickly from single-homing to multihoming (i.e., joining a second platform) than late entrants, suggesting that they adopt a hedging strategy in response to the high uncertainty present in the early stages of the ecosystem. We also find that the drivers of the timing of multihoming may differ for the first and subsequent multihoming. For the first multihoming, the market traction of non-adopted platforms is associated with how quickly complementors multihome. However, this relationship dissipates in subsequent multihoming decisions. Nonetheless, certain factors influence the timing of all multihomings: When joining a second or third platform, complementors are faster to adopt platforms that are technologically similar to those they have already joined. We discuss the managerial implications of these findings for platforms, and complementors navigating multi-platform ecosystems.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s). Journal of Product Innovation Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Product Development & Management Association. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Publisher Keywords:	multi-platform ecosystem, complementor strategy, timing of multihoming, nascent platform market, smart home
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management
Departments:	Bayes Business School Bayes Business School > Faculty of Management
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

Export

Downloads