The Evolution of the Platform Concept: A Systematic Review

Platforms have been considered as a paradigm for managing new product development and innovation. Since their introduction, studies on platforms have introduced multiple conceptualizations, leading to a fragmentation of research and different perspectives. By systematically reviewing the platform literature and combining bibliometric and content analyses, this paper examines the platform concept and its evolution, proposes a thematic classification, and highlights emerging trends in the literature. Based on this hybrid methodological approach (bibliometric and content analyses), the results show that platform research has primarily focused on issues that are mainly related to firms' internal aspects, such as innovation, modularity, commonality, and mass customization. Moreover, scholars have recently started to focus on new research themes, including managerial questions related to capability building, strategy, and ecosystem building based on platforms. As its main contributions, this paper improves the understanding of and clarifies the evolutionary trajectory of the platform concept, and identifies trends and emerging themes to be addressed in future studies.