To be more independent or more dependent? The evolution mechanism of co-innovation between digital platforms and content creators

Abstract

Co-innovation between digital platforms and complementors is motivated by their interactions, especially on content creation platforms that emphasise creativity. With the platform monopoly, creators are increasingly dependent on the platform thus making the interaction directional. As the long-term effect of the dependency effect on co-innovation under multi-agent networks is currently under-researched, a novel asymmetric NK model is proposed in this paper to evaluate creators’ dependence on the platform through agent-based simulation. The results show that the internal interaction of creators has an inverted U-shaped effect on co-innovation, and the external dependency effect has a negative effect on co-innovation. Further results considering global complexity constraints show that there is a substitution effect between internal interaction and external dependency and that relying on a platform can facilitate co-innovation by reducing potential external risks under high environmental complexity. Moreover, exploratory innovation is equally conducive to co-innovation and enables creators to be less dependent. This study extends a new model for digital platform research and responds to discussions between interaction, exploration, and innovation in the literature.

Keywords:

• Digital platforms
• co-innovation
• dependency effects
• agent-based simulation
• NK model

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 72172014; China Scholarship Council under Grant 202106030148.