Aligning Multilateral Value Creation and Value Capture in Ecosystem-level Business Models

The discussion on value creation and value capture is largely decoupled in ecosystem research. In addition, value creation is seen as an ecosystem-level concept, yet the concept of value capture is analyzed at the individual firm level. Our argument is that this conceptual decoupling and stratification should be resolved by creating a theoretical bridge between the concepts of value creation and value capture in ecosystem research. We propose the concept of ecosystem-level business model to act as such a bridge. In this paper, we delineate the theoretical prerequisites of using the business model concept in the ecosystem setting and empirically explore the value creation–value capture interplay in ecosystems. This work is conducted with a purposefully selected set of cases which because of their unique (blockchain-based and decentralized) governance structure exhibit both value creation and value capture at the ecosystem level. Based on our empirical analysis, we 1) recognize the need for formal, yet decentralized, value creation–value capture alignment inside the ecosystem-level business model, and 2) highlight the design paradigms through which this can be achieved.