The literature on platforms and platform ecosystems has grown substantially in recent years. Despite the importance of time in platform governance choices and innovation dynamics in platform ecosystems, the literature has not yet incorporated an evolutionary lifecycle perspective. To aid the cumulativeness of the literature, we develop a theoretical framework that describes governance focus and strategy along the platform ecosystem lifecycle, and contrast its features to traditional industry lifecycle theory. Our analysis starts from the observation that platform ecosystems exhibit regularities at odds with key elements of industry lifecycle theory and builds conceptually on two key differences between products and platforms: in platform ecosystems, design rules are generative (rather than constraining) in nature, and platforms are characterized by a loose (rather than tight) coupling between functionality and control. Our framework covers the era of ferment, the establishment of a dominant platform design, the era of incremental change, and the end of the lifecycle, and is summarized in a set of testable propositions.
