HOW AGENCY AND STRUCTURE SHAPED VALUE STASIS IN THE AUTOMOBILE ECOSYSTEM Michael G. Jacobides , London Business School Regent’s Park, Sussex Place, London NW1 4SA; +44 20 7000 8716
[email protected] John Paul MacDuffie , The Wharton School , U. Pennsylvania 3105 SH-DH, 3620 Locust Walk, Philadelphia PA, +1 215 898 2588
[email protected] C. Jennifer Tae , London Business School Regent’s Park, Sussex Place, London NW1 4SA; +44 20 7000 7000 August 2013 Under review at Strategic Management Journal Abstract We ask why value has not migrated in the automobile sector, despite expectations that it would follow the example of computers. We explain the factors underpinning stability in terms of value distribution in this ecosystem. Automobiles underwent vertical disintegration yet, unlike computers, the sector remained hierarchically controlled. Due to greater market scale and slower growth, plus persistence of integral product architecture, industry standards failed to emerge. Slow clockspeed, user requirement stability, and downstream access lock-in, as well as legal liability and certification, all acted as forces of stasis. We illustrate how these structural features interact with strategic agency of OEMs, intent on maintaining their central role as system integrators: retaining dominant influence over the locus of differentiability along the value chain and managing relative replaceability. (125 words) 1 Over the last decade, applied strategy research has increasingly focused on co-dependent systems of complementors, through concepts such as “ecosystems” (Iansiti & Levien, 2004; Adner, 2012), “industry architectures” (Jacobides, Knudsen & Augier, 2006; Pisano & Teece, 2007), and “platforms” (Gawer & Cusumano, 2002; Cusumano, 2010). Interestingly, this has highlighted a shortcoming of our analytical arsenal.