INTRODUCTION 8
1. STATE-OF-THE-ART of COOPETITION, COOPERATIONAL GAME THEORY
AND PLATFORM BASED MARKETS 10
1.1 Background 10
1.2 Concept of coopetition 10
1.3 Cooperative game theory 17
1.4 Platforms and platform-based markets 24
1.5 Research problem, objectives and delimitation 27
1.6 Research methodology and organisation of the study 29
1.7 Summary of Chapter 1 29
2. RESEARCH DESIGN and METHODOLOGY of LEAD GENERATING INTERNET
PLATFORM-BASED COOPETITION STUDY 31
2.1 Starting point of approaching lead generating internet platform-based coopetition study 31
2.2 Design of a concept 32
2.3 Agent-based model simulation 32
2.4 Limitations of the model 34
2.5 Data collection 34
2.6 Validation of the model 35
2.7 Experimental design 36
2.8 Simulation software 36
2.9 Summary of Chapter 2 36
3. DESIGN OF A LEAD GENERATING INTERNET PLATFORM-BASED
COOPETITION 38
3.1 Description of lead generating internet platform-based coopetition 38
3.2 Coalitional partition stage 40
3.3 Possible strategies of companies 42
3.4 Profit and ROAS - individual and coalitional 43
3.5 Summary of Chapter 3 45
4. MODELING AND SIMULATION OF LGIPBC 46
4.1 Model mechanics description 46
4.2 Parameters for the simulation 50
4.3 The simulation results and analysis 55
4.4 Summary of Chapter 4 60
5. CONCLUSIONS 61
5.1. Discussion of the findings 61
5.2 Practical implications 63
5.3 Limitations 63
5.4 Theoretical implications and further research 64
REFERENCES 67
APPENDIX
Nowadays there can be detected a growing interest to the topic of coopetition as a strategy of inter-firm relationships (Bouncken et al., 2015). Academic literature defines coopetition as a kind of interaction among organizations, which simultaneously cooperate and compete to each other (operating in one industry) to improve their financial results (Brandenburger and Nalebuff, 1996). Another significant trend of modern business environment are internet-based platforms, which also occasionally characterized as a multi-sided markets. These platforms simultaneously try to satisfy needs of more than one group of users (Armstrong, 2006). Examples of such platforms are: Youtube, Uber, Amazon Marketplace. Topic of current research is located on intersection of these two spheres of academic knowledge. However, to make them work together author also uses some concepts and principles of cooperative game theory, due to the fact that coopetition involves cooperation as one of its components, and cooperation is discussed widely in terms of cooperative game theory (Chakravarty, Mitra and Sarkar, 2015).
The goal of this master thesis is to define potential impact that can be caused by a lead generating internet platform-based coopetition among companies, which operate in one industry, on this industry. To reach this goal there was defined a list of objectives. Creation and description of a design of a lead generating internet platform-based coopetition. Detection of a potential impacts of the suggested lead generating internet platform-based coopetition on individual participants of market with different price/quality strategies. Identification of a possible impact of number of the lead generating internet platform-based coopetition members on the effectiveness of the lead generating internet platform-based coopetition. Definition of effects that number of the lead generating internet platform-based coopetition participants can cause on an average utility of clients of industry, which applies lead generating internet platform¬based coopetition.
The structure of the thesis sticks to the order described above. It contains 5 chapters. The first chapter of current research discusses topics of academic knowledge, which are used by author to create a design of a lead generating coopetition mechanism. Main theoretic concepts and fields of knowledge, used in current research: coopetition, game theory, multisided internet platforms. In the second chapter author describes a methodology, which he uses to make current research. Then in the third chapter author moves to the coopetition lead generating mechanism design description. In the fourth chapter there is a description of an agent-based model, used to run a simulation of a market with one product and one advertising tool. Parameters and border values for this model are taken from Russian web-design industry researches described in the 8
second section of the fourth chapter. The third section of fourth chapter provides the analysis of results that were collected from the simulation. In terms of this analysis author tries to answer the reach second, third and fourth objectives of current research. Finally in the last chapter there is a discussion of findings and contributions of this work from the perspectives of theory and practice, limitations and further directions of possible studies.
The main theoretical developments of current research is a concept of lead generating internet platform-based coopetition and evaluation of its potential impact on a particular industry.
