  Business economics research on digital platforms often overlooks existing
knowledge from other fields of research leading to conceptual ambiguity and
inconsistent findings. To reduce these restrictions and foster the utilization
of the extensive body of literature, we apply a mixed methods design to
summarize the key findings of scientific platform research. Our bibliometric
analysis identifies 14 platform-related research fields. Conducting a
systematic qualitative content analysis, we identify three primary research
objectives related to platform ecosystems: (1) general literature defining and
unifying research on platforms; (2) exploitation of platform and ecosystem
strategies; (3) improvement of platforms and ecosystems. Finally, we discuss
the identified insights from a business economics perspective and present
promising future research directions that could enhance business economics and
management research on digital platforms and platform ecosystems.
