Trust and Distrust in Platform Ecosystems

Platform ecosystems in which a central orchestrator engages diverse actors for value creation, differ from traditional interorganizational networks in their impetus, governance, and interactions among actors. Research on platform ecosystems has considered these implications but has underexplored the role of trust. We consider trust as a key enabler of value creation in platform ecosystems and explore how ecosystem members build trust and why it may get eroded. By doing so, we highlight the multilateral interactions involving the platform orchestrator and ecosystem members as well as their implications for the emergence, spillover, and breach of trust in platform ecosystems. Furthermore, we discuss means by which trust can be nurtured and reinstituted, underscoring the distinction from established research on trust in interorganizational networks. We illustrate our theoretical framework for trust-building and erosion in platform ecosystems with the Cambridge Analytica case, explicating its implications for Facebook’s ecosystem, and informing future research.