Abstract
In distributed contexts, firms face a dilemma between value creation through leveraging externalities and value appropriation through maintaining “control”. This paper proposes that, within a future contingent, five types of externalities (network effects, complementary products, horizontalization, complementary assets, interconnect coupling) contribute to value creation in distributed contexts. Externalities leverage expectations of value creation through non-linear mechanisms which lie outside direct organizational control. To overcome this open-control dilemma, control must be reconceptualized for distributed contexts. Excludability of others granted by ownership rights; influencing through tactics not necessarily co-extensive with ownership; and monitoring of dynamics are the three immanent modalities of an integrative view of control. Based on these five types of externalities and three modalities of control propositions are made to successfully play the ecosystem game.