On May 27, 2025, an academic paper co-authored by Professor Li Juan from our school, Lecturer Xiaojuan Puyang from Sichuan Normal University, Professor Jane Zheyin Gu from the University of Connecticut, and Professor Rachel R. Chen from the University of California, Davis, was published online in Marketing Science.

Amid the wave of new-quality productive forces development, most interactions between enterprises and users take place on platforms. When you download a note-taking app from Apple's App Store or buy a game on Steam, you may think your choices determine the products and enterprise competition rules. However, it is actually the behind-the-scenes platforms that truly shape the competitive landscape. The platforms' seemingly neutral tools and revenue-sharing mechanisms quietly manipulate the market, dictating the products and competitive dynamics within it.

Li Juan and her collaborators regard platforms as providers of shared infrastructure for vertically differentiated enterprises, and the commissions charged by platforms as fees for enterprises to use their infrastructure. The research reveals how platforms reshape the competitive landscape of enterprises through the upward empowerment of infrastructure and the downward pressure of commission rates. Combined with typical cases such as Steam and iOS, it offers three core insights for managers: platform infrastructure investment provides asymmetric support for vertically differentiated enterprises; high commission rates extracted by platforms inhibit enterprises' investment in individual attributes, with a more pronounced effect on high-end enterprises; platforms need to actively respond to the leap in enterprises' product R&D efficiency to achieve a win-win situation for all three parties, with the greatest benefits accrued.

Xiaojuan Puyang, Jane Zheyin Gu*, Rachel (Rong) Chen, Juan Li*. Vertical Competition on a Common Platform. Marketing Science, published online, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2022.0402.