An increasing number of businesses have adopted a platform business model. Platform companies such as Airbnb, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Salesforce and Uber are amongst the world's most valuable companies and have revolutionized their respective industries. But what are platforms? Is there a unique definition? How do they innovate, and what is their place in the innovation literature? This editorial article considers those questions. First, it provides an overview of platform definitions, their evolution, and increasing relevance in today's economy. Then, it presents and contextualizes the six papers of this special section that lie at the intersection of platforms and innovation literature streams. In doing so, a framework contextualizing the emerging concept of ‘Platform‐Driven Innovation’ is proposed. It shows how platforms may have very different roles in the innovation processes acting as Simplifiers, Catalyst or Enablers. Finally, this paper contains some suggestions on how future research may explore the intersection between innovation and platforms.

中文翻译：

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平台驱动的创新：发掘研究和商机

越来越多的企业采用了平台业务模型。Airbnb，亚马逊，Facebook，谷歌，Salesforce和Uber等平台公司是全球最有价值的公司之一，它们革新了各自的行业。但是什么是平台？有没有唯一的定义？他们如何创新，在创新文献中的地位是什么？这篇社论文章考虑了这些问题。首先，它概述了平台定义，它们的演变以及在当今经济中日益增长的相关性。然后，它介绍了这个特殊部分的六篇论文，并将它们结合起来，它们位于平台和创新文献流的交汇处。为此，提出了一个框架，该框架将新兴的“平台驱动的创新”概念进行了背景化。它显示了平台在创新过程中扮演简化者，催化剂或推动者的角色可能有很大不同。最后，本文对未来的研究如何探索创新与平台之间的交叉点提出了一些建议。