Orchestration through Empowerment vs. Control: A Comparative Analysis of Value Co-Creation in Alibaba’s and Shein’s Digital Business Ecosystems

Abstract

This paper investigates the strategic heterogeneity of digital business ecosystems by conducting a comparative case study of two prominent yet divergent platform firms: Alibaba and SHEIN. While existing literature often treats platforms as a monolithic category, this research responds to calls for a more nuanced understanding of their diverse strategic configurations. By deconstructing the governance mechanisms, data strategies, and value logics of Alibaba and SHEIN, we develop a typology of two distinct “strategic archetypes”. We characterize Alibaba's model as an “Enabling Archetype”, which functions as a form of digital institutionalism, creating a market by providing infrastructure, rules, and data-as-a- service to empower a vast network of autonomous third-party sellers. In contrast, we define SHEIN’s model as a “Controlling Archetype”, which operates as a digitally integrated producer, using a proprietary data-driven system to exert tight command over a network of external suppliers, thereby substituting informational control for direct ownership. The analysis reveals how these archetypes represent two different solutions to the core platform paradox of managing distributed value co-creation and centralized value capture. This study contributes a novel theoretical framework for understanding platform heterogeneity, offering insights into the path-dependent logic that drives the evolution of distinct ecosystem strategies.