Purpose
Ecosystems that support digital businesses maximize the economic value of network connections. This forces a shift toward platforms and ecosystems that are collaborative by nature by applying business models with multiple actors playing multiple roles. The purpose of this study is to show how the main concepts emerging from research on digital platform ecosystems (DPEs) could be organized in a taxonomy-based framework with different levels or dimensions of analysis. This study discusses some of the contingencies at these different levels and argues that future research needs to study DPEs across multiple levels of analysis. While this integrative framework allows the comparison, contrast and integration of various perspectives at different levels of analysis, further theorizing will be needed to advance the DPE research. The multidimensional framework proposed here involves the use of a multimethodological approach that incorporates a synergy of businesses, technological innovations and management methods to provide support for research in interrelationships across platform ecosystems (PEs) on a regular basis.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper proposes a new PE framework by constructing a formal taxonomy model that explains a vast group of phenomena produced by the PEs.

Findings
In addition to illustrating the PE taxonomy framework, this study also proposes a clear and precise description and structuring of the information in the ecosystem domain. The PE framework assists in identification, creation, assessment and disclosure research of platform business ecosystems.

Research limitations/implications
Because of the large number of taxonomy concepts (over 200), only main taxonomy fragments are shown in the paper.

Practical implications
The outcomes of this research could be used for planning, oversight and control over ecosystem management and the use of ecosystem’s knowledge-related resources for research purposes.

Originality/value
The PE framework is original and represents an effective tool for observing PEs.