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The last few years, we have seen a rapid increase in the interest on "ecosystems", "platforms", and "industry architectures". Motivated by changes in the nature of the competitive environment, regulatory and technological change, social scientists have sought to find new ways to describe the structure of the "aggregate" level that firms compete in, shifting away from traditional conception of "industries", and focusing on the dynamics of managing complementarities, links, and networks. Despite the excitement, however, the analytical foundations of these new constructs have not been fully explicated, and their relationships remain unclear. This symposium will provide a set of papers which either critically define ecosystems and platforms, relating them to existing constructs, or offer substantive examples of research in areas that appear to be promising. Our particular focus will be on coordination, and the management of interactions. By looking at how firms coordinate in an ecosystem and platform context; at how, in experimental settings, managers (mis)perceive the interdependencies in an ecosystem; and at how firms manage their ecosystem or platform, sometimes to the chagrin of participants, we hope to break new ground in this emerging area. We also hope to draw on the discussion to identify areas for future research, priorities and pitfalls, using the papers in the symposium as examples, and engaging in Q&A with the audience.