Digital platforms and ecosystems (DPEs) have become key players in driving economic transformation, reshaping competitive dynamics, and redefining how firms create, deliver, and capture value. Their unique characteristics enable them to establish extensive stakeholder networks, exploit network effects, and engage in value cocreation, allowing them to achieve unprecedented economies of scale and winner-take all dynamics. Although many of today’s most valuable companies are based on DPEs, most fail, suggesting that commonly cited success factors, such as network effects, value co-creation, and stakeholder management, do not fully explain their success. Emerging literature indicates that the pursuit of a purpose beyond profit maximization influences the success of for-profit firms by guiding their decision-making and overall strategic direction, influencing employee engagement and motivation, and strengthening stakeholder relationships. However, the role of purpose in the for-profit firm in DPEs’ success has yet to receive little attention in academic research. The following thesis addresses this gap by conducting a systematic literature review of 83papers, analyzing the intersection of implications of the pursuit of purpose in the for profit firm and critical success factors of DPEs. The results show that purpose has significant implications for the value creation, delivery, and capture of for-profit firms, by influencing underlying mechanisms, such as their value proposition, decisionmaking, leadership, stakeholders, and governance and confirm that DPEs’ success is determined by how well they leverage the mechanisms underlying value creation, delivery, and capture. The significant intersection between the implications of the pursuit of purpose and the critical success factors for DPEs demonstrates that the purpose in the for-profit firm plays a role in DPEs’ success. Ultimately, this study contributes to the theoretical and practical discourse on purpose and the success of DPEs by proposing a conceptual model outlining the role of purpose in DPEs’ success through value creation, delivery, and capture, and factors moderating this process.