Platform-based ecosystems are a vital source of innovation and value creation in today’s economy. Accordingly, scholars and practitioners are becoming increasingly interested in studying strategies and performance of firms that participate in these ecosystems. Given the recent explosion of research in this area, we have assembled a panel of experts to take stock of the current research and to provide direction for future research. The discussion would entail the highlights of the SMJ Special Issue on the Platform Ecosystems by one of the editors and the presentations from a set of experts highlighting multiple theoretical perspectives and industry contexts that scholars can use to conduct research in the area of the platform-based ecosystems.
In cross-functional teams, team performance depends on how skillfully function managers carry out the cross-function coordination of team members' complementary expertise and activities. In this paper, we argue (i) that function managers' coordination skills develop in part through the coordination experience gained from interacting with managers from other function, (ii) that coordination experience has general and firm-specific dimensions, and (iii) that coordination experience leads to better team performance. Using data on development teams in the electronic games industry, we show that coordination experience and its general and firm-specific components have a positive impact on the commercial success of electronic games, and that this effect is robust to tests for omitted variables and reverse causality. Our results have implications for the theory of learning and coordination in teams and for the strategy and practice of team design in project-based organizations.
Cloud computing combines established computing technologies and outsourcing advantages into a new ICT paradigm that is generally expected to foster productivity and economic growth. However, despite a series of studies on the drivers of cloud adoption, evidence of its economic effects is lacking, possibly because many of the datasets on cloud computing are of insufficient size and often lack a time dimension as well as precise definitions of cloud computing, thus making them unsuitable for rigorous quantitative analysis. To overcome these limitations, we propose a proxy variable for cloud computing usage cloud adaptiveness based on survey panel data from European firms. Observations based on a descriptive analysis suggest three important aspects for further research. First, cloud studies should be conducted at the industry level as cloud computing adaptiveness differs widely across industry sectors. Second, it is important to know what firms do with cloud computing to understand the economic mechanisms and effects triggered by this innovation. And third, cloud adaptiveness is potentially correlated to a firm's position in the supply chain and thus the type of output it produces as well as the market in which it operates. Our indicator can be employed to further analyze the effects of cloud computing in the context of firm heterogeneity. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Platform governance is essential to platform success – let alone a fair division of the surplus that platforms generate. Platforms compete both for final users, and for complementors, participants whose financial success depends on platform uptake. Motivating all sides of the platform to join – be they dependent on it or not – is important. As consequence, the question of platform governance, which defines how platforms shape and motivate interactions amongst users, is becoming increasingly critical. Recently, we have seen an upsurge of interest in new, alternative ways of governing platforms, such as by decentralizing decision making or creating completely new organizational forms. Our symposium aims to tack stock of these emerging conversations. In doing so, we hope to advance discussions on novel governance forms. Four distinguished platform scholars will present the state-of-the-art in regard to platform governance, critically reflect on the potential presented by new forms of governance and foreseen barriers, and engage with audience members.
We study the implications of growth in social media communities built around an organization or its products on performance. Using follower communities of television shows on Twitter and Nielsen viewership ratings as a performance measure to test our theory, we find that doubling the number of new members of the show's community is associated with a ratings increase between 1.2% and 9.8%. The effect is more pronounced for products that engender a higher intensity of interest; among those products the value is higher when the community size is smaller. For products that engender lower intensities of interest, the value of new members is higher when the community size is larger. Our results suggest that social media communities add value beyond levels of interaction and buzz around a product.
Making video clips of a song unavailable on YouTube has no effect on its sales on iTunes; but album sales suffer when video clips of a song from it are made unavailable on YouTube. These findings of a study by Tobias Kretschmer and Christian Peukert suggest that we need not worry too much about today's equivalent of the old slogan 'Home taping is killing music'. Their research investigates whether digital sales of songs and albums suffer from videos of the material being freely available online, using a performing rights controversy in Germany that led to far more videos being blocked there than elsewhere: no other country in the world has less access to popular music content on YouTube than Germany, not even South Sudan or Afghanistan. The findings suggest that different digital channels interact in intricate ways - and availability on one can influence success on another.
Privacy regulation by the European Union has had effects for websites beyond the European Union and lead to an increase in market concentration of web technology vendors
Today, many platforms rely on contributions by users to create value. While they play an increasing role in today's digital economy, little is known about how dominant user-driven platforms emerge and what determines the quality and amount of the available content. We aim to extend our understanding of this phenomenon by studying the relationship between the level of competition and user activity. We argue that a platform's competitive position influences user behavior through two mechanisms: First, a more dominant position entails more favorable beliefs, leading to increased activity at the extensive margin, i.e. a higher number of users. Second, the level of competition affects the non-pecuniary benefits users can derive, impacting their activity at the intensive margin, i.e. how much and how frequently each contributes. We study these dynamics in the context of two competing game wiki platforms and exploit content updates as a source of exogenous variation in a quasi-experimental research design. We find that a more dominant position is associated with a higher level of user activity in aggregate, which is primarily driven by the extensive margin of content creation. In addition, this entails higher social benefits, leading to increased activity at the intensive margin. Lastly, we find evidence that a higher competition intensity can act as a motivating factor in itself.
'/%3e%3c/defs%3e%3cpath fill='%23fff' d='M-120-80h240V80h-240z'/%3e%3cpath d='M-120-80h240v48h-240z'/%3e%3cpath fill='%23060' d='M-120 32h240v48h-240z'/%3e%3cg id='b'%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23a' stroke='%23000'/%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23a' fill='%23fff'/%3e%3c/g%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23b' transform='scale(-1 1)'/%3e%3cpath fill='%23b00' d='M-120-24v48h101c3 8 13 24 19 24s16-16 19-24h101v-48H19C16-32 6-48 0-48s-16 16-19 24z'/%3e%3cpath id='c' d='M19 24c3-8 5-16 5-24s-2-16-5-24c-3 8-5 16-5 24s2 16 5 24'/%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23c' transform='scale(-1 1)'/%3e%3cg fill='%23fff'%3e%3cellipse rx='4' ry='6'/%3e%3cpath id='d' d='M1 5.85s4 8 4 21-4 21-4 21z'/%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23d' transform='scale(-1)'/%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23d' transform='scale(-1 1)'/%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23d' transform='scale(1 -1)'/%3e%3c/g%3e%3c/svg%3e)
'%3e%3cpath fill='%23012169' d='M0 0v30h60V0z'/%3e%3cpath stroke='%23fff' stroke-width='6' d='m0 0 60 30m0-30L0 30'/%3e%3cpath stroke='%23C8102E' stroke-width='4' d='m0 0 60 30m0-30L0 30' clip-path='url(%23b)'/%3e%3cpath stroke='%23fff' stroke-width='10' d='M30 0v30M0 15h60'/%3e%3cpath stroke='%23C8102E' stroke-width='6' d='M30 0v30M0 15h60'/%3e%3c/g%3e%3c/svg%3e)