Platforms and industrial change

Abstract

Digital platforms are reorganising markets, restructuring the labour force, and redefining the scope of competition. These new intermediaries are transforming economic value creation, industrial structures, and innovative activity, all of which are about to undergo their biggest changes in the postwar era. Platforms have power over their ecosystem members, as algorithms mould users' incentives to elicit particular responses. This raises the question of whether non-platform firms will be overpowered by the likes of Amazon and Google that have considerable advantages, such as massive data centres and the ability to cross-feed online traffic. The answer is conditional, but its existence puts pressure on the state to adopt an aggressive regulatory role. At this time, we do not have a framework for properly regulating platform businesses. This special issue examines how ecosystems created by platforms reorganise markets and how value creation and capture by incumbents and entrants is affected.

Artificial Intelligence Platforms – A New Research Agenda for Digital Platform Economy

“…A recently published "The Economics of Artificial Intelligence: An Agenda" (Agrawal et al, 2019) mentions platforms only a few times in passing and misses the concept of AI as a digital platform. Similarly, recent literature setting a research agenda for digital platforms (Constantinides et al, 2018;de Reuver et al, 2018;Kenney et al, 2019) is impoverished. It is not directing researchers to study AI in the context of platforms.…”

IoT in Supply Chain Management: Opportunities and Challenges for Businesses in Early Industry 4.0 Context

“…An exception to this was a study by Haddud et al (2017) who investigated the opportunities and challenges of IoT where the survey respondents were the academics, not the IoT users in the field. While, Kenney et al (2019) argue that digitalisation can create economic value through innovation, the paucity of empirical evidence poses a barrier for firms to make informed decisions on IoT investment (Attaran 2020;Birkel & Hartmann 2019;Haddud et al 2017). Meanwhile, COVID-19 has created a new norm that necessitates intensive ICT use to manage the global supply chains.…”

“…The retailers have the readiness to face the novel technological challenges in meeting consumer demands (Balaji & Roy 2017;Caro & Sadr 2019;Majeed & Rupasinghe 2017). The widespread integration of digital platforms is redefining the scope of retail competition (Kenney et al 2019), as evidenced by omnichannel retailing strategies for a smart way of dealing with inventories and related operations with customers touchpoints (Caro & Sadr 2019).…”

Pervasive Technologies On B2c Digital Platforms

“…New technologies has transformed industrial structures, economic value creation, and reshaped the competition strategies. Kenney, Rouvinen, Seppälä, and Zysman (2019) argues that information economics has changed the expenses structure. High fixed costs of building digital platforms combined with the low marginal costs of adding new participants give firms opportunities to set price below the production cost to attract clients.…”