scholarly journals The Digital Platform: A Research Agenda

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark de Reuver ◽  
Carsten Sørensen ◽  
Rahul C. Basole

As digital platforms are transforming almost every industry today, they are slowly finding their way into the mainstream information systems (ISs) literature. Digital platforms are a challenging research object because of their distributed nature and intertwinement with institutions, markets and technologies. New research challenges arise as a result of the exponentially growing scale of platform innovation, the increasing complexity of platform architectures and the spread of digital platforms to many different industries. This paper develops a research agenda for digital platforms research in IS. We recommend researchers seek to (1) advance conceptual clarity by providing clear definitions that specify the unit of analysis, degree of digitality and the sociotechnical nature of digital platforms; (2) define the proper scoping of digital platform concepts by studying platforms on different architectural levels and in different industry settings; and (3) advance methodological rigour by employing embedded case studies, longitudinal studies, design research, data-driven modelling and visualisation techniques. Considering current developments in the business domain, we suggest six questions for further research: (1) Are platforms here to stay? (2) How should platforms be designed? (3) How do digital platforms transform industries? (4) How can data-driven approaches inform digital platforms research? (5) How should researchers develop theory for digital platforms? and (6) How do digital platforms affect everyday life?

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-97
Author(s):  
Roger Patulny ◽  
Natasa Lazarevic ◽  
Vern Smith

This article calls for a new research agenda into ‘emotional economies’, or economies increasingly characterised by the creation, extraction and exploitation of emotional products and labour, enabled by and embedded in rapid advances in technological and digital-media systems. We base this concept and call on a literature review linking technological automation, the future of work and emotions. Our review finds that: (1) many existing studies – whether predicting dystopian end-of-work mass unemployment, or utopian complementarities between humans, machines and digital platforms – are technologically determinist in nature, and do not account for the roles of culture, society, government, business and education in the machine–human–emotion interface; (2) despite this, there is evidence that technology will replace many existing forms of human labour, leaving only technologically irreplaceable emotion-based soft-skill service work (and emotional labour) for humans to perform; (3) there is an outside chance (in some literature) that technology and AIs will replace even emotional labour, though we argue this is unlikely for many years; (4) the increasing centrality of emotional industries, emotional data and emotional labour to work, digital platforms and media-imagery will likely lead to emotions becoming vital commodities, central to the economies of the future. The article concludes with an urgent call for a new research agenda on emotional economies to elaborate on private/public intersections between work, economy and emotions that soberly engage with the future while challenging technologically determinist assumptions that underpin populist depictions of the end of work.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 93-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlo Maria Rossotto ◽  
Prasanna Lal Das ◽  
Elena Gasol Ramos ◽  
Eva Clemente Miranda ◽  
Mona Farid Badran ◽  
...  

This article takes stock of the literature around digital platforms and shows how this review can inform policy choices in developing countries. Through the review, this article sets a research agenda for platforms in emerging markets. Four elements are specifically analyzed. First, the definition of multisided platforms; second, technology and behavioral enablers; third, the emerging business models; and, fourth, platform dynamics. Each of these elements is assessed in terms of its relevance in emerging and developing countries. Policy implications for development are also highlighted, building the foundations for a new research agenda.


2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-231
Author(s):  
John Bonnett

One of the most significant attributes of digital computation is that it has disrupted extant work practices in multiple disciplines, including history. In this contribution, I argue that far from being a trend that should be resisted, it in fact should be encouraged. Computation is presenting historians with novel opportunities to express, analyze, and teach the past, but that potential will only be realized if scholars assume a new research mandate, that of design. For many historians, such a research agenda is likely to seem strange, if not beyond the pale. There are tasks that fall properly within the domain of the Historian’s Craft and the design of workflows for digital platforms and expressive forms for digital narratives are not among them. In Section One, via the writings of Harold Innis, I make the case that a preoccupation with design is in fact very much part of Canada’s historiographic tradition. In Section Two, I present an environmental scan of emerging technologies, and suggest that now is an opportune time to revive Innis’ preoccupation with design. In the following two sections, I present the StructureMorph Project, a case study showing how historians can leverage the properties of digital form to realize their expressive, narrative, and attestive needs in the digital, virtual worlds that will become increasingly important platforms for representing, disseminating, and interpreting the past.


Author(s):  
Andrea Felicetti

Resilient socioeconomic unsustainability poses a threat to democracy whose importance has yet to be fully acknowledged. As the prospect of sustainability transition wanes, so does perceived legitimacy of institutions. This further limits representative institutions’ ability to take action, making democratic deepening all the more urgent. I investigate this argument through an illustrative case study, the 2017 People’s Climate March. In a context of resilient unsustainability, protesters have little expectation that institutions might address the ecological crisis and this view is likely to spread. New ways of thinking about this problem and a new research agenda are needed.


Author(s):  
I-Chieh Michelle Yang

This conceptual paper proposes a new research agenda in travel risk research by understanding the role of affect. Extant scholarship tends to focus on travel risk perception or assessment as a cognitive psychological process. However, despite the phenomenal growth of the tourism industry globally, research related to travel risk perception remains stagnant with no significant breakthrough. Drawing on the existing empirical evidences in risk-related research, this paper asserts that affect plays a potent role in influencing travel risk perception – positive affect leads to more positive travel risk perception, vice versa. In this paper, existing empirical evidences and theories are presented to provide support for this proposition.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 1310
Author(s):  
Pablo Torres ◽  
Soledad Le Clainche ◽  
Ricardo Vinuesa

Understanding the flow in urban environments is an increasingly relevant problem due to its significant impact on air quality and thermal effects in cities worldwide. In this review we provide an overview of efforts based on experiments and simulations to gain insight into this complex physical phenomenon. We highlight the relevance of coherent structures in urban flows, which are responsible for the pollutant-dispersion and thermal fields in the city. We also suggest a more widespread use of data-driven methods to characterize flow structures as a way to further understand the dynamics of urban flows, with the aim of tackling the important sustainability challenges associated with them. Artificial intelligence and urban flows should be combined into a new research line, where classical data-driven tools and machine-learning algorithms can shed light on the physical mechanisms associated with urban pollution.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6494
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Baran ◽  
Aleksandra Berkowicz

The main idea of the paper is to combine modern research methods (as living labs that enable research in a real-life setting) with the new technological opportunities for entrepreneurship and innovation development (as digital platforms) to search for innovative solutions, while addressing the sustainable development problems. Thus, the paper aims to explain how real value for society is created within digital platform ecosystems and how they employ to this end novel solutions that better address existing social problems. Consequently, it proposes a conceptual framework to research and develop sustainable entrepreneurship and innovation with the use of digital platforms. This research study takes a synthesizing conceptual approach that seeks to integrate the existing knowledge drawn on two major streams of research: living labs as a methodology and digital platform ecosystems to enrich the theory of sustainable entrepreneurship and innovation development. The paper contributes to the body of knowledge by proposing a novel conceptual model of digital platform ecosystems as living labs for sustainable entrepreneurship and innovation. The model depicts digital platform ecosystems examined as living labs and the implicit processes that include platform users in problem-solving and value-creation in real-life settings. The novelty of the model stems from framing these processes that capture the relationship between individuals and opportunities as the foundations of entrepreneurship and the relationship between the problem space and the solution space, where the opportunities occur.


Author(s):  
Dong Jung Kim

Abstract In contrast to growing public attention to geoeconomics as the new mode of conducting great power competition, the IR discipline has not actively engaged in conceptual and theoretical analysis from the geoeconomic viewpoint. This article examines issues that geoeconomics needs to solve to become a new theoretical framework in the positivist “American” IR scholarship that dominates research on great power competition. On the one hand, the concept of geoeconomics needs to be redefined and account for a phenomenon that is not already covered in extant IR scholarship. Thus, geoeconomics should be considered as a form of grand strategy and defined as the use of economic instruments to advance mid- to long-term strategic interests in a geographical region of the world. On the other hand, geoeconomics in positivist IR should take into account international economic structure and domestic politics in developing a parsimonious explanation for the conditions to employ geoeconomic grand strategy. In this process, the theorist needs to make an analytical choice to concentrate on certain factors and mechanisms to assure theoretical parsimony. This article concludes that addressing the issues of conceptual clarity and parsimonious theorization would potentially allow geoeconomics to become a new research program in positivist IR.


2002 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-188
Author(s):  
Mark Eric Williams

This essay explains how the peculiar properties of Mexico's political system helped shape the approach to the study of Mexican politics. It assesses some of the strengths and limitations of the scholarship this produced, examines the political changes that fueled Mexico's democratic transition, and assesses their implications both for Mexico's recent market reforms and the study of Mexican politics in general. It finds that the demise of single-party rule and fundamental changes in patterns of governance have opened new research avenues, and suggests an emerging research agenda in light of these developments. En este ensayo se explica la manera en que las propiedades peculiares del sistema políítico mexicano ayudaron a configurar el acercamiento al estudio de la políítica mexicana. Se valoran algunas de las ventajas y las desventajas en este enfoque, se examinan los cambios polííticos que influyeron en la transicióón democráática mééxicana y se analizan sus implicaciones en las reformas recientes del mercado y estudio de la políítica mexicana en general. El anáálisis concluye que, debido al cese de influencia del antiguo réégimen del partido oficial y a los cambios fundamentales en los modelos de gobierno, se han abierto nuevas ááreas de investigacióón, proponiendo un nuevo programa de investigacióón que tome en cuenta el giro de los nuevos acontecimientos.


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