Societal Digital Platforms: Architecture and Design

Societal digital platforms have emerged globally as a new class of digital platforms to address community and social needs in several countries. Based on platform centred ecosystem approach, societal digital platforms not only provide solution to some significant community problem but also enable other ecosystem participants to create innovative solutions on top of such platforms in diverse fields. This study examines how, in absence of any monetary appropriation, architecture and design features of societal digital platforms facilitate achieving platform goals of ecosystem innovation and network effect. A qualitative multiple case study method based on a data-driven approach has been followed to examine a set of propositions. In-depth interpretive case analysis has been used to analyse multiple cases employing NVivo software. It has been established that the architecture and design aspects of societal digital platforms enable ecosystem innovation (due to modularity and by adopting open standards) as well as drive positive network effect (due to scalability and strong ties network). For practitioners and policy planners, this research contributes by bringing out configurations which need to be incorporated in architecture and design to realize societal digital platforms goals. These can be further employed in other similar platforms which are emerging in different countries. Secondly, this study contributes to the theoretical understanding of elements of ecosystem innovation and network effect in case of societal digital platforms.

Multisided Platforms: Classification and Analysis

The multisided platform (MSP) is an essential business construct in the digital economy. Some of the largest companies in the world—including Google, Amazon, and eBay—exploit the MSP in their business models. Fundamental insights into the MSP are crucial to understand the business operations of the digital economy and how new innovative digital services are adopted in the market. The MSP ecosystem is complex and dynamic, and involves heterogeneous stakeholders with different business motivations. This paper classifies the various types of MSPs, distinguished by the network effect between user groups. Moreover, this paper shows how the original diffusion model of Frank Bass can be extended to analyze the temporal evolution of multisided platforms. Analytical models using coupled sets of ordinary differential equations are developed for several examples of two-sided platforms. For some of these examples, analytical solutions are found.

Commuting network effect on urban wealth scaling

Urban scaling theory explains the increasing returns to scale of urban wealth indicators by the per capita increase of human interactions within cities. This explanation implicitly assumes urban areas as isolated entities and ignores their interactions. Here we investigate the effects of commuting networks on the gross domestic product (GDP) of urban areas in the US and Brazil. We describe the urban GDP as the output of a production process where population, incoming commuters, and interactions between these quantities are the input variables. This approach significantly refines the description of urban GDP and shows that incoming commuters contribute to wealth creation in urban areas. Our research indicates that changes in urban GDP related to proportionate changes in population and incoming commuters depend on the initial values of these quantities, such that increasing returns to scale are only possible when the product between population and incoming commuters exceeds a well-defined threshold.

Profit or Growth? Dynamic Order Allocation in a Hybrid Workforce

Modern digital technology has enabled the emergence of the hybrid workforce in service organizations, where a firm uses on-demand freelancers to augment its traditional labor supply of employees. Freelancers are typically supplied by an electronic platform. How should demand be allocated between employees and freelancers? Under what conditions is the system (comprising the firm and its platform) sustainable in the long run? We investigate these questions in the context of last-mile delivery. We develop a discrete-time, stochastic dynamic program that captures the system’s profit from serving demand and the platform’s growth dynamics. The dynamic model incorporates a service constraint for the platform and a simple version of a stochastic network effect. We find that the answers to our research questions critically depend on two key parameters: the mean and variance of the cross-network effect. We conduct a numerical study with data from a last-mile delivery firm in Vietnam to illustrate our findings. This paper was accepted by Vishal Gaur, operations management.

The Network Effect of Arts Incubators

Although there has been a proliferation of metrics to evaluate arts incubators, the academic field is still developing. Different models and methods of education are applied to the complex phenomena of arts incubators; therefore, it is crucial to measure the effectiveness of education programs from many different perspectives. Our aim is to propose a metric that can estimate the effect of each incubator activity based on the geospatial distribution of its participants. This GIS-based metric will provide a descriptive measure for the quantity and density of the geographical communities affected by the incubator’s activity as well as a socio-economic and demographic benchmarks. Our study investigates 14 US-based arts incubators that offer entrepreneurial training to their associated 1,087 incubatees. The goal of this study is to provide a metric that can assist arts incubators, program directors, arts administrators, and university programs assess program growth as well as funding and marketing efforts.

Digital platforms in the modern world: Specifics and prospects

Subject. The article considers the use of digital platforms and ecosystems, the analysis of their nature from the standpoint of marketing and its functions transformation. Objectives. We investigate possibilities of designing platforms and ecosystems based on existing information products as applied to the branches of the information economy. Methods. The study draws on the systems approach as a general methodological principle for solving interrelated modeling problems. Results. Despite the established opinion that external platforms are more competitive due to the increased network effect and openness, internal digital platforms (implemented within individual companies) and ecosystems they generate can become a significant factor for successful functioning of small and medium-sized businesses. At the same time, a design, where an industry ecosystem is formed on the basis of a leading platform, can successfully exist. The paper presents examples of such solutions for Russian information companies. Conclusions. Building a platform on the basis of a dedicated core in the form of existing information product, with the interests of its owner coinciding with the challenges of the relevant market, ensures long-term competitiveness of platform solutions in various formats of specific architecture.