Born Global Market Dominators and Implications for the Blockchain Avantgarde

Issues of dominance in the market place, “standards wars,” and “battles for dominance” between large companies are frequently addressed by researchers and the business press alike. The existence of companies that could establish internationally dominant solutions to customers' problems within a few years after their founding is quite unknown and the reasons for their success are hardly investigated so far. Therefore, they are not covered by traditional stage models for the establishment of dominant solutions. Presenting 22 cases and a new success factors model, this chapter shows how young companies can successfully establish their technologies as dominant solutions in the global market. Based on the studies' result, the authors then have a look at the groundbreaking IT invention of blockchain that is expected to disrupt many industries. The most prevalent success factors of the study are discussed along with the current blockchain innovation system. Their degree of significance for the success of international blockchain innovators is hypothesised for further empirical analyses.

Failed hybrids: The death and life of Bluetooth proximity marketing

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons were once heralded as the “holy grail of marketing,” a “cookie” for the physical world. An entire industry—proximity marketing—evolved to capture value from beacon-enabled micro-location networks, with venture capitalists, startups, mobile operating systems suppliers, and major platforms all making substantial investments of data, labor, and resources in the technology. Despite these investments, beacons fell out of favor abruptly, with observers dismissing the technology as an overly cumbersome solution in search of a problem, a “low-value fad.” We offer a microhistorical account of beacons’ small yet untenable role in the ecologies of location-based commercial surveillance—from the standards wars between Apple and Google to the efforts of startups and tech giants to capitalize on the market’s enthusiasm for beacons, and finally, to the industry’s quiet collapse. Our analysis builds upon work on the relationship between platform and infrastructure. We argue that proximity marketers failed to construct a viable platform-infrastructure hybrid capable of monetizing beacon proximity data and identify three axes along which beacons frustrated marketers’ ambitions for the technology: scalability, exclusivity, and visibility. We conclude by revisiting the platform-infrastructure relationship to discuss beacons’ legacy in two surveillance systems: student tracking on college campuses and contact-tracing initiatives during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Predatory Strategies in Standards Wars

In standards wars, FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) is sometimes created to weaken an opponent's market position. Little is known about these strategies, their use in committee standardization settings, and how to respond to them. This chapter explores this phenomenon. It (1) identifies various FUD strategies, (2) their context of emergence, and (3) their effect on the dynamics of a standards war in a historical case study: the European standards war on digital mobile radio communication in the 1990s. The study highlights the need to distinguish “FUD as perceived” from “FUD as intended.” FUD strategies and case-specific characteristics of their emergence are illustrated. The chapter shows that perceived FUD polarizes and entrenches positions of warring parties thereby affecting the course of the standards war. The authors conclude that, given its impact, reflection by corporate standardization managers on (perceived) FUD, preclusion, counter-strategies, and the downscaling of standards wars is warranted.

Born Global Market Dominators and Implications for the Blockchain Avantgarde

Issues of dominance in the market place, “standards wars,” and “battles for dominance” between large companies are frequently addressed by researchers and the business press alike. The existence of companies that could establish internationally dominant solutions to customers' problems within a few years after their founding is quite unknown and the reasons for their success are hardly investigated so far. Therefore, they are not covered by traditional stage models for the establishment of dominant solutions. Presenting 22 cases and a new success factors model, this chapter shows how young companies can successfully establish their technologies as dominant solutions in the global market. Based on the studies' result, the authors then have a look at the groundbreaking IT invention of blockchain that is expected to disrupt many industries. The most prevalent success factors of the study are discussed along with the current blockchain innovation system. Their degree of significance for the success of international blockchain innovators is hypothesised for further empirical analyses.

Predatory Strategies in Standards Wars

In standards wars, FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) is sometimes created to weaken the opponent's market position. Little is known about these strategies, their use in committee standardization settings and how to respond to them. This chapter explores this phenomenon. It (1) identifies various FUD strategies, (2) their context of emergence, and (3) their effect on the dynamics of a standards war in a historical case study: the European standards war on digital mobile radio communication in the 1990s. The study highlights the need to distinguish ‘FUD as perceived' from ‘FUD as intended'. FUD strategies and case-specific characteristics of their emergence are illustrated. The chapter shows that perceived FUD polarizes and entrenches positions of warring parties thereby affecting the course of the standards war. The authors conclude that, given its impact, reflection by corporate standardization managers on (perceived) FUD, preclusion, counter-strategies and the downscaling of standards wars is warranted.

The corporate reporting landscape: a market for virtue or the virtue of marketization?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to further elaborate on the topic of standardization bodies and standards “wars” within the “market for virtue” (Vogel, 2005). This paper is a commentary on the paper by Zinenko et al. (2015) who analyze the fit between different CSR instruments at the field and the organizational level. Design/methodology/approach – This is a commentary based on secondary data analysis. Findings – This commentary reviews the implications of Zinenko et al.’s (2015) paper for research on the CSR reporting landscape and provides some additional insights into coopetition practices and the impact on organizations. It elaborates both on the development of marketization strategies and the impact of this “marketization” on what the CSR standards were initially designed for. Originality/value – This commentary provides six avenues for research, which are: coopetition between standard-setters, the influence of adopters on the development of standards, the key intermediary role of investors and analysts, the governance processes of standard-setting organizations, the role of the state in the arena of private CSR instruments and, finally, the disruption and maintenance of work linked to existing standards.