Publications

March 2022
Article

From Proprietary to Collective Governance: How Do Platform Participation Strategies Evolve?

By: Siobhan O'Mahony and Rebecca Karp

When platform leaders change the rules guiding who can access and control a platform, the strategies of those who create value from the platform can be upended. Little research examines how platform participants adapt their strategies when a platform leader changes the... View Details

Keywords: Platform Governance; Access; Crowdsourcing; Applications and Software; Employees; Leadership Style; Cybersecurity; Risk Management

April 2024
Teaching Note

Mending Meta: Content Curation, Misinformation, and Platform Governance

By: David B. Yoffie

March 2024
Case

Mending Meta: Content Curation, Misinformation, and Platform Governance

By: David B. Yoffie and Sarah von Bargen

December 2019
Teaching Note

Fixing Facebook: Fake News, Privacy, and Platform Governance

By: David B. Yoffie and Daniel Fisher

Teaching Note for HBS No. 720-400. View Details

Summer 2014
Article

When Does a Platform Create Value by Limiting Choice?

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Hanna Halaburda

We present a theory for why it might be rational for a platform to limit the number of applications available on it. Our model is based on the observation that even if users prefer application variety, applications often also exhibit direct network effects. When there... View Details

Keywords: Platform Governance; Direct Network Effects; Indirect Network Effects; Complements; Tragedy Of The Commons; Equilibrium Selection; Coordination; Foresight; Strategy; Value Creation; Digital Platforms; Balance and Stability; Decision Choices and Conditions; Consumer Behavior; Applications and Software; Network Effects

SSRN

2011
Working Paper

Quantity vs. Quality: Exclusion by Platforms with Network Effects

By: Andrei Hagiu

This paper provides a simple model of platforms with direct network effects, in which users value not just the quantity (i.e., number) of other users who join, but also their average quality in some dimension. A monopoly platform is more likely to exclude low-quality... View Details

Keywords: Multi-sided Platforms; Exclusion; Quality And Quantity; Cost; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Network Effects; Market Participation; Digital Platforms; Monopoly; Quality; Motivation and Incentives; Strategy

Read Now

2009
Chapter

Platform Rules: Multi-Sided Platforms As Regulators

By: Kevin J. Boudreau and Andrei Hagiu

This chapter provides a basic conceptual framework for interpreting non-price instruments used by multi-sided platforms (MSPs) by analogizing MSPs as "private regulators" who regulate access to and interactions around the platform. We present evidence on Facebook,... View Details

Keywords: Price; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Multi-Sided Platforms; Strategy

May 2014
Article

Mobile Computing: The Next Platform Rivalry

By: Timothy Bresnahan and Shane Greenstein

Competition to become one of several dominant mobile platforms is intense. Platforms compete for developers, who create applications which make the platform valuable for users. Why doesn't one form of platform governance emerge as superior? This essay will stress the... View Details

Article

Managing Proprietary and Shared Platforms

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

In a platform-mediated network, users rely on a common platform, provided by one or more intermediaries, that encompasses infrastructure and rules required by users to transact with each other. A fundamental design decision for firms that aspire to develop... View Details

Keywords: Governance Controls; Digital Platforms; Infrastructure; Competition; Cooperation; Information Infrastructure

2024
Working Paper

Antitrust Platform Regulation and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from China

By: Ke Rong, D. Daniel Sokol, Di Zhou and Feng Zhu

Many jurisdictions have launched antitrust enforcement and brought in regulation of large tech platforms. The swift and strict implementation of China’s Anti-Monopoly Guidelines for the Platform Economy (Platform Guidelines) provides a quasi-natural experiment... View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Competition; Venture Capital; Market Entry and Exit; Supply and Industry; China

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July 28, 2022
Article

DAO Governance Attacks, and How to Avoid Them

By: Pranav Garimidi, Scott Duke Kominers and Tim Roughgarden

Many web3 projects embrace permissionless voting using a fungible and tradable native token. Permissionless voting can offer many benefits, from lowering barriers to entry to increasing competition. Token holders can use their tokens to vote on a range of issues—from... View Details

Keywords: Crypto Economy; Cryptocurrency; Governance; Voting; Decentralized Autonomous Organizations; Organizational Structure; Digital Platforms

Read Now

22 Jun 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Proprietary vs. Open Two-Sided Platforms and Social Efficiency

Keywords: by Andrei Hagiu; Video Game; Web Services

August 2020 (Revised November 2020)
Case

Gogoro: From Electric Scooter to Energy Platform

By: Tarun Khanna and Billy Chan

The founder of Gogoro had always wanted to revolutionize the energy market from day one since he started the electric scooter business that featured an innovative battery swapping technology. Over the course of five years, he had developed a premium line of electric... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Information Technology; Energy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategy; Taiwan

October 2020 (Revised December 2020)
Case

AfricInvest: A Pan-African Investment Platform

By: Victoria Ivashina and Youssef Abdel Aal

The case is set in December 2018, when Ziad Oueslati, co-managing director and co-founder of AfricInvest, a leading pan-African private equity firm headquartered in Tunisia, was reflecting on the future direction of his firm. AfricInvest started as a traditional small... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Private Equity; Venture Capital; Strategy; Governance; Financial Services Industry; Tunisia; Africa; Middle East

June 2024
Case

Aidoc: Building a Hospital-Centric AI Platform

By: Ariel D. Stern and Susan Pinckney

In 2023, Israel-based AI health care company Aidoc evaluated its future. The company, founded in 2016, had grown from commercializing a single AI product for radiologists to a software platform that could detect 20 conditions and immediately notify care teams of... View Details

31 Jul 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Investment Incentives in Proprietary and Open-Source Two-Sided Platforms

Keywords: by Ramon Casadesus-Masanell & Gastón Llanes

November 2022 (Revised January 2023)
Case

Hugging Face: Serving AI on a Platform

By: Shane Greenstein, Daniel Yue, Kerry Herman and Sarah Gulick

It is fall 2022, and open-source AI model company Hugging Face is considering its three areas of priorities: platform development, supporting the open-source community, and pursuing cutting-edge scientific research. As it expands services for enterprise clients, which... View Details

Keywords: Community; Open-source; AI and Machine Learning; Product Development; Networks; Service Delivery; Research; Governance; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Information Industry; Technology Industry; United States