Publications

Summer 2021
Article

Platform Leadership and Supply Chains: Intel, Centrino, and the Restructuring of Wi-Fi Supply

By: Roberto Fontana and Shane Greenstein

In this paper we examine Intel’s launch of Centrino and interpret it as platform leaders attempt to restructure a supply chain. We provide a narrative of key actions and how they coordinated changes and offer a framework of the predictable consequences for... View Details

Keywords: Mobile and Wireless Technology; Product Launch; Supply Chain; Restructuring; Framework

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June 2023
Simulation

Clash of Two Giants: Competing in the Age of Platforms Simulation

By: Feng Zhu and Marco Iansiti

June 2020
Article

Real-time Data from Mobile Platforms to Evaluate Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure

By: Omar Isaac Asensio, Kevin Alvarez, Arielle Dror, Emerson Wenzel, Catharina Hollauer and Sooji Ha

By displacing gasoline and diesel fuels, electric cars and fleets reduce emissions from the transportation sector, thus offering important public health benefits. However, public confidence in the reliability of charging infrastructure remains a fundamental barrier to... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Transportation; Infrastructure; Behavior; AI and Machine Learning; Demand and Consumers

2010
Article

An Organizational Approach to Undoing Gender: The Unlikely Case of Offshore Oil Platforms

By: Robin J. Ely and Debra E. Meyerson

This case study of two offshore oil platforms illustrates how an organizational initiative designed to enhance safety and effectiveness created a culture that unintentionally released men from societal imperatives for "manly" behavior, prompting them to let go of... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Goals and Objectives; Behavior; Organizational Culture; Performance Effectiveness; Gender; Emotions

March 2018 (Revised October 2019)
Supplement

ZBJ: Building a Global Outsourcing Platform for Knowledge Workers (B)

By: Feng Zhu, Weiru Chen and Shirley Sun

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Outsourcing; Disintermediation; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Problems and Challenges; Global Strategy; Information Technology Industry; China

2006
Book

Invisible Engines: How Software Platforms Drive Innovation and Transform Industries

By: David S. Evans, Andrei Hagiu and Richard Schmalensee

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Applications and Software; Innovation and Invention; Transformation

02 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

Do Online Dating Platforms Help Those Who Need Them Most?

Over the past decade, socially-focused websites have attracted hundreds of millions of users and changed the social fabric in fundamental ways. The likes of eHarmony and Match.com enable us meet new people. Platforms including Facebook,... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Technology

February 2025
Supplement

Slice Labs: Creating a Fraud-Free Online Insurance Platform (B)

By: Amit Goldenberg, Max Bazerman and Ruth Page

Keywords: Technology; Insurance; Digitization; Honesty; Trust; Negotiation; Fraud; Ethics; Negotiation Process; Negotiation Tactics; Negotiation Types; Social Psychology

2015
Government Testimony

Price Coherence in Online Platforms — Impact and Responses

By: Benjamin Edelman and Julian Wright

We examine the role of price coherence in shaping market structure and offer policy recommendations to advance both efficiency and equity. View Details

Keywords: Price Coherence; Price Parity; MFN; Distribution Channels; Market Design; Travel Industry; Financial Services Industry

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01 Nov 2010
Conference Presentation

Finding Potential Bottlenecks You Can Build a Platform Upon

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

February 4, 2013
Guest Column

How Facebook Can Totally Undermine Apple and Google in the Platform Games

By: Andrei Hagiu

Today, Facebook seems like the juggernaut crushing everything in its path, most recently Twitter's Vine app and Yandex's social app. And in its last quarter, Facebook's mobile usage surpassed its web usage—for the first time ever. This is important because Facebook has... View Details

Keywords: Technology Industry

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March 2020 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Racial Discrimination on Airbnb (A)

By: Michael Luca, Scott Stern, Devin Cook and Hyunjin Kim

Facing mounting criticism and evidence of widespread racial discrimination on the platform, apartment rental platform Airbnb needed to decide a path forward. For years, Airbnb had given hosts extensive discretion about whether to reject a guest after seeing little more... View Details

Keywords: Platform Design; Digital Platforms; Design; Prejudice and Bias; Trust; Problems and Challenges

2022
Working Paper

Consumer Demand with Social Influences: Evidence from an E-Commerce Platform

By: El Hadi Caoui, Chiara Farronato, John J. Horton and Robert Schultz

For some kinds of goods, rarity itself is valued. "Fashionable'" goods are demanded in part because they are unique. In this paper, we explore the economics of rare goods using auctions of limited-edition shoes held by an e-commerce platform. We model endogenous entry... View Details

Keywords: Rare Goods; Scarcity; E-commerce; Consumer Behavior; Auctions

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October 2003
Case

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company: Building a Platform for Distributed Innovation

By: Marco Iansiti and Marcin Strojwas

Surging costs of building a state-of-the-art fabrication facility were pushing firms to outsource manufacturing while advanced technologies were requiring a tighter coupling between design and manufacturing. Explores the development of strategy in this environment.... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Business Model; Networks; Product Design; Production; Decisions; Customer Relationship Management; Supply Chain Management

9 Jun 2019 - 11 Jun 2019
Conference Presentation

Disrupting the Disruptors or Enhancing Them? How Blockchain Re-Shapes Two-Sided Platforms

By: Daniel Trabucchi, Antonella Moretto, Tommaso Buganza and Alan MacCormack

July 2017 (Revised July 2018)
Case

Upwork: Creating the Human Cloud

By: Dylan Minor and David Yoffie

Stephane Kasriel, the new CEO of Upwork, the leading platform for freelance labor, needs to decide on how to redesign its business model. While the firm has been growing rapidly since the merger of Odesk and eLance, the newly combined firm continues to face problems of... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Platform; Platform Businesses; Technology; Business Model; Digital Platforms; Growth and Development Strategy; Internet and the Web; Labor

April 2019
Supplement

Upwork in 2019

By: David Yoffie and Allison M. Ciechanover

Stephane Kasriel, the CEO of Upwork, the leading platform for freelance labor, updates his progress on how to redesign its business model in 2019. View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Platform; Platform Businesses; Technology; Business Model; Digital Platforms; Growth and Development Strategy; Internet and the Web; Labor

05 Aug 2002
What Do You Think?

Is Platform Leadership Old Hat or the Wave of the Future?

Summing Up Platform leadership, the process by which base technologies are developed and on which innovations created by many entrepreneurs can be based, may be characteristic of the knowledge economy. But it isn't new, at least to... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

April 2022 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Antler

By: Dennis Campbell and Iuliana Mogosanu

The case describes the founding, development, and scaling of Antler, an early-stage investment platform that invests in entrepreneurs pre-team and, in many cases, even pre-idea. The case explores the economics of venture capital investing at such an early stage and the... View Details

Keywords: Platform; Technology; Analytics; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Information Technology; Expansion; Financial Services Industry