Dr M.Mahdi Tavalaei

Multisided platforms face a fundamental trade-off: should they ease entry for a larger number of providers of complementary products or services (complementors) to join the platform and benefit from cross-side network externalities, or should they limit entry to maintain complementors’ incentives to provide high-quality offerings? We contend that a specific crosssubsidizing pricing strategy—where the amount of subsidy to complementors is explicitly linked to the overall revenue they generate on the other side of the platform—may mitigate this trade-off. Using data from the airport industry, we demonstrate that following a reduction of airlines’ entry barriers, airports that subsidize airlines, based on the aforementioned scheme, can boost their financial performance and maintain traffic composition in favor of legacy airlines, which bring passengers who spend more in airport shops. Our findings shed light on how cross-subsidization may balance the variety and quality of complementors and their offerings on multisided platforms.

To understand the slow adoption of blockchain technology by organisations, we conduct a systematic literature review of adoption factors using a mixed-methods approach. Using thematic analysis, 880 factors are identified and grouped into 29 themes, which offer a comprehensive overview of the literature. Using statistical analysis, the identified factors are dissected into technological (T), organisational (O), and environmental (E) dimensions (the TOE framework). Themes are further classified as barriers (B), enablers (En), and ambiguous (A) to describe a firm's readiness for blockchain adoption (the BEnA framework). We emphasise the multidi-mensionality of adoption factors across the TOE dimensions and the conditionality of adoption enablers across the BEnA dimensions. Analysis of research trends shows that recent blockchain adoption literature has focused on elaborating upon existing research themes (involution) rather than on developing new themes (evolution). Based on our analyses, we propose future research directions, including scrutinising the interdependence and multidimensionality of blockchain adoption factors, further examining factors with conditional or unclear effects on adoption, and broadening the contextual, temporal, and theoretical aspects of blockchain adoption research. Highlights: • Identified 880 factors and 29 themes of blockchain adoption by organisations. • Developed multidimensional theoretical frameworks to analyse factors and themes. • Adoption barriers are mostly unambiguous, while enablers are often conditional.

We analyze theoretically and empirically the impact of exogenous changes in competition in one side of a two-sided market on the optimal pricing of both sides. We consider both its positive impact through enhanced indirect network externalities and its negative impact on same side agents because of higher competitive pressures. We find that unambiguously within platform competition causes an increase in the price charged to the other side of the market while its impact on same side is ambiguous. We test our hypothesis in the context of the U.S. airport industry exploiting an exogenous change in competition driven by a regulatory change. Consistent with our hypotheses, we estimate that an increase of within airport airline competition increases commercial revenues per passenger. This increase only takes place in airports that adopt a platform business model. We also investigate the impact of passengers through with both sides of the airport are connected.

Using recent literature in platform markets we study the concept of platform waiting time as the time that users spend dealing with or within the platform. Even if platform users dislike this waiting time, platforms have an incentive not to minimize it since they may get extra revenues from other platform users that benefit from it. Hence, we argue that users waiting time will depend positively on the relative revenue that the platforms get from the other side of the market. This effect will be reinforced when the platform outsources management of these ‘other side’ revenues to third parties that have the mandate of maximizing them. Finally, waiting time will depend negatively on the opportunity cost of user’s time. We test our hypotheses with data of the US airport industry that provides an excellent empirical context for our goals.

In markets with network externalities, the technology that gains a critical mass of users will gain market momentum, and further attract users. Despite this predicted self-reinforcing feedback propelled by “excess inertia”, which will make the technology with the larger installed user base win the whole market and lock out competing technologies, we observe “dethroners” in several contexts. Why are some technologies able to sustain momentum over time while others loose it in favor of dethroners? We address this question conceptually, by revisiting the concept of momentum into the inertial and dynamic components, and empirically, by estimating the effects of both components on technology adoption in a platform context. Drawing from Physics, we conceptualize the inertial component of momentum (i.e., mass) as the stock of platform complements, and the dynamic component (i.e., velocity) as the period-by-period change in such stock, or complement novelty. Testing our framework in the context of the U.S. video game industry, we find that both stock and novelty positively affect platform adoption by users, but novelty has a relatively stronger impact. This has relevant implications for technology adoption and competitive dynamics, which might help explain the market evolution and why latecomers may dethrone incumbents despite network disadvantage.

Small entrepreneurial firms or niche players vastly benefit from participation in ecosystems from marketing capabilities and reputation to the shared technological assets and market opportunities. Yet, while aligning to the ecosystem rules, each member must obtain and maintain their own distinctiveness. We examine two common ways by which niche players compete and survive in a digital ecosystem by seeking status and building a distinct position. First, we compare status seeking in a single ecosystem versus multiple ecosystems. Second, we compare status seeking in a single versus multiple niches, i.e. sub-markets of an ecosystem. We theorize that pursuit of status in a single niche of product categories and in a single ecosystem together diminishes niche players’ performance over time. Similarly, pursuing status in multiple ecosystems and multiple niches, at the same time, adversely impacts the performance over time. Analyzing a panel data of app developers in iOS and Android smartphone ecosystems, we find supportive findings for above arguments, showing that niche players face a tradeoff regarding different patterns of specialization (i.e., status recognition). They should either focus their effort and investment to obtain status recognition in a focal niche by producing innovative products only in that niche, and exploit it across multiple ecosystems, or seek status in a single ecosystem while exploiting status therein across multiple product niches. Our paper contributes to the nascent stream of research that investigates issued faced by ecosystem members, rather than focusing on ecosystem owner´s strategies.

Drawing upon key insights from the resource orchestration framework as a dynamic perspective on the resource-based view (RBV), we investigated the value creation dynamics found in sharing economy platform firms. By performing multiple-case analyses on platform firms operating in the sharing economy in China, we identified three main mechanisms by which sharing economy platform firms orchestrate their external resources (i.e., crowds of suppliers and consumers) to create value and gain a competitive advantage—constructing on-demand resource adaptation, building big-data-driven network effects, and enabling ecosystem resource coordination. We contribute to the emerging literature on the sharing economy while extending the RBV to the digital platform context, in which the value creation process is significantly shifted to beyond the boundaries of the firm.

Blockchain technology has been receiving much public attention recently, promising to disintermediate transactions through a decentralized governance and a distributed data-infrastructure. However, the majority of the previous studies have focused on the technical aspects, and overlooked blockchain investigation from a managerial perspective. In this paper, based on platform-ecosystem, transaction cost economics, and open-source literature, we contrast and compare blockchain-based platforms and centralized platforms; in other words, decentralized versus centralized governance of the platform. We base our conceptual analysis on three dimensions—transaction cost, cost of technology, and community involvement—, exploring the conditions under which blockchain-based platforms are more advantageous than centralized platforms. We, first, compare gains from lower opportunism and uncertainty thanks to protocols and smart contracts in blockchain technology versus costs of higher coordination and complexity of (re)writing those contracts. Second, we compare gains from immutability and transparency in blockchain-based platforms versus the technological cost of verification and distributed ledger infrastructure. Finally, we compare intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of community around centralized and blockchain-based platforms to participate and different mechanism involved, i.e. pricing mechanism in the former and crypto-incentives in the latter.

This paper investigates the concept of manipulating waiting time in airports, an interesting but relatively unexplored example of the two-sided platform. In this context, “waiting time” refers to the time that users (i.e., airlines/passengers) must spend within/dealing with a platform (i.e., the airport) before accomplishing their goal (i.e., boarding). Even if users on one side dislike waiting time, many two-sided platforms have an incentive not to minimize it in certain situations in order to gain more revenues from users on the other side (i.e. in-terminal concessionaires), who may benefit from waiting time. I argue that passengers’ waiting time before being able to board their flights—that is, airside waiting time—tends to increase when management of the commercial side is outsourced. This effect will be reinforced when the commercial side, rather than the airside, is the more prominent source of revenue generation. Further, I find that concentration of concessionaires on the commercial side positively moderates the waiting time. Overall, this paper contributes to the emerging studies on nonpricing strategies in two-sided platforms.

Firms can benefit immensely from participating in digital platform ecosystems—specifically, from the shared technological assets and market opportunities offered by the platform owner. Yet, while aligning with the platform ecosystem rules, each member must decide whether to specialize in a given platform ecosystem or across multiple platform ecosystems to capture these benefits. We examine two common patterns through which platform ecosystem members (i.e., complementors) specialize within and across platform ecosystems, and the relative impact on their market performance. We look at the high relative standing of the complementary product as a reflection of complementors' specialization in the given product category or platform ecosystem. We then theorize that having products with high relative standing in a single product category and a single platform ecosystem, together, diminishes complementors’ market performance over time. Similarly, high relative standing in multiple platform ecosystems and multiple product categories, at the same time, adversely impacts the market performance. We find supportive evidence for our hypotheses, in a panel dataset of mobile app developers. This paper contributes to the burgeoning stream of research that investigates the trade-offs faced by complementors, suggesting that complementor strategies are more complex than simply trying to maximize market reach.

The advent of low-cost carriers has dramatically changed the competitive landscape of the airport industry and diminished the monopoly power that airports once enjoyed. Today, major airports compete directly with periphery airports, which are becoming the apparent choice of low-cost carriers. In fact, contracting with low-cost airlines has become a determinant factor in airport strategies, and airports now face a strategic decision to position themselves towards either low-cost or full-service (legacy) airline, or both. This paper examines the impact of these competitive strategies on airport financial performance. Building on the strategic purity premise, we hypothesise that being either a low-cost-oriented or legacy-oriented airport (pursuing a pure strategy) is associated with superior financial performance, in comparison with combining the two (a hybrid strategy). Moreover, the benefit of pure strategies increases with the intensity of competition among nearby airports. The paper supports these hypotheses with findings drawn from the U.S. airport industry.