Technological platforms An assessment of the primary types of technological platforms, their strategic issues and their linkages to organizational theory

The concept of a platform describes a set of system components that is strongly interdependent with most other system components, and that also co-determines the architecture of the system’s outcome. This concept underlies all kinds of technology-based products, collaborations that produce multi-product systems, and transactions between distinct sets of market participants. In this paper, I provide an overview of the growing scientific literature on technological platforms, and also identify three distinct, but related, literature streams: (1) product platforms; (2) industry platforms; and (3) two-sided markets. In doing so, I focus on empirical studies and mathematical models. For each stream, I then go on to describe the type of platform that the stream relates to, review the stream’s major studies (sorted by key strategic issues), and summarize and synthesize the overall findings before linking them to organizational theory and highlighting some potential gaps for future examination. In closing, I move to a comparison across streams and identify some currently unexplored aspects of the platform concept.     

Wie lässt sich die Dominanz der Finanzmärkte über die Politik lösen?

Der Krisenverlauf und die Bemühungen der Politik gegenzusteuern lassen den Eindruck entstehen, dass die Finanzm?rkte die Politik vor sich hertreiben. Die Politik hat offenbar durch ein Regulierungsversagen die Marktkr?fte nicht genügend geb?ndigt. Wurden die Kapitalm?rkte nicht schon seit langem von der Politik privilegiert? Welche konkreten Vorschl?ge gibt es, die Eurol?nder von den Finanzm?rkten unabh?ngiger zu machen? Welche Erfahrungen wurden in der Vergangenheit mit Verschuldungskrisen gemacht?     

Drivers of Change: A Multiple-Case Study on the Process of Institutionalization of Corporate Responsibility Among Three Multinational Companies

In this multiple-case study, I analyze the perceived importance of seven categories of institutional entrepreneurs (DiMaggio, Institutional patterns and organizations, Ballinger, Cambridge, MA, 1988) for the corporate social responsibility discourse of three multinational companies. With this study, I aim to significantly advance the empirical analysis of the CSR discourse for a better understanding of facts and fiction in the process of institutionalization of CSR in MNCs. I conducted 42 semi-structured face-to-face and phone interviews in two rounds with 30 corporate managers from three multinational companies. The data has been analyzed using qualitative (multiple coding) and quantitative (ANOVA, χ² analysis) techniques. The findings indicate that one company is driven by civil society’s influence on consumer’s perception, the second company by direct attacks by civil society, agenda setting organizations and legislators, and the third by the pressure of large customers and legislators. The results suggest that the coping behaviors of MNCs at both extremes of the spectrum of perceived responsible behavior aim at (1) improving the business case for CSR and (2) increasing legitimacy in society, resulting in converging CSR perceptions, and fostering an institutionalization of CSR.     

Corporation and Polis

Given the problems in the business world, it might be time to rethink business from a perspective that is not (neo)Marxist or capitalist. This article does just that by rethinking the ideology of human freedom in business. This article argues that corporations are freer than humans under capitalism. Moreover, corporations, more so than humans, engage in free action, as Arendt defines action. To return to the place where human freedom is an actuality not ideology, we must understand the nature of freedom and how the present situation arose. From that we can then develop solutions. One solution posited here is that managers must treat employees as worthy of empowerment. This solution gives organizational behavior theory the ethical status that it has not had earlier. Even if the solution set out in this review is not functional, the view of business developed in this article is new and merits further examination in order that business can functional more ethically, including the treatment of people.     

Implicit consumer preferences and their influence on product choice

Recent theories in social psychology assume that people may have two different attitudes toward an object at the same time—one that is explicit and corresponds with deliberative behavior, and one that is implicit and corresponds with spontaneous behavior. The research presented in this article tested this assumption in the consumer domain with an experimental approach. Participants whose explicit and implicit preferences regarding generic food products and well‐known food brands were incongruent were more likely to choose the implicitly preferred brand over the explicitly preferred one when choices were made under time pressure. The opposite was the case when they had ample time to make their choice. On the basis of these results, the discussion stresses the importance of impulsive behavior and implicit measures for research in the area of consumer behavior. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Rezensionen

Ohne Zusammenfassung