Value co-creation in web-based multisided platforms: A conceptual framework and implications for business model design

The internet is fertile ground for multisided platforms that articulate the production of goods or the execution of services between third parties, thus relying on value co-creation as their core business model mechanism. However, an understanding of co-creation that underlies dynamics and implications for business model design and innovation is still dispersed and fragmented along a number of literature streams. This article aims to provide an understanding of the value co-creation process in web-based multisided platforms. A conceptual framework is proposed based on the combination of an analysis of a comprehensive systematic literature review, interviews with academics and entrepreneurs, and an analysis of secondary data on representative cases of multisided business models based on value co-creation. We offer a model of value co-creation in multisided platforms and advance a number of propositions regarding value dynamics, including the role of the focal firm in defining and maintaining value creation, propositions, and capture structures with consequences to monetization schemes and actors’ contributions and motivations for value co-creation. This article contributes to the understanding of the co-creation phenomenon, especially in multiple actor interaction regimes, and raises a number of suggestions for future research.     

The battle of traditional retailers versus discounters: The role of PL tiers

For grocery retailers in Europe, intense competition from hard discount formats like Lidl and Aldi is an established part of the competitive landscape. Due to the highly competitive retail environment, traditional retailers’ private label (PL) tiers are now set to become the new battle ground in this competition. This study analyzes how PL tiers (i.e. economy, standard and premium) affect the competition between discounters and traditional retailers. We use a representative UK household panel dataset (2009–2010) for the ready-to-eat cereal and canned soup category, and estimate a demand model for the choice between national brands (NBs) and PL tiers across the top-7 UK retailers. Using our demand estimates, we conduct several counterfactual experiments that predict consumer responses to different strategies of traditional retailers and discounters in their fight for the consumer. In particular, we compare the effectiveness of three types of PLs offered by traditional retailers to fight discounters: economy PLs versus standard PLs versus premium PLs. We find that premium PLs are not very effective strategies for traditional retailers to fight with discounters. On the other hand, economy PLs manage to steal some market share from discounters, but as a downside they also cannibalize traditional retailers’ standard PLs. Standard PLs seem the most effective tool to fight with discounters, since they steal most market share from discounters (and NBs). From the point of view of the discounters, our results indicate that discounters benefit from a further increase in their NB offerings (assortment depth) as well as from a price cut in their own PLs.     

The Asian economic recession and retail change: the implications for retailer strategies in Asia

For almost three years the Asian Economic Crisis has been one of the most talked about influences on the retail sector in the region. This paper argues that the economic crisis has hidden or diverted attention away from the underlying changes in retailing that have been proceeding for much longer.A more dynamic and proactive retail sector appears to be evolving, one which is now less of a 'taker' of the strategies of manufacturers and more of a 'setter' of trends in product development and logistics. European and American retailers often appear to be major catalysts in this process, but this is not to say that the Asian retail sector will not develop in its own way, matched to local needs. What does now appear to be clear is that as economies in the region recover, most of their retail sectors will not go back to 'business as usual'.     

The performance of the global bottom-up approach in the M5 accuracy competition: A robustness check

The M5 accuracy competition has presented a large-scale hierarchical forecasting problem in a realistic grocery retail setting in order to evaluate an extended range of forecasting methods, particularly those adopting machine learning. The top ranking solutions adopted a global bottom-up approach, by which is meant using global forecasting methods to generate bottom level forecasts in the hierarchy and then using a bottom-up strategy to obtain coherent forecasts for aggregate levels. However, whether the observed superior performance of the global bottom-up approach is robust over various test periods or only an accidental result, is an important question for retail forecasting researchers and practitioners. We conduct experiments to explore the robustness of the global bottom-up approach, and make comments on the efforts made by the top-ranking teams to improve the core approach. We find that the top-ranking global bottom-up approaches lack robustness across time periods in the M5 data. This inconsistent performance makes the M5 final rankings somewhat of a lottery. In future forecasting competitions, we suggest the use of multiple rolling test sets to evaluate the forecasting performance in order to reward robustly performing forecasting methods, a much needed characteristic in any application.     

From perceptions to propositions: Profiling customer value across retail contexts

The core claim made in the paper is that retailers wishing to identify and manage competitive customer value propositions succeed by measuring and modeling customer value perceptions with reference to specific contexts relevant for their competitive advantage. Hence, the purpose of the paper is to present development and validation of a scale for measuring and modeling customer value and to illustrate how contextual perspective contributes to the evaluation of customer value propositions. The findings, based on empirical data from Finland, Japan, and the U.S., validate a framework wherein customer value reflects economic, functional, emotional, and symbolic dimensions of value, associating with satisfaction and word of mouth effects. The customer value profiles generated on this basis provide analytical insight for evaluating how country, channel, product category, and competitive situation influence the criteria for contextual evaluation of customer value propositions.     

Examining the role of store design on consumers’ cross-sectional perceptions of retail brand loyalty

This paper compares new and established store design prototypes of the same retailer to examine the role of consumers’ cross-sectional perceptions of retail brand loyalty. In-store surveys were administered to capture consumers’ store-level perceptions towards a new store prototype and an older established prototype of the same fast fashion retailer. The data was subjected to multi-group analyzes with structural equations modeling. The findings suggest that store novelty and complexity promote both store design pleasure and retail brand loyalty outcomes. The different store designs do not, however, account for differences in brand loyalty perceptions at the overall retailer level when multi-group comparisons of both store designs are made. Consumers of newer store designs are found to possess a heightened sensitivity to price perceptions. Managerial implications of the effects of store novelty and complexity on retail brand loyalty are also presented.     

When culture meets digital platforms: value creation and stakeholders’ alignment in big data use

Research on big data has highlighted that a crucial element to create value from data is the capability of aligning different stakeholders’ interests. However, it has not yet been investigated empirically how this process of alignment can be realized. We conduct a multiple case study on the two leading platforms involved in the online dissemination of cultural heritage – Europeana and Google Arts & Culture. Our findings reveal that a platform overtakes a rival one when it turns on multiple drivers of value creation in such a way that the drivers contribute to realigning the interests expressed by the stakeholders whose strategic objectives and beliefs were formerly divergent – or simply unrelated – to each other. This capability of realigning different stakeholders’ interests is independent of the level of industry-specific knowledge that the platform orchestrator has. The dynamics we document imply that Google has assumed a system integration role in the cultural ecosystem. This generates new trade-offs for museums in the way they generate value for the tourism industry. The paper enriches our understanding of what strategies digital platforms adopt to create value in big data contexts and provides a base to continue the investigation on other ecosystems driven by big data.     

地方政府融资平台建设中的问题及成因、挑战与应对

通过对当前地方政府融资平台出现的举债融资规模迅速膨胀、运作不够规范、变相提供担保、偿债风险日益加大等问题的主客观成因进行梳理，结合实际对如何完善和发挥地方政府融资平台提出自己的建议，希望能够对政府相关政策的完善有所裨益。     

From crinkly sheds to fashion parks: the role of financial investment in the transformation of retail parks

The retail park is one of the most ubiquitous and significant forms of off-centre retailing in the UK. Originally designed as low-cost accommodation for 'bulky goods', retail parks now include high-rent 'fashion parks' which are eagerly sought by institutional investors for long-term ownership. This paper explains why retail-park ownership, originating in the early 1980s in one-off schemes by locally based property developers, has become the province of major property companies, financial institutions, and asset managers. Growth in rents and capital values has been fuelled by increasing institutional investment, and by fears of a growing scarcity of high-quality developments because of town-planning restrictions. This pressure is now leading to attempts to realize the full capital value of older developments, through processes of 'active management' by the new breed of retail-park owners. In turn, this is leading to increasingly rapid changes of retail occupiers, involving in some cases the expulsion of the original 'bulky goods' retailers for whom retail parks were created. A parallel with the 'Wheel of Retailing' model of institutional change is suggested.     

Understanding how retail environments are perceived: a conceptualization and a pilot study

A conceptual framework for understanding how perceptions of retail environments are formed is developed in this paper. In developing the framework, three main issues receive theoretical attention. First, the problem of conceptualizing retail environments is tackled. Second, the dimensions of environmental perception are discussed from the standpoint of retail arenas. Third, the factors that moderate how different retail environments are perceived are treated producing a few research propositions. The article also reports the findings of a pilot study. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses are conducted and they show that the separate perceptual dimensions manifest themselves in distinct ways in different retail environments. Finally, the theoretical and managerial implications are discussed and future research suggestions are spelled out.