The emergence of multi-sided platform MNEs: Internalization theory and networks

The rise of the digital economy provides firms across the globe with unique business opportunities. Companies such as Facebook, Alibaba, and Uber are competing in a new multi-sided platform world; the primary focus of these firms, from their inception, is to provide digital infrastructure, information and technology—intangible assets that enable direct interaction or value creation across platforms by linking different user group and complementors, often at the international level. Building on data drawn from multinational multisided Platform corporations (MMPCs) operating in China, we combine insights from internalization theory and network effects in understanding the value creation of such firms. We explore the boundaries of these new “breed” of MNEs in exploiting firm-specific advantages (FSAs) and in creating new knowledge between headquarters and subsidiaries. The findings suggest that internalization theory needs to shift its focus from the ‘boundaries of the firm’ to the ‘boundaries of the local network’. By integrating their internal and external networks of knowledge in adapting their business models in host markets, this new breed of MNEs is more likely than the traditional one to gain a sustainable competitive advantage in the new information age.     

Enhancing the Accessibility of Accounting and Business Archives: The Role of Technology in Informing Research in Accounting and Business

The application of advanced digitization technologies to accounting and business archives has created new opportunities for accounting and business historians. The joint American Accounting Association and European Accounting Association Task Force (2006–2010) that examined digitization confirmed this. This paper explores these opportunities, along with some attendant challenges and cautions, with reference to the digitization of two significant archives located in Australia. The first is the archive of CPA Australia, a professional accounting association that has its beginnings in 1886 and which today has over 132,000 members. The second is the archive accumulated by the pre‐eminent accounting scholar Raymond Chambers during his long and extraordinarily productive tenure at the University of Sydney. Studies of surviving business records, biography and institutional history provide examples of scholarship that is enabled by digitization technology and which has the capacity to inform contemporary issues and debates.     

数据的要素化过程及其与传统产业数字化的融合机制研究

从生产过程和价值创造来看,数据具备了传统生产要素所具备的功能,但又具有区别于传统生产要素的新特征.数据作为一种新型生产要素,对于数字产业化的高速发展和传统产业数字化进程的深入推进,具有关键作用.数据要素的形成和发展一方面需要与数字产业化、产业数字化融合发展进程相适应;另一方面,数据要素的形成过程本身又是与传统产业数字化...     

Measuring digitization: A growth and welfare multiplier

Digitization encapsulates the social transformation triggered by the mass adoption of digital technologies that generate, process and transfer information. The digitization index introduces a global measure of national performance reflecting ubiquity, affordability, reliability, speed, usability and skills. Output and welfare rise with the index while manifesting increasing returns to scale some implications for ICT public policy are drawn from these findings.     

From AI to digital transformation: The AI readiness framework

Strategies and means for selecting and implementing digital technologies that realize firms’ goals in digital transformation have been extensively investigated. The recent surge in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has amplified the need for such investigation, as they are being increasingly used in diverse organizational practices, creating not only new opportunities for digital transformation but also new challenges for managers of digital transformation processes. In this article, I present a framework intended to assist efforts to address one of the first of these challenges: assessment of organizational AI readiness—that is, an organization’s ability to deploy AI technologies to enable digital transformation, in four key dimensions: technologies, activities, boundaries, and goals. I show that this framework can facilitate analysis both of an organization’s current sociotechnical AI status and of the prospects for the technology’s fuller value-adding, sociotechnical deployment. The AI readiness framework invites fuller theorizing of the roles that AI can—and will—play in digital transformation.     

第31届美国ITC会议中的TT＆C

本文介绍第３１届美国国际遥测会议的概况。对综合化、数字化、精度自校和ＢＩＴ、角跟踪、应答机和ＧＰＳ的技术问题进行了评述。     

An extension of the theory of technology dominance: Capturing the underlying causal complexity

The Theory of Technology Dominance (TTD) provides a theoretical foundation for understanding how intelligent systems impact human decision-making. The theory has three phases with propositions related to (1) the foundations of reliance, (2) short-term effects on novice versus expert decision-making, and (3) long-term epistemological effects related to individual deskilling and profession-wide stagnation. In this theory paper, we propose an extension of TTD, that we refer to as TTD2, primarily to increase our theoretical understanding of how, why, and when the short-term and long-term effects on decision-making occur and why advances in technology design have exacerbated some weaknesses and eroded some benefits. Recently, researchers have called for reconsideration of how we design intelligent systems to mitigate the detrimental effects of technology; in TTD2 we provide a theory-based understanding for capturing the complexity underlying the occurrence of the effects.     

数字商业生态系统特征：数据控制和数据协调模式比较

数字平台重塑组织间关系形成数字商业生态系统,而数据要素分布模式会影响数字商业生态系统特征。文章选择浙江省和广东省分别作为数据控制模式和数据协调模式的代表,基于数字经济上市企业经营领域与授权发明专利数据,利用社会网络分析法,比较数据控制与数据协调两种模式在产业链整合、数字产业化和产业数字化融合以及数字商业生态系统网络结构上的差异,分析两种模式为提高经济效率所采纳的不同路径。研究发现：无论在何种模式下,民营企业通常选择创新活动频繁、创新风险较高的战略性新兴产业,而国有企业通常参与门槛较高的生产性服务业。数据控制模式是构建数字化营销渠道发挥消费互联网平台用户流量优势,数据协调模式是依托电子信息产业基础发挥工业互联网平台协同制造优势;数据控制模式是纵向一体化产业链整合方式,数据协调模式是水平型产业链整合方式。相较于数据控制模式,数据协调模式下的数字技术与传统产业融合度更高、在产业链上扩散速度更快;数据控制模式下组织网络呈现“垄断”结构,而数据协调模式呈现“区块链”结构;数据控制模式依托于单一平台很难做出全局最优决策部署,数据协调模式在不同领域构建工业互联网平台可能导致跨平台间的数据流动产生困难。消费者需求数据和工业数据高效匹配是两种模式共同演进方向,相较于讨论数据要素最优集中规模,畅通数字平台之间的数据要素流动渠道才是根本。     

Digital transformation: Five recommendations for the digitally conscious firm

Digital transformation is one of the key challenges facing contemporary businesses. The need to leverage digital technology to develop and implement new business models forces firms to reevaluate existing capabilities, structures, and culture in order to identify what technologies are relevant and how they will be enacted in organizational processes and business offerings. More often than not, these profound changes require firms to revisit old truths as they develop strategies that thread the needle between beneficial innovation and harmful disruption. This article uses the Internet of Things (IoT) as a backdrop to demonstrate the concerns associated with transformative technologies and offers five recommendations as to how firms can develop the strategies needed for digital transformation and become digitally conscious: (1) Start small and build on firsthand benefits; (2) team up and create competitive advantage from brand recognition; (3) engage in standardization efforts; (4) take responsibility for data ownership and ethics; and (5) own the change and ensure organization-wide commitment. As such, this article shows that digital transformation should be a top management priority and a defining trait of corporate business strategy, and that by becoming digitally conscious, firms may get a head start on their transformation journey.     

Building an organizational digital twin

The increasing digitization of the economy means that a new digital resource—a digital twin of an organization—is now feasible. We suggest five principles that assist in the construction of an organizational digital twin and show how they combine into a dynamic evolutionary process that builds and maintains the digital twin incrementally. We also discuss the organizational implications of implementing a digital twin and how digital twins create value in an organization.