Lectures "WIFO-Extern", Österreichisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Wien, 03.05.2018
Online since: 20.04.2018 0:00
Digital platform firms led by Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are changing social life, work, competition and,
ultimately, value creation and capture. Today, the five US giants plus Alibaba and Tencent are the most valuable firms in
the world. The increasing centrality of digital platforms for organising competition, work, and value creation is changing
the balance of power between labour and employer and within a variety of supply chains. Not only do we have the salient cases
of work contracting platforms such as Upwork and services platforms such as Uber and Lyft, but also there are new opportunities
for generating income such as the Airbnb, app stores, YouTube, and beyond. Remarkably, even when workers are not displaced,
platforms such as Yelp and TripAdvisor affect the work and management process. Digital platforms are also transforming the
dynamics of competition in a wide variety of industries from services, logistics and finance through entertainment and music.
I explore these dynamics and speculate how inter-firm competition might be impacted particularly as the platform giants become
increasingly intertwined in all social and economic life and can leverage their existing power to enter yet other value-creation
opportunities.