Platforms have evolved beyond just being organized as multi-sided markets with complementors selling to users. Complementors are often unpaid, working outside of a price system and driven by heterogeneous sources of motivation — which should affect how they respond to platform growth. Does...

A great deal has been said in recent years about patent disclosure. But to say that there is a disclosure function in the patent system implies that there is non-disclosure functioning in the patent system as well. For some information to be disclosed in a patent, other information must go...

There is a substantial body of literature on information technology (IT) outsourcing. However, little is known about employing IT outsourcing to generate innovation. In this paper, we articulate the ex ante as well as ex post contracting challenges that could preclude firms from realizing such...

By providing a nearly instant connection among parties at opposite corners of the world and enabling a variety of commercial exchanges, the Internet has emerged as the technology expected to create a truly global market space. Internet firms face the challenge of capitalizing on this...

I argue that incumbent firms may adapt to a radical innovation through interfirm cooperation with new entrants. In particular, I suggest that incumbent firms may leverage their pre-innovation complementary assets via exploitation alliances with new entrants. Thus, exploitation alliances are...

Drawing on the organizational learning literature, we study the effect of alliance experience on alliance performance. We differentiate between firm-level general alliance experience obtained from alliances across a diverse set of partners and dyad-level partner-specific alliance experience...

In this paper I consider the construction of patents as social practices. The goal is to observe patents in action, that is, to catch patents in the act of becoming patents. This method of “following the action” is well established in the scientific arena, where the processes that lead from...

Outsourcing was originally confined to peripheral business functions and mainly motivated by a cost saving logic, but has now developed into a routine strategic management business model that affects not only peripheral functions but impacts the core business of organizations. Industry research...

The loss of private customer data such as Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, birth-dates, and other confidential information to unauthorized third parties presents a daunting set of challenges and legal obligations to affected businesses. Identity theft has been America's “fastest...

The present paper discusses the decision earlier this year of Judge Robert W. Sweet of the District Court for the Southern District of New York to deny patent protection for isolated human genes and associated diagnostic methods. The case related to genetic tests for familial breast and ovarian...