The theoretical literature on platforms and network effects predicts that the initial growth and takeoff of a platform crucially depends on the market's expectations of the future installed base. This paper tests this claim, reporting on a field experiment in which invitations to join a newly...

It is often presumed that bringing more members on board a multi-sided platform will stimulate value creation. Here I study the thousands of software producers building applications (“apps”) on leading handheld computer platforms (1999-2004). Consistent with past theory, I find a lock-step...

Rather than organize as traditional firms, many of today's companies organize as platforms that sit at the nexus of multiple exchange and production relationships. This paper considers a most basic question of organization in platform contexts: the choice of boundaries. Herein, I investigate how...

Digital platform-based marketplaces often have a wide variety of amateurs working alongside professional enterprises and entrepreneurs. Can a platform owner alter the number and mix of market participants? I develop a theoretical framework to show that amateurs emerge as a distinct type of...

Young workers typically enter the professional labor market only after completing higher education. We investigate how earlier professional work experience affects skilled worker development. In a field experiment, 1,787 Engineering majors were randomly assigned to 6-month work terms to begin...

Selecting among alternative projects is a core management task in all innovating organizations. In this paper, we focus on the evaluation of frontier scientific research projects. We argue that the intellectual distance between the knowledge embodied in research proposals and an evaluator's own...

“Freemium” product strategies—where a free basic version of a product is offered alongside a full “premium” paid version—are often used by companies to attempt to increase the size of their user base and benefit from network effects. However, there is limited empirical evidence of...