Organization Design and Effectiveness over the Innovation Life Cycle

George  Westerman; F. Warren  McFarlan; Marco   Iansiti

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Article | Organization Science

Organization Design and Effectiveness over the Innovation Life Cycle

by George Westerman, F. Warren McFarlan and Marco Iansiti

Keywords: Organizational Design; Performance Effectiveness; Innovation and Invention;

Format: Print

9 pages

Find at Harvard

Citation:

Westerman, George, F. Warren McFarlan, and Marco Iansiti. "Organization Design and Effectiveness over the Innovation Life Cycle." Organization Science 17, no. 2 (March–April 2006): 230–238.

About the Authors

F. Warren McFarlan

T.J. Dermot Dunphy Baker Foundation Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus

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Marco Iansiti

David Sarnoff Professor of Business Administration
Unit Head, Technology and Operations Management

Technology and Operations Management

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The Boston Beer Company: New CEO

Christina R. Wing and Marco Iansiti

Keywords: Beer/brewing industry; supply chain; succession; Leadership; Change; Supply Chain; United States;

Citation:
Wing, Christina R., and Marco Iansiti. "The Boston Beer Company: New CEO." Harvard Business School Case 619-021, October 2018. (Revised August 2019.) View Details

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Article | Harvard Business Review | January–February 2019

Why Some Platforms Thrive and Others Don't

Feng Zhu and Marco Iansiti

In the digital economy, scale is no guarantee of continued success. After all, the same factors that help an online platform expand quickly—such as the low cost of adding new customers—work for challengers too. What, then, allows platforms to fight off rivals and grow profits? Their ability to manage five aspects of the networks they’re embedded in:

• network effects, in which users attract more users
• clustering, or fragmentation into many local markets
• the risk of disintermediation, wherein users bypass a hub and connect directly
• vulnerability to multi-homing, which happens when users form ties with two or more competing platforms
• network bridging, which allows platforms to leverage users and data from one network in another network

When entrepreneurs are evaluating a digital platform business, they should look at these dynamics—and the feasibility of improving them—to get a more realistic picture of its long-term prospects.

Keywords: Technology Platform; Competition; Network Effects; Competitive Strategy;

Citation:
Zhu, Feng, and Marco Iansiti. "Why Some Platforms Thrive and Others Don't." Harvard Business Review 97, no. 1 (January–February 2019): 118–125. View Details

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Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2018

Network Structures and Entry into Platform Markets

Feng Zhu, Xinxin Li, Ehsan Valavi and Marco Iansiti

While some platform markets exhibit strongly interconnected network structures in which a buyer is interested in purchasing services from most providers, many platform markets consist of local clusters in which a buyer is primarily interested in purchasing services from providers within the same cluster. We examine how network structures affect interactions between an incumbent platform serving multiple markets and an entrant platform seeking to enter one of these markets. We find that having more mobile buyers, which increases interconnectivity among markets, reduces the incumbent’s incentive to fight and increases the entrant’s incentive to expand. Incumbent profits increase with interconnectivity. When advertising is inexpensive and mobile buyers consume in both local markets and the markets they visit, greater interconnectivity increases the entrant’s profit, thus encouraging entry.

Keywords: network structure; clustering; platform competition; Networks; Market Platforms; Competition; Market Entry and Exit;

Citation:
Zhu, Feng, Xinxin Li, Ehsan Valavi, and Marco Iansiti. "Network Structures and Entry into Platform Markets." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-062, December 2018. View Details

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Organization Design and Effectiveness over the Innovation Life Cycle

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