Co-sponsored by The Heilbroner Center, The New School, New York and The Institute for Public Knowledge, NYU, New York
Contact: Janet Roitman Roitmanj@newschool.edu
The term “platform economy” emerged in management research and systems science in the early 2000s as an obvious way to describe platform-based business models, such as Amazon or Uber. [1] However, platform can signify a concrete digital marketplace, an automated system, an informational infrastructure, an architecture for product and service delivery, and an alternative analytic to the term “market.” [2]
The Platform Economies Workshop will consider this complex analytical landscape so as to consider, specifically, pragmatic questions related to future research agendas. That is, while conclusions about the effects of platform economies are vital, prior questions about the heuristics and analytics of the term merit serious consideration.
Our starting point is aptly summarized as follows: “Digital platforms facilitated by key technologies such as the cloud, including digital marketplaces such as Amazon and Internet firms such as Google and Facebook, are restructuring ever more parts of the economy. The discussion [about this restructuring] is complicated because […] there is not yet a clear definition of digital platforms that allows us to specify precisely what is in and out of the category. The term ‘platform’ simply points to a set of online digital arrangements whose algorithms serve to organize and structure economic and social activity.” [3]
In order to explore ongoing and potential research on the ways in which socio-economic activity is being structured by platform economies, the workshop will establish a set of themes so as to encourage open-ended questions. For example, how can we understand the spatiality of these emerging forms of exchange? While “the cloud” and “digital marketplace” imply unfettered access and complete coverage, what are their actually existing geographies? And how (if at all) might these emergent geographies displace longstanding spatial arrangements of financial practice or processes of capitalization? How does the term “platform economies” serve as a heuristic and how does it obscure certain relations or practices? More narrowly, while some interpret platform economies as enabling the “sharing economy,” others see it as a “gig economy.” Similarly, payments systems that are structured to increase financial inclusion are said to extend credit facilities and hence indebtedness; and, at the same time, they are noted to grant significant financial autonomy to marginalized communities in many parts of the world. These are open-ended processes that merit study. Likewise, alongside financial platforms, logistic and global value chains are being reshaped by platform innovations. How is this taking place and with what effects? Instead of taking a position on these matters, most of which require additional study, this research group will inquire into certain thematics so as to consider the best possible avenues of future research.
Themes
Parallel Systems: mobile banking, payment systems, e-money, cryptocurrencies
Ecosystems: cloud computing, data-tracking, consumer ecosystems, blockchain
Threshold Dynamics: private/public, cash/non-cash, extraction/valuation
2019 Workshop Participants
Each participant will submit one or more short texts (10 pages), such as a work-in-progress, industry reports, financial journalism, institutional analyses, short articles, etc. (no published papers). The entire group will read the body of short texts prior to the workshop. There will be no presentation of papers; discussants will present texts and offer questions for discussion.
Participants are encouraged to explore questions related to value generation and extraction.
[1] For a synthesis of this research, see Smedlund, Lindblom, Mitronen, eds. Collaborative Value Co-Creation in the Platform Economy, Springer, 2018.
[2] See, for instance, Kendall, Machoka, Veniard & Maurer, An Emerging Platform: From Money Transfer System to Mobile Money Ecosystem, UC Irvine School of Law Research Paper No. 2011-14, 2012; Scholz, Platform Cooperativism: Challenging the Corporate Sharing Economy, Rosa Luxemburg, 2016; Guyer, Legacies, Logics, Logistics. Essays in the Anthropology of the Platform Economy, University of Chicago Press, 2016.
3 Kenney and Zysman, “The Rise of the Platform Economy,” Issues in Science and Technology, Spring 2016, 61-69.