Sometimes dry, sometimes undercooked, but a useful snapshot of the rising new service economy—of considerable interest to...
An exploration of “a simple-sounding yet transformative concept that is radically changing business, the economy, and society at large.”
A platform, by the definition of business professors Parker (Tulane Univ.) and Van Alstyne (Boston Univ.) and Singapore-based analyst Choudary, is “a new business model that uses technology to connect people, organizations, and resources in an interactive ecosystem in which amazing amounts of value can be created and exchanged.” So value is created—not goods, not cures for cancer, but value, and most often in such a way that the people who own the platform leverage what other people own, be it a car (Uber) or knowledge (Wikipedia). In a mixed metaphor, the authors argue that platforms “beat pipelines because platforms scale more efficiently by eliminating gatekeepers.” Pipelines have shutoff valves and not gates, but never mind: the idea is that old-school regulatory agencies, editors, tax authorities, and other middlemen get out of the way of the transaction. The “positive network effects” thus achieved create the value, if they can be monetized properly—and how they’re monetizing out there, whether evading city hotel taxes in the case of Airbnb or using reputation ratings to vet babysitters in the case of Sittercity. The authors take their arguments on platforms beyond the business level to advocate delivering government services in similar form, as Singapore—authoritarian, ultracapitalist, and the authors’ seeming ideal—has done to some extent (though, they note, San Francisco, less authoritarian and less capitalist, has done even more). At the same time, they note the regulatory headaches the platform model induces, offering ideas for a “regulation 2.0” regime that encourages transparency while reducing inertia. In all this, it helps to have some background in the language and concepts of finance, economics, and business (“short-term micro-patent”), though that is not a barrier to entry.
Sometimes dry, sometimes undercooked, but a useful snapshot of the rising new service economy—of considerable interest to students of business.Pub Date: March 28, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-393-24913-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
A well-researched, albeit dry and repetitive chronicle of the decline of one of America's most famous ``independents.'' Ward (History/Univ. of Tennessee) takes the reader on a 60- year historical ride, from Packard's introduction of the Model A in 1899 to its dissolution in 1958. It is a tragic journey, and Ward meticulously traces the financial mishaps culminating in the Packard's fall. Still, many questions remain unanswered. Should Packard have abandoned its centralized paternalistic management structure? Did Packard wait too long in seeking out strategic alliances (and possible merger) with other independents? Was it a mistake for Packard to compete with the Big Three in the ``economy'' class market? After stating in the opening pages that Packard's failure was caused by ``unforeseeable and uncontrollable events,'' the author presents mounds of company data supposedly impacting on Packard's demise, most of which could easily have been relegated to a few charts and graphs. And many of the factors are not firm-specific: For example, Packard was not the only industrial corporation that was adversely affected by postWW II price controls, raw material shortages, inflationary pressures, and labor unrest. The most interesting passages are ancillary to the book's central themethe intriguing bits and pieces of information relating to automotive personalities, e.g., George Mason's role in the formation of the American Motors Corporation, the infighting at Ford between ex-Packard president James J. Nance and soon-to-be secretary of defense Robert McNamara, and, probably the most unusual, the fact that Robert Teague, one of Studebaker-Packard's most innovative designers, played a girl in a few television episodes of Our Gang. At the end, one is left without an inkling as to whether Packard's collapse was an inevitable consequence of the radical industrial changes America experienced over the last century or merely an unfortunate series of avoidable managerial blunders. (51 illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-8047-2457-1
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Stanford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995
Generation X is in deep trouble if this is the best case they can make for themselves. Bagby, a law student and economist who appears regularly on CNN’s Financial News Network, vigorously defends her generation. In her view, putdowns such as the “slacker” label commonly aimed at Generation X are media stereotypes created to characterize a phenomenon older generations don’t understand. The world has changed and today’s youth and young adults are responding to different imperatives and therefore have a different outlook than their parents. Unfortunately, in addition to an overview of the utterly predictable ways in which Generation X will increasingly come to dominate American society—time will march on—her book reinforces these stereotypes as much as it dispels them. Consider: Bagby sees her cohort group as diverse, complex, and not easy to pigeonhole, yet in embracing the language of “us” and “we,” she paints her generation in more monolithic terms than any critic. Continually harping on the problems they face ends up looking preposterous, as if, for example, not having an event like the Vietnam War to shape group identity is a disadvantage. Believing they have gone beyond ideology to look for what “works” without noticing that the “end of ideology” was declared by some scholars as as far back as the ’60s suggests a group identification based as much on failing to learn from the past as on new realities. Contrasting individual success stories with evidence of her cohort group’s amazing political apathy in the face of policies diametrically opposed to their short- and long-term interests inspires Bagby to draw positive conclusions about her generation, displaying a contorted logic in which anecdotal evidence is given more weight than general behavior. Gen-Xers will mo doubt like this book and shake their heads at the ignorance of critics who find it simply self-indulgent.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-525-94408-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
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