The Agency Model for Digital Goods Tan, Yinliang; Carrillo, Janice E.; Cheng, Hsing Kenny
Decision sciences,
August 2016, Letnik:
47, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
ABSTRACT
While digital goods industries such as entertainment, software, and publishing are growing at a rapid pace, traditional supply chain contract models have failed to evolve with the new ...digital economy. To illustrate, the agency model utilized by the e‐book publishing industry has recently received much negative attention brought by the U.S. Department of Justice's lawsuit against Apple, Inc. The emerging agency model in the e‐book industry works as follows: the publisher sets the price of the digital goods and the retailers who serve as agents retain a percentage of the revenue associated with a consumer purchase. The regulators claim that the agency model is hurting this industry as well as the consumer's welfare because e‐book prices have increased after the introduction of the agency model. We investigate the strategic impact of the agency model by examining a digital goods supply chain with one supplier and two competing retailers. In comparison to the benchmark wholesale model, we find that the agency model can coordinate the competing retailers by dividing the coordinated profits into a prenegotiated revenue sharing proportion. Further, we also identify the Pareto improving region whereby both the supplier and the retailers prefer the agency model to the wholesale model. Our main qualitative insight regarding the agency model still holds even when we consider the presence of the printed books in the marketplace. Thus, contrary to current press presaging the negative impact of the agency model on the e‐books industry, we find the agency model to be superior to the traditional wholesale contracts for publishers, retailers and consumers in this digital goods industry.
This paper aims to explore key pillars of supply chain competitiveness (SCC) and understand how top supply chains remain competitive in the long term. The research design is divided into two phases. ...First, an extensive review of the scholarly SCC literature is conducted to identify the core pillars that help achieve SCC. Second, the literature published in practitioner outlets on the five selected companies of Gartner's Supply Chain Top 25 is scrutinized to understand how top supply chains apply the core pillars of SCC in practice. A total of 193 scientific and practitioner articles were analyzed to develop the key pillars of SCC. This study identified six key pillars of SCC in the literature: innovation, sustainability, collaboration, information technology, agility, and flexibility. It has been found that a combination of these pillars, if not all, will be required to remain competitive in the post-COVID-19 era.
Abstract
Product updates have become prevalent on online digital platforms, given the unique market, product, and technological characteristics that underlie digital platforms. Scholars have begun to ...explore the efficacy of updates on digital platforms, highlighting the merits of implementing frequent updates. Drawing on behavioral decision theory, this paper analyzes the trade-offs that consumers encounter between the benefits and costs associated with updates and challenges an implicit assumption held in extant studies with respect to the linear efficacy of updates. In the context of mobile platforms, this paper, using a multi-method study, identifies the existence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between product updates and complementor product performance. We also find that the moderating efficacy of platform endorsement is positive in that it serves as an amplifier of whatever a complementor offers, tightly intertwined with the complementor’s offerings. Our paper expands the platform literature by investigating successful complementor product strategies that take into account unique platform characteristics with a strong grounding in interdependent owner–complementor dynamics.
The contribution Michel Foucault's thoughts on power, in particular his ideas of subjectivity, freedom, and action, might have to the study of design's ontological shaping of people is an emerging ...field of inquiry in the academy. Using a Foucauldian lens, this paper presents findings from semi-structured interviews with iPhone® users that speak to the ways Apple consumers are constituted into Apple subjects by what I refer to as "the Apple Way." The ineradicable relationship between discourses of design and consumerism and their imperative to "better" human life is presented as a starting point. The iPhone as a technological device that "makes life better" for Apple consumers is critiqued; data reveals an uneasy reliance people have on the iPhone for their everyday life.
Knowledge management structures (KMs) can be defined as structures whose purpose is to encourage people to build relationships, networks and trust. Global companies like Apple, Inc. have promoted ...these structures to transform its organisation into a knowledge‐based organisation. This paper identifies the role of national culture on four KMs namely open‐mindedness (OM), counter‐knowledge (CK), environmental innovation (EF) and customer capital (CC). In doing so, this study uses data collected from 354 end users of Apple (161 from Italy and 193 from Brazil). This paper provides evidence that while Apple end users from Brazil are more positively associated with higher levels of OM and CC, Italy users are more positively associated with higher levels of CK and EF. This paper discusses the role of the six dimensions of national culture–power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long‐term orientation and indulgence of a nation that plays a significant role in how they impact the KMs. Hence, this study serves as an important contribution to global companies that are trying to develop their KMs to sustain competitive advantages.
Ecossistemas digitais vêm ganhando protagonismo e gerando tensão entre os interesses corporativos e as criações anônimas dos usuários em suas táticas de resistência cotidiana. O objetivo deste estudo ...é compreender de que forma tais táticas são articuladas por usuários do ecossistema iOS/Apple. A partir da Teoria Fundamentada e das narrativas de Fanboys e Usuários Padrão, o estudo oferece indícios de que a resistência é moderada pelo envolvimento com a Apple e com o ecossistema de produtos.
Personal reflection Levy, Michael
Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa,
20/6/1/, Letnik:
65, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
I have many fond memories of Derek Henderson, or Dr Henderson, as I knew him. For example, I remember how excited he was when he returned from the IFIP '74 conference in Stockholm (Henderson, 1974). ...He told us about a speaker who held up a milk bottle and pointed out that all of the power of current mainframe computers would be available in processors that would fit into the bottle.
The paper deals with the the development of a specific company’s stock price time series. The aim of the paper is to use the time series method for a detailed analysis and evaluation of the ...development of Apple Inc. stock prices. Daily data from 2000 to 2020, daily data from the period of the economic crisis between 2007 and 2009 and daily data from the Covid-19 pandemic period from March 2020 to the end of the same year are used. The data, from the period of 2000 - 2020 show a gradual increase in Apple’s stock prices. The most common factor leading to the increase in stock prices is the launch of a new product or service on the global market. On the contrary, the reason for the decline in stock prices is customer dissatisfaction, the excess of demand over supply, or the political situation. The analysis of time series for the period of the economic crisis points to the fact that thanks to the development, innovation and constant introduction of new products into the market, the company was not significantly affected by the crisis and neither were stock prices. Naturally, there were some fluctuations in prices, but at the end of 2009, the company even reached the highest stock prices in its history to date. The analysis of time series during the global pandemic of Covid-19 shows a steady rise in stock prices. Currently, the company sells more and more products and introduces new services that help us work, study or entertain ourselves in these difficult times, in the safety of our homes.
Purpose
– Apple is a representative company of technological innovation (TI) and management. It has launched new and innovative products since 1977, and many companies and business schools around the ...world have attempted to learn about the success story of Apple's innovation. However, most previous research works on Apple's innovation have been based on qualitative approaches such as experts' opinions. Such studies offer a subjective point of view. By contrast, in this paper the authors aim to study the TI and forecasting of Apple by analyzing its patent applications, which is an objective approach to examining the innovation of Apple from a technological perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
– TI is an important issue concerning technology management for companies and governments. To examine Apple's TI, the authors analyze all applied patents and construct analytical models according to three approaches. First, they build statistical models using the time series regression and multiple linear regression methods to create a technology map. Second, they cluster all Apple's patents to find its vacant technology domain. Lastly, they use social network analysis to search for technologies central to Apple's future.
Findings
– The authors' study shows the technological trends and relations between Apple's technologies. This research finds vacant technology areas and central technologies for Apple's TI.
Practical implications
– Using statistical and machine learning methods, the authors analyze all Apple's patents in order to predict the firm's future technologies. This research contributes to examining the TI of Apple. Therefore, the results of the patent analysis can highlight the technological opportunities for Apple's TI.
Originality/value
– Traditional TI models have been based on qualitative methods. Previous investigations of Apple's TI have also relied on traditional analytical approaches. In this paper, however, the authors develop a quantitative and objective approach for examining Apple's TI.
PDF
