• Be familiar with theories regarding the constitution of multisided market platforms and their businesses and power.
• Demonstrate knowledge about the dynamics between platform user groups and the markets for democracy, products and labor.
• Analyze cases and situations of rapid technological change and their implications to government and civil society actors.
• Assess policy interventions on tech platforms locally, nationally and internationally.

This course explores and questions how tech platforms change the world and the way humans live, play and work.

• Amazon, Tencent and Netflix outcompete incumbent businesses and change the landscape of commerce and culture;

• Facebook, Baidu and X challenge the media landscape; and 

• Uber, Didi and Zomato accelerate the gig economy and the way people work challenging traditional interests of labor unions.

Meanwhile, policymakers in Brussels, Beijing, Washington D.C. and other capitals struggle to keep pace with formulating and designing policies that keep up with the technological innovations of platforms.

This course will challenge your practical and intellectual senses. Practically, the course will equip you to understand the way tech platforms changes the way we trade, live, play and work. And intellectually, you will be part of a course not afraid of asking the big questions starting with "why" and "how" without definite answers.

• Classic and basic theory
• New theory
• Teacher’s own research
• Models

• Analysis
• Discussion, critical reflection, modelling

Online - and without payment - you will able to access almost all of the course syllabus from the CBS Library website. 

The syllabus draws on literature of management, political science, economics, sociology and technology that will sharpen your academic and theoretical competence. Real-life cases will challenge you to put your knowledge at play in practice.

The course is organized around four blocks (with examples of course literature)

INTRO & THE BASICS: THE MULTISIDES PLATFORMS, VERTICALS & NETWORK EFFECTS

• Ladd, T. (2022): The Achilles’ heel of the platform business model: Disintermediation. Business horizons, 2022-05, Vol.65 (3), p.277-289.

• Osterwalder, A.; Pigneur, Y. (2010): Business model generation: a handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers. Chapter “Multi-Sided Platforms”, p. 78-87.

PLATFORM POWER & REGULATION: THE PACING PROBLEM, REGULATION & SELF-REGULATION 

• McIntyre, D. P. & Srinivasan, A. (2017): Networks, Platforms, and Strategy: Emerging Views and Next Steps. Strategic management journal, 2017-01, Vol.38 (1), p.141-160.

• Culpepper, P. & Thelen, K. (2020): Are We All Amazon Primed? Consumers and the Politics of Platform Power. Comparative Political Studies, 53(2), 288–318.

PLATFORM EARN & WORK: PLATFORM EARNERS & THE FUTURE OF WORK 

• Bridgstock, R.; Tytler, R.; White, P. (2020): Do creative skills future-proof your job? Creativity and the future of work in an age of exponential technological advancement, The Future of Creative Work, 2020-09-15, Chapter 15, p.245-258.

• Barzilay, A.R.; Ben-David, A. (2017): “Platform inequality: Gender in the gig economy”, in Seton Hall Law Review, Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 393– 431.

TECHNOCRACY: DEMOCRACY OF TECHNOLOGY & TECH POLICY PARTICIPATION 

• Feenberg, A. (2014). Democratic Rationalization: Technology, Power, and Freedom. In R. Scharff & V. Dusek (Eds.), Philosophy of technology: the technological condition : an anthology (pp. 706-719). Malden,  MA: Blackwell Publishing. Originally published 1992.

• Kwet, M. (2022): The Digital Tech Deal: a socialist framework for the twenty-first century, 2022-01, Vol.63 (3), p.63-84.