I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California in the Department of Management and Organization. My research centers on technology strategy, with a particular emphasis on platform-based markets. Together with my co-authors, I conduct research on two interrelated streams:
- challenges that platforms face in managing and growing their businesses, and
- firms' decisions on whether to adopt platform-based business models and the impact of such decisions.
In the first stream, I have looked at questions such as:
(1) when a new platform can successfully enter a market
,
(2) how platforms that rely on user contributions can overcome free-riding problems as they grow
,
(3) how platforms adjust their pricing strategies in response to increased competition,
and
(4) how platforms can encourage user adoption of applications by providing them with adoption information about their friends and other users.
In the second stream, I have worked on several projects analyzing firms' choices between fee-based and ad-sponsored business models, and the consequences of such decisions. In the case of ad-sponsored business models, firms essentially act as platforms connecting users with advertisers. I have examined:
(1) how an incumbent responds to an ad-sponsored entrant by adjusting its business model,
(2) how an entrant decides between a traditional fee-based model and an innovative sponsored-based model, anticipating that an incumbent may copy the innovation,
(3) how firms' choices of fee-based or ad-sponsored business models influence their compatibility incentives, and
(4) how platforms' decisions to share ad revenue shift their users' incentives.
In my research, I often study platforms that I use regularly. These platforms include video game consoles, social-networking sites, Craigslist, Wikipedia, blogs, instant messengers, newspapers, and ad-sponsored free products.
Entry into Platform-Based Markets (with Marco Iansiti) 2012.
Strategic Management Journal 33(1) 88-106.
Group Size and Incentives to Contribute: A Natural Experiment at Chinese Wikipedia (with Michael Zhang) 2011. NET Institute Working Paper #07-22.
American Economic Review 101(4) 1601-1615.
Strategies to Fight Ad-Sponsored Rivals (with Ramon Casadesus-Masanell) 2010.
NET Institute Working Paper #09-09. Management Science 56(7) 1484-1499.
Ad Revenue and Content Commercialization: Evidence from Blogs (with Monic Sun). 2011. R&R at
Management Science. NET Institute Working Paper #11-32.
BUAD 497: Strategic Management (Undergraduate capstone course)
Syllabus
