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Rather than organize as traditional firms, many of today’s companies organize as platforms that sit at the nexus of multiple exchange and production relationships. This chapter considers a most basic question of organization in platform contexts: the choice of boundaries. Herein, I investigate how classical economic theories of firm boundaries apply to platform-based organization and empirically study how executives made boundary choices in response to changing market and technical challenges in the early mobile computing industry (the predecessor to today’s smartphones). Rather than a strict or unavoidable tradeoff between “openness-versus-control,” most successful platform owners chose their boundaries in a way to simultaneously open-up to outside developers while maintaining coordination across the entire system.

Two key factors in the success of general-purpose computing platforms are the creation of a technical standards architecture and managing an ecosystem of third-party suppliers of complementary products. Here, we examine Symbian Ltd., a startup firm that developed a strong technical architecture and broad range of third-party complements with its Symbian OS for smartphones. Symbian was shipped in nearly 450 million mobile phones from 2000 to 2010, making it the most popular smartphone platform during that period. However, its technical and market control of the platform were limited by its customers, particularly Nokia. From 2007 onward, Symbian lost market share and developer loyalty to the new iPhone and Android platforms, leading to the extinction of the company and eventually its platform. Together, this suggests lessons for the evolution of a complex ecosystem, and the impact of asymmetric dependencies and divided leadership upon ecosystem success.

Digital media platforms in Uganda experimented with subscription-based models as an alternative to the traditional advertising model and as a recovery plan from the effects of COVID-19. Drawing from the theory of the political economy of the media, this study focusses on the critical success factors for subscription-based models in digital media platforms, audience consumption habits vis-á-vis payment for content, the effect of paywalls on the company financials and finally, establish the barriers to subscription uptake in Uganda. Media started charging users subscription fees for content in the 1990s (Chyi, 2005). Technological advances changed audience consumption habits from consuming hardcopy newspapers to accessing content on the go through their smartphones, tablets, and computers (Berger, Matt, Steininger, & Hess, 2015). Whilst some consumers pay for content, several audience surveys in East Africa indicated a lack of consistency among the paying audiences (KARF, 2019). Most consumers never purchased subscription and were avert to paywalls. The study used a mixed-method approach to find that the increase in internet penetration in Uganda and smartphone usage were the most significant enablers of paid-content consumption in Uganda. The quality of content, poor packaging, and unfair prices by publishers were the biggest barriers to consumption of paid news content.

The change in Malaysian financial environment can be attributed to digitalization as banks are racing to digital maturity by 2020. Historically in Malaysia, the use of credit card was a Fintech development in the 1950s to help Malaysians minimize the burden in carrying cash all the time. The aim of financial technology in the 1990s was to encourage bank customers to use the online banking system instead of only automated teller machine. Fintech services are swiftly interrupting banks' services globally. Similarly, Malaysia's banking sector is experiencing the interruption since as more Fintech organizations are innovating new Fintech service to improve convenience for clienteles. Numerous regulatory agencies in Malaysia and the Malaysian government have set up several initiatives to encourage and provide a vigorous growth in the Malaysian Fintech and digital asset regulatory environment. Expectation Confirmation Model, Technology Acceptance Model, and Cognitive Model are viewed as the most popular frameworks that discuss the continuous intention to use information system. The combination of these three models has led to the creation of Technology Continuance Theory (TCT). TCT postulates that five prominent constructs or antecedents are depicted as key indicators in explaining the users' intentions for continuous use: (1) confirmation, (2) perceived usefulness, (3) perceived ease of use, (4) satisfaction, and (5) attitude. Furthermore, TCT adds to the argument on the consumers' continuance adoptions by assimilating satisfaction and attitude into a single construct.

The chapter covers a framework to design innovative business models to articulate a sustainable value narrative with a customer-centric approach, and it describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value. Every organization has a business model, even if the word “business” is not used as a descriptor. Additionally, the chapter will documents a case and presents a challenge.

To develop the framework, the chapter followed a customer-centric approach in order to build a sustainable business model and create economic, social, and environmental value.

Dubbed as the “first digital generation,” the millennials (or Generation Y) have been ensconced in digital technologies throughout their lives. As a demographic cohort, the eldest members of Generation Y were the first to reach adulthood by 2001, which heralded the third millennium, and were, therefore, called the millennials.

This research study theorizes that the millennials are ushering an emerging post-digital era that is redefining how we live, work, and play. By situating media consumption within a cross-disciplinary context of mediated engagement, this study analyzed how millennials consume media based on a 2019 meta-analytical research analysis of 22 cross-disciplinary studies, published between 2015 and 2019.

This research study analyzes how millennials curate and engage with digital media and information content in the midst of incessant evolutions of their identity, media use, and digital life. This study explicates six theoretical insights into how millennials consume information and engage with media. In their pursuit of easy access to media, the millennials get most of their information and media content from social media.

In theorizing how millennials engage with digital media, this study explicates important conceptual trends such as incidental news exposure (INE), which refers to people stumbling upon news stories they otherwise would not have purposefully seen or sought. INE spawns “bumpers” who involuntarily bump into news items, as opposed to “seekers” who actively search or seek news content. This leads to the news-finds-me mindset among some passive news consumers who rely and expect other active news consumers to share important news and information.

With 43.2 million coronavirus cases and 525,000 deaths in 2022, India ranked second worldwide, after the United States (84.6 million cases and 1 million deaths), according to the latest available June 2022 COVID-19 impact data.

Amid people’s growing mistrust in the government, India’s news media enhanced the nation’s distinguished designation as the world’s largest and most populous democracy. India’s news media inform, educate, empower, and entertain a surging population of 1.4 billion people, which is roughly one-sixth of the world’s people.

Drawing upon the media agendamelding theoretical framework, we conducted a case study research into interplay between two prominent democratic institutions, the media and the government, to analyze the role of the COVID-19 pandemic in redefining India’s networked society.

India’s COVID-19 pandemic aggravated internecine tensions between media and government relating to four key freedom issues: (1) world’s largest COVID-19 lockdown affecting 1.3 billion Indians from March 25, 2020 to August 2020 with extensions and five-phased re-openings, to restrict the spread of COVID-19; (2) Internet shutdowns; (3) media censorship during the 1975–1977 “Emergency”; and (4) unabated murders of journalists in India.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic caused deleterious problems debilitating the tensions between the media and the government, India’s journalists thrived by speaking truth to power. This study delineates key aspects of India’s media agendamelding that explicates how the people of India form their media agendas. India’s news audiences meld media messages from newspapers, television, and social media to form a picture of the issues, insights, and ideas that define their lives and times in the 21st century digital age.