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The purpose of this paper is to study the price decisions and profits of two firms in a competitive market in which one platform firm considers whether to adopt a consumer customization strategy.

This study develops the consumer’s utility function, which captures consumers’ behavioural and emotional factors in the self-customizing process, and it adopts a game theory approach to analyze the equilibrium price and equilibrium profit for each firm.

The results show that increased sensitivity in consumer customization might not benefit the platform, especially when the size of the consumer group deriving positive additional utility from the self-customizing process is small. Interestingly, if the consumer customization sensitivity is high, increasing sensitivity can benefit both firms by relaxing competition between them, while it can hurt consumer surplus. The study also further identifies the conditions under which platforms can adopt a consumer customization strategy.

Two major limitations of the study are that the model does not involve price discrimination or explore the value of adopting a consumer customization strategy in a vertically differentiated market.

This study offers managerial insights for the platforms that intend to invest in a consumer customization strategy, including providing a more simple, more efficient self-customizing process for consumers; empowering consumers to broadcast their creations to a large network by social media technologies; addressing how to determine what consumers really need and want; and so on.

Little research has been performed to analyze the impacts of adopting a consumer customization strategy on pricing decisions in a duopoly market by capturing consumers’ behavioural and emotional factors. While this study explores the above research issue, it also illustrates the effect of the adoption of a consumer customization strategy from a consumer surplus perspective.

Multinational small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly participating in cross-border digital platforms – especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, knowledge integration (KI) has become more and more important. In fact, it has been deemed by many as the key to organizational resilience. Given this burgeoning phenomenon, this study aims to explore a path for improving the resilience of multinational SMEs. Through this process, this study also finds a relationship between the KI processes associated with adopting global digital platforms and the resiliency of local–global businesses. Hence, in part, this paper also explores the effectiveness of all these mechanisms.

This study used the stepwise regression method in Stata 16.0 to analyze the direct effects of both horizontal and vertical KI processes on the resilience of local–global businesses. Additionally, t-tests were also used to compare the differences in coefficients between the mechanisms. The sample analyzed comprised data on multinational manufacturing SMEs in the Yangtze River Delta region of China who are using global digital platforms.

The KI processes of these firms, both horizontal and vertical, positively correlate to resilience. Horizontal KI processes more efficiently increase the resilience of global businesses, whereas vertical processes more efficiently increase the resilience of local businesses.

First, this study provides insights into how multinational SMEs can improve their resilience in a crisis. In addition to adding to the knowledge of KI processes, this expands the KM literature on pandemics. Second, by creating two KI processes based on global digital platforms and discussing their influence on resilience, this research deepens the understanding of affordance in the KM literature. Third, focusing on the KI research stream, the results shed light on how KI processes might occur and how firms develop their KI processes.

In the Information Age, an increasing number of firms and researchers focus on consumer privacy. Meanwhile, many firms that collect consumer information through, information disclosure, consumer privacy, agency model, distribution contracts products or services often adopt the agency contract or the wholesale contract to sell through the online platform. This study aims to examine how different distribution contracts affect supply chain decisions when the firm can profit from disclosing consumer information.

The authors use Stackelberg model to describe the relationship between consumer privacy and distribution contracts. Solve the model and analyze the monotonicity of the equilibrium results. The optimal contract choice and win-win conditions are obtained by comparing the profits under different contracts.

The authors find that when consumers’ maximal valuation is low in the market, the firm prefers to profit from disclosing consumer information under both the agency contract and the wholesale contract. As consumers’ maximal valuation increases, the firm turns to profit from product sales. Under the agency contract, the platform only generates profit when the consumers’ maximal valuation is high. By comparing the profits of the platform under the two types of contracts, the authors find the platform’s optimal contract choice under different consumers’ maximal valuations and platform commission rates. Combined with the comparison results of the firm’s profit, the authors provide the win-win conditions under the agency contract and wholesale contract.

This study analyzes the supply chain decision under the agency contract and wholesale contract, and it helps deepen the understanding of the interaction between consumer information disclosure and channel distribution contract.

Using perspectives from the technology affordance and social capital theories, this study aims to unpack the process through which platform-enabled co-development unfolds in supply chain contexts. Specifically, it explores how innovation outcomes can be fostered through platform affordances and supply chain relationship (SCR) capital.

The paper integrates literature on digital platforms, SCRs and co-development to produce an integrative framework, developing propositions on the relationships among digital platforms, SCR capital and innovation outcomes.

The authors identify affordances for distinctive strategic use of platforms: value co-creation, relationship building and strategic learning. The authors discuss ways in which each affordance contributes to the advances in SCR capital, thus altogether enabling focal firms to orchestrate and integrate internal and external resources to attain incremental and radical innovation.

Based on the proposed research framework, further empirical studies can use quantitative data to measure the relationship between affordances and SCR capital and use longitudinal case studies to explore how affordances and SCR capital evolve to provide more fine-grained and contextualised information in different research settings.

This paper sheds light on how the relation between the adoption of digital platforms and SCR capital shapes digitally enabled service co-development. The authors provide an alternative explanation of resource integration in platform-mediated supply chain contexts and enrich the related literature on how digital platforms can maximise value from introducing ambidextrous innovation by leveraging internal and external resources.

Social media communications on platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn can allow managers to interact cost effectively with trading partners. However, although most firms have an online presence on multiple social media platforms, the question remains as to whether marketers’ widespread social media investments are beneficial for firms. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This paper presents competing hypotheses to explore how firms’ investment in one form of social media impacts activity on another form of social media. To do so, the authors draw on a data set of 208 large Australian organizations using objective social media activity metrics that measure business-to-business (B2B) audience engagement.

The findings suggest that widespread social media activity on LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube negatively affects a firm’s marketing activity on Facebook. The results indicate that having a social media preference whereby firms focus on a specific social media platform is more effective in forming successful inter-organizational relationships than a multiplatform approach.

The study contributes to the sparse research that seeks to leverage social media for audience engagement beyond a business-to-consumer context. The study’s findings provide insights into the key mechanisms that underlie firms’ B2B social media strategies, and in so doing, offer a fresh perspective on the importance of interactive marketing communication.

Firms are increasingly using social media platforms to engage with individuals, as it is recognized that a firm’s social media activity outcomes, such as number of user comments, followers or likes, impact brand equity. This study aims to evaluate both the extent that these social media activity outcomes relate to brand equity and the classification of firms which benefit from the various types of social media activity outcomes.

This study identifies various components of social media activity and then captures specific social media activity outcomes for Fortune 500 firms. This study then performs a hierarchical regression analysis to assess the impact of the various social media activity outcomes on brand equity.

The results show significant relationships of social media activity outcomes with brand equity. The activity outcome measures of social networking and content communities platform are significantly related to a firm’s brand equity. This study also found that the social media activity outcome levels of various types of social media platforms are contingent upon a firm’s brand country of origin and industry classification type.

The results help firms gain a clearer view of potential applications of social media platforms, thus improving their understanding of the impact of social media. This study can enhance social media strategy and design tactics to improve brand equity. The findings can also guide firms in evaluating which social media activity outcomes enhance brand equity.

The results highlight that activity outcomes in a firm’s selected content communities platform and social networking platform are related to brand equity.

Technology has profoundly transformed the international business environment, particularly regarding the flow of information and the way in which knowledge is acquired and shared. Yet, the extent of this transformation is still underappreciated. The purpose of this paper is to examine how small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owner/founders acquire and utilize knowledge for internationalization via internet-enabled platforms.

The empirical analysis draws on multiple case study methodology to examine 13 Australian SME owner/founders and the knowledge they acquire from utilization of internet-enabled platforms.

The analysis reveals four differing types of internet-enabled experiences: “technical internet-enabled experiences,” “operational internet-enabled experiences,” “functional internet-enabled experiences,” and “immersive internet-enabled experiences.” The findings indicate that internet-enabled experiences can generate both explicit and tacit forms of knowledge for the pre, early and later phases of internationalization.

The findings provide a structured approach by allowing SMEs to “plot” themselves against the classification of internet-enabled experiences to denote their level of technological involvement, and for discerning the types of knowledge that can be acquired. The findings are particularly helpful for owner/founders, highlighting that internet-enabled platforms are affecting the ways in which knowledge can be acquired and applied to international businesses processes.

The findings extend the conventional notion of knowledge acquisition for international business by highlighting how information and knowledge can be acquired via internet-enabled platforms. The findings lay the necessary groundwork for building an evidence base and theoretically extending the concept of knowledge acquisition via internet-enabled platforms.

This study aims to analyze and discuss whether and how consumer-to-manufacturer (C2M) mode empowered by e-commerce retail platforms’ big data affects the stock returns of firms in supply chains.

This study selects 195 companies affected by four C2M events as samples and empirically analyzes the impact mechanisms of C2M mode on supply chain firms’ stock returns by event study.

This paper finds that C2M announcements own a positive impact on the stock returns of supply chain firms. Further, the results show that the business and financial characteristics play a significant impact on the relationship between the C2M mode and firm stock return performance. For example, C2M mode leads to huge stock returns when firms cooperate with the platforms related to their business content. In addition, the business scope can strengthen the positive promotion of C2M mode in stock returns, while business concentration weakens the positive promotion of C2M mode in stock returns.

The results found in this paper can provide practical guidance for the firms in supply chains to further apply C2M mode from the business characteristics and financial performance view.

With emerging markets representing great growth opportunities and serving as indispensable components in the global supply chain, it is unclear how well modern supply chain management theories developed in advanced markets apply to emerging markets. This study integrates the institution-based view with supply chain management literature to examine how integration capabilities can be leveraged to achieve supply chain agility in emerging markets and how the efficacy of integration capabilities is shaped by internal and external institutional contexts.

This study examines how firms in emerging markets can leverage their platform integration and knowledge integration capabilities with channel distributors to improve the supply chain agility and how such relationships are shaped by both the internal (proxy by ownership structure) and external (proxy by regional openness) institutional contexts in which firms operate. Survey and archival data collected from 207 firms operating in China, one of the largest emerging markets, were used to test the proposed research model.

The results reveal that platform integration and knowledge integration are two driving forces for supply chain agility in the emerging markets. Moreover, the results indicate that state-owned firms are able to achieve higher supply chain agility from their investments in knowledge integration with channel distributors than non-state-owned firms. While firms in regions with a high level of openness enjoy higher supply chain agility from knowledge integration, firms in regions with a low level of openness can catch up by investing in platform integration with their channel distributors.

The authors extend the extant study on supply chain integration (SCI) research to examine how operational and strategic integration with channel distributors can help the focal firm achieve supply chain agility in emerging markets. The study results also enrich the existing studies in emerging markets by revealing the importance of the institutional context in which firms operate on B2B channel management.

This paper aims to conduct a qualitative assessment of synergies between information flows of a multifamily product platform used for industrialized housing and materials passports that can promote a circular economy in the construction industry.

Using a single case study method, the research assesses the availability and accessibility of materials passport-relevant information generated by a leading Swedish industrialized housing construction firm. Data is collected using semistructured interviews, document analysis and an extended research visit.

The research findings identify the functional layers of the product platform, map the information flow using a process diagram, assess the availability and accessibility of material passport relevant information by lifecycle stage and actor, and summarize the key points using a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis.

The three main implications are: the technical and process platforms used in industrialized construction allow for generating standardized, digital and reusable information; the vertical integration of trades and long-term relationships with suppliers improve transparency and reduce fragmentation in information flows; and the design-build-operate business model strategy incentivizes actors to manage information flows in the use phase.

Industrialized construction firms can use this paper as an approach to understand and map their information flows to identify suitable approaches to generate and manage materials passports.

The specific characteristics of product platforms and industrialized construction provide a unique opportunity for circular information flow across the building lifecycle, which can support material passport adoption to a degree not often found in the traditional construction industry.