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In a sharing economy, economically inactive members can serve as providers owing to the low start-up costs. However, such providers may operate without sufficient knowledge of the market and policies, causing significant problems. To prevent illegal sharing, governments encourage providers to register their businesses after meeting certain requirements, but most providers still operate unregistered businesses. The purpose of this paper is to explore the causes of policy non-compliance and suggest measures that can induce compliance.

Based on the rational choice and deterrence theories, this study combines qualitative and quantitative research. The former is used to investigate the antecedent factors affecting compliance. Using the latter, this study assumes that the existence of platform operators can resolve information asymmetries. The qualitative findings provide the variables that can lead to policy compliance, while the quantitative research verifies the causal relationships.

Business registration by providers in the sharing economy arises from their subjective cost-benefit calculations of policy compliance. According to the qualitative research, they believe there is a low risk of detection of policy non-compliance by the government. The quantitative research suggests that interventions by platform operators could resolve information asymmetries between the government and providers.

This study designed a mechanism to guide providers toward policy compliance. To reduce friction with the existing market and ensure efficient growth, it is necessary to cooperate with sharing economy participants. The results suggest that the role of platform operators and the government is important.

Internet + and Electronic Business in China is a comprehensive resource that provides insight and analysis into E-commerce in China and how it has revolutionized and continues to revolutionize business and society. Split into four distinct sections, the book first lays out the theoretical foundations and fundamental concepts of E-Business before moving on to look at internet+ innovation models and their applications in different industries such as agriculture, finance and commerce. The book then provides a comprehensive analysis of E-business platforms and their applications in China before finishing with four comprehensive case studies of major E-business projects, providing readers with successful examples of implementing E-Business entrepreneurship projects.

Internet + and Electronic Business in China is a comprehensive resource that provides insights and analysis into how E-commerce has revolutionized and continues to revolutionize business and society in China.

To provide an overview of the Hong Kong regulatory regime for crypto-related investment products.

Describes the existing regulatory regime in Hong Kong for crypto-related investment products prior to November 2018 and, following circulars issued by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) in November 2018, regulatory standards relating to virtual asset portfolio managers and fund distributors and a conceptual framework for potential regulation of virtual asset trading platform operators. Discusses the implications of the regulatory standards and conceptual framework.

The regulatory standards have aligned the requirements relating to crypto-related securities and futures contracts with those for crypto-related assets that do not fall within such definitions. The opt-in approach under the conceptual framework demonstrates that the SFC is actively trying to learn about the operations of platform operators and develop appropriate regulations accordingly.

Practical guidance from experienced lawyer with expertise in fund formation, fund investments and retail fund registration

This paper aims to provide a first overview of important implications of payment models for next‐generation mobile service platforms (NextGen MSPs).

The starting point of the paper is an existing set of mobile payment models. These models are modified and expanded on in order to be able to highlight implications for NextGen MSPs.

The paper identifies two different types of payment models for mobile environments: carrier centric models and payment service provider (PSP)‐centric models. Instantiations of both categories are already being applied, although not necessarily always in the mobile environment. Both types come with a number of advantages as well as disadvantages. This paper argues that combining different models or introducing intermediaries yields solutions that satisfy the requirements of NextGen MSPs for offering a compelling value proposition to their users.

This paper is the first to analyse the suitability of existing mobile payment models in the specific context of NextGen MSPs. It also proposes alternative models that provide a better fit with the potential business models for such platforms.

This paper aims to study the critical role played by interorganizational control mechanisms in a mobile ecosystems and how the portfolios of control evolves when the service moves from an initial idea to a solution that reaches market acceptance. Existing literature provides limited insight into (portfolios of) control mechanisms and how (portfolios of) control dynamically evolve(s) during the various stages of service innovation.

Based on the Resource Dependency Theory (RDT), this study makes use of multiple cases to identify and validate the key roles of behavioural input and output control mechanisms and how they evolve during different phases of service development.

Based on multiple cases, it is concluded that a dominant actor uses portfolios of control to acquire complimentary resources, coordinate interdependence between multiple partners and ensure a favourable value distribution for itself. Behavioural control is used in a limited way during the implementation and commercialisation phases, while input control is mostly used during the development phase and output controls are mostly used during implementation and commercialisation phases. The high occurrence of input control in the development phase ensures the lower occurrence of behavioural controls in the implementation phase. This study is very practical in nature, and it provides important insight on how to develop mobile services in collaboration with other organisations.

A limitation of this study is that it is based on two cases in a specific regulatory, cultural and institutional environment, i.e. India, which means that further testing of the propositions, with large-scale samples and within a more international setting, would be required. However, this study does provide some interesting insights that have to be corroborated by additional case studies and a large-scale questionnaire, initially with a focus on India.

From an academic perspective, this study examines organisational controls in a less researched yet dynamic services industry, and is one of the first studies that the researchers have come across that uses RDT to explain the dynamics of control in value networks in the mobile industry. This study is also one of the very few to focus on understanding the objectives of the portfolios of control from the perspective of the structural player. As mentioned earlier, research focussing on integrating governance mechanisms and portfolios of control may provide new insights. From a practical perspective, this study may shed light on how to develop mobile services in collaboration with other organisations.

Cloud Manufacturing (CM) is the manufacturing version of Cloud Computing and aims to increase flexibility in the provision of manufacturing services. On-demand manufacturing services can be requested by users to the cloud and this enables the concept of Manufacturing-as-a-Service (MaaS). Given the considerable number of prototypes and proofs of concept addressed in literature, this work seeks real CM platforms to study them from a business perspective, in order to discover what MaaS concretely means today and how these platforms are operating.

Since the number of real applications of this paradigm is very limited (if the authors exclude prototypes), the research approach is qualitative. The paper presents a multiple-case analysis of 6 different platforms operating in the manufacturing field today. It is based on empirical data and inductively researches differences among them (e.g. stakeholders, operational flows, capabilities offered and scalability level).

MaaS has come true in some contexts, and today it is following two different deployment models: open or closed to the provider side. The open architecture is inspired by a truly open platform which allows any company to be part of the pool of service providers, while the closed architecture is limited to a single service provider of the manufacturing services, as it happens in most cloud computing services.

The research shoots a picture of what MaaS offers today in term of capabilities, what are the deployment models and finally suggests a framework to assess different levels of development of MaaS platforms.

The purpose of this paper is twofold, first: to define the profile of adopters of labor-enhancing technologies (e.g. platforms) identifying factors – such as operations size, mix of fruits grown, apple operation location, principal operators socio-demographics – and second: to estimate the efficiency threshold for platform adoption during apple harvesting to be financially feasible considering future increases in farm labor wages.

The authors conducted a mixed-mode survey in January-February 2010. Data were analyzed using a bivariate probit model, considering that the decision to adopt platforms was related with the orchard planting system. The authors conducted simulation scenarios to estimate the efficiencies – harvest – platforms must achieve in order to be economically feasible.

In total, 11 percent of the 316 apple operations covered by the survey used platforms. Orchard operations most likely to invest in planar structures are relatively large, produce high-value varieties, use organic systems, and have relatively young and educated operators. Similarly, operations producing high-value fruit such as “Honeycrisp” and controlled or patented varieties and relatively large operations are more likely to invest in platforms. The results of the comparison of the cost of harvesting apples using platforms vs ladders under several production assumptions indicate that platforms must increase labor productivity by at least 13 percent in order to be adopted by the industry.

This study caveat is the lack of inclusion of production and marketing uncertainties in the estimation of future apple harvest costs. Further research to deeper analyze these issues is needed.

The authors present information on the profile of mechanization adopters, so extension educators and engineers could concentrate efforts on them to increase adoption levels. In addition the authors provide a threshold of efficiencies for harvest platforms associated with cost savings compared to manual harvest.

Enabling the adoption of mechanization technologies by specialty crop industries would decrease the dependence on labor, decreasing labor uncertainties and facilitating the production of high quality produce to satisfy the needs of consumers. Second, it will end an era of importing poverty, given that the specialty crop industry has long benefited from seasonal migrant workers. It will improve rural American communities to shorten pools of farm workers, giving them access to permanent jobs with higher salaries.

The contribution of this study is to improve understanding of the degree of mechanization, financial feasibility of current existing technologies, and barriers to greater mechanization by the Washington apple industry. Given the similar labor challenges faced, in general, by the US specialty crop agriculture, results could be applicable to the entire industry.

SD is defined as a failure to sense correctly the attitude, motion, and/or position of the aircraft with respect to the surface of the earth (Benson, 2003). The types of SD are generally thought to be “unrecognized” and “recognized” (Previc & Ercoline, 2004). Although a third type has been reported (incapacitating), this type seems irrelevant to UAV operations. Unrecognized SD occurs when the person at the controls is unaware that a change in the motion/attitude of the aircraft has taken place. The cause is often the result of a combination of sub-threshold motion and inattention. This type of SD is known to be the single most serious human factors reason for aircraft accidents today, accounting for roughly 90% of all known SD-related mishaps (Davenport, 2000). Recognized SD occurs when a noticeable conflict is created between the actual motion/attitude of the aircraft and any one of the common physiological sensory mechanisms (e.g., visual, vestibular, auditory, and tactile). Recognized SD is the most common type of SD, accounting for the remaining SD-related accidents.

This chapter examines how darknet drug marketplaces operate within platform capitalism. While capitalist power relations remain underexplored in research on digital drug markets, the analysis shows that the basic foundation of cryptomarkets relies on the infrastructure of platform capitalism. The authors use the concept of platform capitalism to explore cryptomarkets in an ideology-critical way. Platforms are infrastructure for the mediation of buyers and vendors; however, they are designed to extract data on the activities of their users. Platform capitalism refers to the process by which the vast collection of user data feeds into the accumulation of capital. The authors use a dialectical method to examine the constellation of digital drug platforms by disclosing a threefold contradiction: state control and self-regulation; visibility and concealment; and legality and illegality. The analysis reveals that darknet drug platforms make a profit not only from the trade of illicit drugs and the collection of user data, but also based on the illegal status of drugs, the associated ideology, and the closed ecology of darknet platforms. Power relations in cryptomarkets thereby mimic those observed in platform capitalism in general. Finally, the authors discuss the implications of platform capitalism for online drug markets.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an optimal charging strategy for a third-party crowdsourcing platform.

Based on the auction theory, the Stackelberg game theory and the systems theory, this paper presents a new model from the perspective of risk sharing between solution seekers and the crowdsourcing platform, given the utility maximization of the seekers, the crowdsourcing platform and the solvers.

Based on the results, this study shows that the menu of fees, which includes different combinations of a fixed fee and a floating fee schedule, should be designed to attract both solution seekers and solvers. In addition, the related prize setting and the expected payoff for each party are presented.

This study is beneficial for crowdsourcing platform operators, as it provides a new way to design charging strategies and can help in understanding key influential factors.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to simulate the interactions among the three stakeholders, thereby providing a novel model that includes a fixed fee and a floating commission.