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This paper seeks to contribute to the debate about the regulation of termination rates in the context of Africa.

The methodology is based on analysis of secondary data and a case study of a regulatory intervention in Namibia and its impact.

Mobile call termination is a monopoly and not one side of a two‐sided market. Cost‐based termination rates increase competition between operators and lead to lower prices, more subscribers and more investment.

The case of Namibia is presented as an example of termination rate benchmarking as an alternative regulatory strategy to overcome regulatory and institutional bottlenecks in Africa.

African regulators are presented with a tool for removing market distortions.

Cost based termination rates will lead to lower retail prices and allow more people to use mobile phones.

The paper presents theoretical and empirical evidence against the waterbed effect and the two‐sided market argument.

Digital disruption offers an innovative opportunity to address housing affordability issues through the use of market design theory and two-sided matching markets. The purpose of this paper is to scope a model for how “uberisation” can revolutionise the traditional apartment delivery model in Australia, leading to improved housing affordability.

This paper uses semi-structured interviews with operators of online real estate platforms and deliberative developers to examine how the principles of “uberisation”, that is two-sided matching markets, are driving innovation in the apartment supply process.

Findings confirm that real estate internet platforms and deliberative developers innovators are informed by the benefits of aggregating demand to reduce development risk, thus enabling apartments to be provided at a substantially lower price than by traditional methods.

The number of interviews is small reflecting the limited number of market actors currently engaged in the innovations investigated.

This research is innovative as it introduces theoretical understandings gained from market design theory and applies those concepts to disrupt the apartment development process.

This paper is concerned with the current decision of the European Commission regarding Google’s comparison shopping service (Google Shopping). In 2017, the Commission has fined Google €2.42 billion for abusing its dominant position as a search engine by giving illegal advantage to Google Shopping. Consequently, Google has to stop its illegal conduct. In particular, the decision requires Google to treat rival comparison shopping services and its own service equally. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the decision from a perspective of two-sided markets. Google Shopping is an integrated service of Google Search and acts as an intermediary between companies, offerings products in the internet and people searching for products in the internet. This complies with the typical conditions of a two-sided market. From the perspective of sellers of goods and services in Europe, Google may be seen as a gatekeeper to the potential customers and thus as an essential facility. In the light of the current decision, this paper provides a possible regulation alternative. It is shown that Google Shopping represents a typical club good, so that welfare-optimising rules must be adhered to. In this context, it should be noted that in the current Google Shopping search results, artificial rivalry is created among sellers so as to ensure maximum willingness to pay for a top listing. The solution proposed in this paper entails a summary score list of all sellers of a particular product, for which a turnover-dependent contribution should be required, instead of a reduced score list, where positions are sold by auctions.

This paper uses methods of two-sided markets and public good theory.

It is shown that Google Shopping represents a typical club good, so that welfare-optimising rules must be adhered to. In this context, it should be noted that in the current Google Shopping search results, artificial rivalry is created among sellers so as to ensure maximum willingness to pay for a top listing. The solution proposed in this paper entails a summary score list of all sellers of a particular product, for which a turnover-dependent contribution should be required, instead of a reduced score list, where positions are sold by auctions.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, it is the very first paper about the decision of the European Union (06/2017) concerning Google Shopping.

From the perspective of two-sided review systems, this study aims to investigate how guests’ prior reputation influences their subsequent satisfaction on Airbnb.

This study applied a conceptual framework based on social capital theory to explain the effect of guests’ reputation decided by hosts’ prior evaluations on their subsequent satisfaction. The authors collected 96,204 guest reviews posted for 17,325 properties on Airbnb and used the review polarity to measure guest satisfaction. All historical evaluations generated by hosts for each guest were collected and treated as a proxy of guest reputation. Ordinary least squares regressions were conducted to estimate the effect of guests’ reputation on their subsequent satisfaction.

Results show that guests whose historical evaluations have higher valences or larger variations tend to be more satisfied in their subsequent bookings. However, the number of reviews that guests received from hosts in the past does not influence their subsequent satisfaction.

This study provides new insights into the hospitality literature by identifying the influencing factors of guest satisfaction on peer-to-peer rental platforms from the perspective of two-sided review systems. Results also present practical implications to property owners and website designers to gain a deeper understanding of the determinants of guest satisfaction and the consequences of social interactions between hosts and guests.

This study is a novel attempt that analyzes the effect of guests’ reputation on their satisfaction with subsequent bookings based on two-sided review systems on peer-to-peer rental platforms. Thus, this study provides a starting point for investigating how two-sided review systems affect use behavior on peer-to-peer rental platforms.

The attempt to establish a common European framework for core platforms' duties and responsibilities toward other actors in the digital environment is at the core of the recent scholarly debate surrounding the Digital Markets Act (DMA) proposal. In particular, the everlasting juxtaposition between the “data power” – as emerging from recent cases (Section 2) – that dominant tech companies enjoy and the concept of consumer sovereignty (Section 3) lies at the core of the proposal's attempt to identify digital core platforms as market gatekeepers. Accordingly, this chapter critically investigates the divide between power imbalance and consumer sovereignty in light of the architecture designed by the DMA, with a specific focus on its effectiveness in identifying gatekeepers' power drivers (Section 4). After highlighting the main critical aspects of the pertinent rules, opportunities for fruitful developments are then identified through the reframing of some of the notions considered in the proposal, and namely the role of “lock-in” effects and “data accumulation” (Section 5). Lastly, this chapter suggests that the DMA advancements – while desirable – are bound to be fragmentary in the absence of a wider appraisal of the nature of data power imbalance dynamics in the modern digital markets (Section 6).

The pervasive spread of digital technologies brought an incredible boost in data availability. Companies are dealing with massive amount of data that wait to be exploited. At the same time, scholars are providing different strategies and methods to help companies capture the value embedded in their data to foster innovation and improve the efficiency of existing processes. In these research studies, data are the by-product of something else, and they are a silent asset that needs to be exploited. What if data might be considered the final goal? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The research is based on an exploratory multiple case study analysis, on the basis of three cases used as an illustration for new ideas. In particular, the gathered data are analyzed according to models previously presented in the literature review, building on and expanding them.

The research proposes a data-driven approach to innovation, offering a peculiar view of the innovation process. The trigger point is the need of data that let begin the entire development process of a complex system. In this perspective, the application that data are a by-product of the entire innovation process and not the primary output is peculiar since the vast majority of the literature consider data as the by-product of the primary product.

Future research is needed to assess the replicability of the model outside the mobile app industry and to measure its performances. Nevertheless, this paper provides insights both for scholars and managers, enlarging the discussion on digital innovation and digital business models.

The results provide a development process to foster innovation relying on the need of data as the trigger point, guiding entrepreneurs and managers in the building process of the entire digital system.

Previous research studies often considered Big Data (BD) in innovation as a way to enlarge the current product offer or to make the innovation process more effective or efficient; this paper changes the perspective by considering BD as the trigger and the enabler of the entire digital innovation process.

There are only a limited number of empirical analyses on the impacts of MTRs. According to the data from 2006-2011 by the European Regulators Group (ERG), many countries have continuously reduced their MTRs. This paper therefore aims to enrich the empirical analysis of the impacts of MTRs according to EC policy on retail prices.

This paper applies the one-step generalised method of moments (GMM) approach to dynamic panel data.

The results support the hypothesis that lower MTRs will reduce consumer retail prices, which is consistent with the EC framework. It is therefore recommended that regulators in the calling party network pays (CPNP) regime reduce MTRs to at least the same level as the operators' cost to raise overall social welfare, especially consumer welfare. However, the approach by each country can differ depending on its situation.

This study supports the idea that it is appropriate for the EC to regulate MTRs by reducing the rates to at least the same level as the efficient operators' cost, and other regulators with a calling party network pays regime from other regions could also follow this strategy.

In recent years, the freemium model is popular with online users in internet markets. Regarding operation, the characteristics of the freemium business model are the focus of all websites and software managers. However, research lacks the literature on the development of the dimensions of the freemium business model and validation of measurement. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to probe into the development of the dimensions of the freemium business model and validate the measurement.

First, by related literature and practical observations, this study reorganizes the characteristics of the freemium business model and develops dimensions and items of the freemium business model to design the items of scale. The development of scale is based on the procedures of standardized testing, including draft, expert consultation, and pretest and test analysis, in order to test the reliability and validity of the scale. This study treated online users as the questionnaire subjects and analyzed 1,016 valid questionnaires.

Regarding empirical analysis, confirmatory factor analysis is conducted to test the internal quality of the model, including composite reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. According to the empirical result, the freemium business model can be divided into basic free tier, two-sided markets, revenue sharing, service convenience, and network effect, which are the key factors of users’ selection of freemium products or services. This study developed 25 items of scale for the freemium business model.

Finally, this study plans to develop a scale of the freemium business model, which can serve as an appropriate measurement tool to measure the freemium business model, as well as help websites and software developers to plan or execute the introduction of freemium products and services. Hence, it can develop and design products and services meeting the needs of online consumers. Website and software managers can adjust their products and services to satisfy online users’ needs.

The purpose of the studies was to test if extent of prior social media activity could predict likelihood that a consumer would post reviews on a new review website.

Two online surveys were conducted presenting scenarios in which users were asked about prior social media activity, the number of social networks they belonged to in study one, and how actively they had posted reviews in study two. These questions were followed by descriptions of new review websites, a general local merchant review website in study one and a local restaurant review website in study two.

Although demographics did a poor job of predicting who would post reviews on the new review websites, prior active social media use and review posting did modestly predict intention to post reviews on the new review websites.

This is not an experimental study and so causality cannot be claimed. Descriptively, although the results were consistent in two studies using different stimuli, other factors might prove to be better predictors of active user‐generated content for other types of sites.

The findings suggest a simple and effective way for two‐sided platform managers to identify potential active reviewers so that they can target them through marketing strategies to encourage their essential participation and less‐active users can be similarly targeted to encourage modest use.

No other studies can be found that focus on this aspect of managing two‐sided platforms. The results might be important for managers of other similar websites that depend on user‐generated content for their value.