Publication database

We consider a setting where online advertisers seek to acquire impressions from an advertising exchange through a multi-tier network of intermediaries, and study the mechanisms offered by the ad exchange and intermediaries when the advertisers’ values are private. As opposed to traditional manufacturer/retailer settings, intermediaries in display advertising auction off contingent goods which they only purchase when downstream buyers have signaled interest. Thus motivated, we determine how intermediaries should bid on behalf of their customers in the mechanism of an upstream intermediary and study how the structure of the intermediation network affects the profits of its participants. We provide a game theoretic model to study the mechanisms offered by the ad exchange and intermediaries within a practically relevant class of mechanisms. We characterize a subgame perfect equilibrium of the game among intermediaries and the seller, and show that the equilibrium mechanisms have a simple and appealing structure: intermediaries bid the virtual value associated with the maximum downstream report in the upstream intermediary’s mechanism, whenever this quantity is positive. We show that economic incentives are not necessarily aligned along the network and the position in the intermediation network has a significant impact on the profits of the intermediaries. Besides, we analyze the impact of different network structures on the seller’s revenue and investigate whether intermediaries have an incentive to merge horizontally or vertically.

Copyright © 2020, INFORMS

Research Summary
Whereas prior innovation and strategy literature studied how attentional and search dynamics influence the creation of inventions, we examine how these same processes affect the impact of inventions after their creation. We theorize that inventions classified in “high‐contrast” technological categories garner more attention by potential users and, hence, accrue more citations than otherwise‐equivalent inventions classified in “low‐contrast” categories. We test this hypothesis via three studies. First, we estimate citation‐count models among all USPTO patents granted between 1975 and 2010. Second, we conduct a “twin patents” test comparing inventions patented both at the USPTO and at the EPO. Third, we examine minute‐by‐minute search logs from a sample of USPTO examiners. These studies support our hypothesis and extend current understandings of attentional and search dynamics in the innovation process.

Managerial Summary
Patents that receive more citations tend to have greater economic value and greater impact on future technological developments. We show that the number of citations a patent receives does not only depend on its inherent technological value, but also on seemingly neutral classification decisions affecting the likelihood that it will be noticed by potential future users. We test our arguments via three related studies. Our results demonstrate that inventions classified in “high‐contrast” technology classes garner considerably more attention – and hence citations – than twin‐inventions classified in “low‐contrast” classes. The key managerial implication is that, whenever feasible, nudging an invention towards higher‐contrast classes will increase its future worth. The key policy implication is that maximizing categorical contrast across technology classes will help users identify relevant prior patents.

© 2021 Strategic Management Society

This paper sheds fresh light on our 2010 paper How Open Is Innovation by taking into consideration notable developments in innovation over the last decade. The original paper developed four types of openness: sourcing, acquiring, selling, and revealing. Reflecting on important technological, organizational, and societal changes in the past decade, we highlight how these changes prompt novel questions for open innovation. While the core features of the original framework still stands, there are many new questions that have emerged in recent years. We end by chartering a path for future research that emphasizes opportunities, costs and tradeoffs between different modes of open innovation, the need to better understand the nature of data, new organizational designs and legal instruments, and multilevel aspects and relationships that affect the extent and nature of openness.

With permission of Elsevier

Since its foundation 30 years ago, the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) has developed into an internationally and nationally recognized center of competence for IT security. With a steady increase in tasks, the discussion about the governance of the office has become stronger - many voices are calling for greater independence of the BSI. The article examines the reasons for and options for greater independence of the agency. As a result, it argues for a further development of the agency's governance that represents a balance between independence and political responsibility.

[Seit seiner Gründung vor 30 Jahren hat sich das BSI zu einem international und national anerkannten Kompetenzträger für IT-Sicherheit entwickelt. Mit stetigem Aufgabenzuwachs ist die Diskussion über die Steuerung des Amtes stärker geworden – viele Stimmen fordern eine größere Unabhängigkeit des BSI.]

The article survey the current situation concerning the operative cybersecurity cooperation of public and private-sector entities in Germany and compares it with solutions implemented in the United States, Israel, and the United Kingdom. Subsequent to the analysis, the establishment of trust between the different involved actors is identified as the principal challenge for efficient cooperation in this subject area.

[Der vorliegende Artikel stellt die bisherige Situation der operativen Zusammenarbeit zwischen Staat und Wirtschaft in der Cybersicherheit in Deutschland dar und vergleicht sie mit den Lösungen, die in den USA, Israel und Großbritannien für das gleichlautende Problem gefunden worden sind. Im Anschluss wird die Herstellung von Vertrauen zwischen den beteiligten Akteuren als größte Herausforderung für eine effiziente Zusammenarbeit näher beleuchtet.]

This article presents a novel way to conceptualize the protection of data in situations of armed conflict. Although the question of the targeting of data through adversarial military cyber operations and its implications for the qualification of such conduct under International Humanitarian Law has been on scholars’ and states’ radar for the last few years, there remain a number of misunderstandings as to how to think about the notion of “data.” Based on a number of fictional scenarios, the article clarifies the pertinent terminology and makes some expedient distinctions between various types of data. It then analyzes how existing international humanitarian and international human rights law applies to cyber operations whose effects have an impact on data. The authors argue that given the persisting ambiguities of traditional concepts such as “object” and “attack” under international humanitarian law, the targeting of content data continues to fall into a legal grey zone, which potentially has wide-ranging ramifications both for the rights of individual civilians and the functioning of civilian societies during situations of conflict. At the same time, much legal uncertainty surrounds the application of human rights law to these contexts, and existing data protection frameworks explicitly exclude taking effect in relation to issues of security. Acknowledging these gaps, the article attempts to advance the debate by proposing a paradigm shift: Instead of taking existing rules on armed conflict and applying them to “data,” we should contemplate applying the principles of data protection, data security, and privacy frameworks to military cyber operations in armed conflict.

Multi-sided platform markets have tendency to “tip”, that is, one MSP takes it all or dominates the market by far. Due to dynamics of these markets it is however challenging to identify which markets will tip and the characteristics of tipping candidates ex-ante (before tipping). The European Commission has expressed the need for a new competition tool to identify and assess the likelihood of tipping. Based on a review of factors that foster and mitigate tipping we propose four key questions that may help in ranking multi-sided platform markets by the likelihood of tipping. Tipping is less likely if there are factors that 1) diminish the value of a growing multi-sided platform, 2) ease smaller rivals’ user acquisition, 3) make smaller rivals attractive to at least some users, and 4) make none of the established platforms stronger via activities in another market.

In this short paper, we discuss the impact of data analytics in services and delineate future research directions for the field. After illustrating how data analytics are transforming different service sectors, we consider the provision of data analysis as a service in its own right. We discuss how the very nature of data and certain features of the machine learning method give rise to new issues and pitfalls for the management of these services, which delineates as many future research directions. We also discuss the co-production of services by humans and machines, and call for more research on responsible data analytics services to tackle some of the most pressing ethical issues in our societies.

Copyright © 2020, INFORMS

Crowdsourcing—asking an undefined group of external contributors to work on tasks—allows organizations to tap into the expertise of people around the world. Crowdsourcing is known to increase innovation and loyalty to brands, but many organizations struggle to leverage its potential, as our research shows. Most often this is because organizations fail to properly plan for all the different stages of crowd engagement. In this paper, we use several examples to explain these challenges and offer advice for how organizations can overcome them.

GitLab is a software company that works “all remote” at the scale of more than 1000 employees located in more than 60 countries. GitLab has no physical office and its employees can work from anywhere they choose. Any step of the organizational life of a GitLab employee (e.g., hiring, onboarding and firing) is performed remotely, except for a yearly companywide gathering. GitLab strongly relies on asynchronous coordination, allowing employees to work anytime they want. After highlighting some of the main practices implemented by GitLab to effectively work all remotely and asynchronously, I asked renowned organizational scientists their thoughts on this interesting case and to question the generalizability of the all remote asynchronous model. Understanding whether and under what conditions this model can succeed can be of guidance for organizational designers that are now considering different remote models in response of the COVID-19 shock and its aftermath.