Tobias Kretschmer: Platforms as Organizational Forms

The CAS Research Group "Platforms as Organizational Forms" is led by Professor Dr. Tobias Kretschmer (Institute for Strategy, Technology and Organization, LMU).

This CAS Research Group focuses on the growing role and the principles of so-called multisided platforms in today’s economy. A platform connects two sides, e.g. a buyer and a seller of a good or service, e.g. marketplaces, ride-sharing platforms, mobile operating systems and many more. Importantly, the sides usually make decisions independent from the platform owner, yet they share a common goal; the viability of the so-called platform ecosystem including platform, complements and buyers.
As organizations are defined as "multi-agent entities with identifiable boundaries working towards a common goal", thinking of platforms in the common dimensions of firm (e.g. the platform owner as a separate entity) or market (e.g. the complementors making independent decisions to join the platform) may not capture the character of platforms adequately. Rather, thinking of platform ecosystems as a meta-organization, or "organization of organizations" may be more appropriate.

The CAS Research Group will therefore consider platforms as a set of solutions to four fundamental problems of organization: task division, task allocation, incentive provision and information provision to bring together research on platform markets and organization design.