Platforms Are the New Organizational Paradigm
GAICIL Insights
Platforms, the report argues, are to today’s economy what the corporation was in the early 1900s, and they face similar opposition.
It warns that limiting “platformization” would impose considerable, long-lasting costs on the nation and consumers. AI is being built and distributed largely through platforms, so the warning applies there too.
Abstract
Just as there was opposition to the corporate economy in the early 1900s, there is opposition to the platform economy today. But limiting “platformization” would have considerable long-lasting economic costs for the nation and consumers.1
Conclusion
Technological innovation often leads to organizational innovation, and organizational innovation often leads to organizational opposition. As new forms of business organizations emerge and become dominant, interest groups and others often resist the change, decrying the new models as fundamentally negative. The reality of economic history is these new business models have been enormously positive. The world would be a vastly poorer place without the rise of the industrial organization, then the multidivisional corporation and now the Internet-based platform. As such, policymakers should be extremely cautious in their efforts to limit this next potential transition.
Dr. Robert D. Atkinson (@RobAtkinsonITIF) is the founder and president of ITIF. His books include Big Is Beautiful: Debunking the Myth of Small Business (MIT, 2018), Innovation Economics: The Race for Global Advantage (Yale, 2012), Supply-Side Follies: Why Conservative Economics Fails, Liberal Economics Falters, and Innovation Economics Is the Answer (Rowman Littlefield, 2007), and The Past and Future of America’s Economy: Long Waves of Innovation That Power Cycles of Growth (Edward Elgar, 2005). Atkinson holds a Ph.D. in city and regional planning from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Takeaway: Limiting “platformization” would have considerable long-lasting economic costs for the nation and consumers.
Conclusion quoted verbatim from the report.
Notes
- Robert D. Atkinson & Aurelien Portuese, Platforms Are the New Organizational Paradigm (Info. Tech. & Innovation Found., Mar. 13, 2023), https://itif.org/publications/2023/03/13/platforms-are-the-new-organizational-paradigm/. Summary quoted verbatim from the ITIF publication page, https://itif.org/publications/2023/03/13/platforms-are-the-new-organizational-paradigm/. ↩
Cite as: Robert D. Atkinson & Aurelien Portuese, Platforms Are the New Organizational Paradigm (Info. Tech. & Innovation Found., Mar. 13, 2023), https://itif.org/publications/2023/03/13/platforms-are-the-new-organizational-paradigm/
Header image: Black smartphone in hand (Unsplash).jpg by Dennis Cortés cortes, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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