Stable Matchings for a Generalised Marriage Problem

We show that a simple generalisation of the Deferred Acceptance Procedure with men proposing due to Gale and Shapley (1962) yields outcomes for a generalised marriage problem, which are necessarily stable. We also show that any outcome of this procedure is Weakly Pareto Optimal for Men, i.e. there is no other outcome which all men prefer to an outcome of this procedure. In a final concluding section of this paper, we consider the problem of choosing a set of multi-party contracts, where each coalition of agents has a non-empty finite set of feasible contracts to choose from. We call such problems, generalised contract choice problems. The model we propose is a generalisation of the model due to Shapley and Scarf (1974) called the housing market. We are able to show with the help of a three agent example, that there exists a generalised contract choice problem, which does not admit any stable outcome.Stable outcomes, Matchings, pay-offs, Generalised marriage problem, Contract choice problem

Technology entrepreneurship and value creation on open innovation platforms

This dissertation studies how entrepreneurial firms create economic value from open source technology platforms, interfaces on which firms disclose knowledge and distribute innovation for free without retaining any proprietary rights. Despite their increasing importance in innovation and growing popularity among profit-seeking new ventures, open source platforms present a major challenge for value creation, as they lack price signals to guide ventures’ transactions and forfeit ventures’ control over key resources and knowledge for innovation. Those features are in contrast with the fundamental assumption about price and revenue in economics. They also run counter to the central tenet in strategy research that private knowledge and rare resources are central to competitive advantage and profiting from innovation. To address this puzzle about value creation from free technologies base on free knowledge and resources, this dissertation specifically focus on the economic implications of strategies ventures can leverage within and across open source development communities. Chapter I reviews the literature relevant to entrepreneurship in an open and inter-dependent innovation environment. Exploring research opportunities emerged from the literature review, Chapter II explores the possibility that multihoming, a critical growth strategy of ventures as open source complementors in platform competition, allows ventures to reinforce their existing user base – a prerequisite of value creation from open source. Chapter III directly addresses value creation by investigating how collaborating with external contributors, another critical open source strategy, influences venture capital investment. Both essays highlight how platform network effects unfold without price signals and proprietary rights of the technologies in shaping the outcome for ventures’ strategies. They also emphasize those strategies’ demand side implications on users, participants on another side of open source platforms. The empirical analyses of this dissertation are based on multiple open source technologies platforms, with data obtained from on GitHub, the worlds’ largest open source software storage provider, containing 5 Terabytes of information on 2.1 million ventures, 96 million technologies and over 2 billion development activities, under research designs for deriving causal references. Overall, the dissertation seeks to advance the understanding of value creation in entrepreneurship through open source platforms, an increasingly important phenomenon in contemporary economy.Managemen

Value creation in electric vehicle charging networks

Electric vehicles (EV) are gaining a prominent share of the trillion-dollar automotive market. The growth is fueled by falling battery prices, tightening emission standards, government subsidies and increasing competition. The rise of EV’s creates a need for, and also depends on, charging infrastructure on a large scale. Electric vehicle charging networks are services that are used to manage and enable access to charging points. This study aims to understand how these networks can succeed in the tightening competition by examining what factors contribute to the value of an EV charging network for its participants. To reach this goal an explanatory single case study was conducted. The case examined a public EV charging network in Finland. First, earlier research in platform economics and EV charging were used to understand the context and to synthesize a theoretical framework. Next, empirical data was collected primarily with semi-structured interviews. Finally, pattern matching was used to analyze the data. Based on the results, the EV charging industry is still its infancy. EV charging networks mediate transactions between EV drivers and charging point owners (CPO), enabling exchange of information, control of charging points, and payments. Various signals suggest an expansion towards the energy system, as EV charging networks are likely to start aggregating and mediating vehicle-to-grid (V2G) services between EV drivers and energy market agents. The results suggest two focus areas as key factors creating value for participants. Firstly, the main contributor to the success of an EV charging network is the amount of charging points connected to it. This is mainly due to EV drivers’ strong positive cross-side network effects and to CPOs’ strong positive same-side network effects. Secondly, an EV charging network’s boundary resources should be designed to maximize efficiency for both sides. For EV drivers, charging is a mundane task that needs to be as effortless as possible. For CPO’s, offering charging is not a main business, but a relatively small value-added service. This study serves as a starting point for a new research stream, converging EV charging with platform economics research. In addition, the results help researchers in understanding the state of the industry and network operators in making strategic decisions