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Given the increasing importance of international higher education (HE) markets from a business perspective (Chadee and Naidoo, 2009; Anonymous, 2011a, 2012a), this research responds to the review of Hemsley-Brown and Oplatka (2006) that highlighted a lack of holistic approaches and theoretical models to address the nature of the HE service; and built on scholarly work (Mazzarol and Hosie, 1996; Mazzarol, 1998; Naude and Ivy, 1999; Ivy and Naude, 2004; Ivy, 2008) relating to HE marketing strategies. The research moves from the traditional marketing approach adopted predominantly in the existing literature of HE marketing (i.e. Mazzarol et al., 2003; Hemsley-Brown and Oplatka, 2006) and instead adopts a relational approach. This offers an alternative way of investigating the HE service, and contributes towards a broader theoretical perspective on HE strategy and a deeper understanding of the complex nature of the HE service. The theoretical background of this research was based on both the Interaction Approach (Håkansson ed., 1982) and the Relationship Life-Cycle Model (Ford, 1980; Wilkinson and Young, 1994). In response to limited existing research on the students’ perspective in HE (Trowler, 2010), this study provides a means of exploring HE marketing from the perspective of a markets-as-networks tradition (Håkansson and Snehota, 1995; Ford et al., 2002). Due to the adoption of a social constructivist epistemological stance (Gergen, 1985; Tashakkori and Teddlie, 1998), a case studies research approach (Yin, 2003, 2011) and semi-structured interviews (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994; Miles and Huberman, 1994) were utilised. Template analysis was chosen for data examination and interpretation (King, 1998, 2004), from a longitudinal contextual time-space of prospective students, current students and future alumni viewpoints (Halinen and Törnroos, 2005). The research findings suggest that the HE service is interactive and relational by nature, comprising six key relationships that are fundamentally important from the perspective of students being the focal-actor. These include relationships with alumni, other students, academic staff, administrative staff, multi-national companies (MNCs), and overseas exchange partner higher education institutions (HEIs). Despite the multiple roles of students, as clients (Mills et al., 1983; Hill, 1995), producers (Armstrong, 1995), products (Emery, et al., 2001; Modell, 2005) and customers (Kotler and Fox, 1985; Conway et al., 1994) of the HEIs, students are the users of these networks. They are also the beneficiaries of these key relationships, as they perceive and seek the added-value of the HE service, such as knowledge enrichment and employability enhancement. The synergy of these relationships and networks collectively contribute to the added-value of the HE service, enhance students’ overall positive experience and satisfaction with their institutions, and also have the potential to significantly impact on the HEIs’ competencies and business strategies. Practically, managing and influencing these relationships provide an opportunity for HE managers in resource allocation, strategic planning and policy-making, and the quality of service provision at the operational level.

The standard competition of system proucts has been an important issue from 1950s till today, such as the competitiom of Wireless Lan security protocol WAPI¡BDVD palyer standard and the competiton of TD-SCDMA of 3G system in telecommunication industry. The situation is becoming more and more complicated because of more integration of information and technological products.Recent years, Mainland China as a developing nation try to develop a new standard strategy model and to make the industrial standards belong to China. This paper discovers the major key factors that affect the abilities to join the standard competiton of developing countries. This paper discusses major standard competition related papers and find out five key factors that affect the abilities to join the standard competiton of developing countries: Technological Innovation abilities, entry timing, complementary products network, products installed base and government supporting. Use these five factors to analyze four important China cases od standard competiton.

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Master of Arts / Department of Economics / Tracy M. Turner / This paper attempts to shed some light on the issue of net neutrality by examining the extent to which Internet usage is efficiently allocated under current conditions. I discuss the unique features of Internet usage which make it a good that markets will tend to provide at an inefficient level. I then discuss alternative pricing regimes that will move the market for Internet usage to efficiency. I conclude with a discussion of the current economic research on the topic.

With increasing computational power and more elaborate software comes greater opportunities to complement traditional research methods with alternative methods. In this paper we argue for why the area of two-sided markets could benefit from this alternative approach and attempt to implement a theoretical model in an agent-based framework. By first replicating the theoretical findings in this framework we expand the model in increments in different directions through introducing different set of heterogeneity and behavioral limitations on our actors to see how the theoretical model develops. Only changing the model in increments found the analytical outcome to be robust for many of our changes, in this regard we have not managed to successfully take advantage of the full potential of the agent-based framework.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of how multisided platforms (MSP) could retain different user groups on their platform. To fulfill the purpose, the following research questions (RQ) were derived: RQ 1: How could MSPs design their activities to retain users on the producer side(s)? and RQ 2: How could MSPs design their activities to retain users on the consumer side(s)? Method – This study was conducted as an abductive single case study based on a multisided platform developed within the health sector. In addition, complimentary interviews were conducted to validate and expand the result from the case study. In total, 15 interviews were conducted and analyzed through thematic analysis. Findings – The findings are presented in a framework showing what activities to conduct in certain stages of platform development and is divided between two distinct platform sides, producers and consumers. The different stages are relative to critical mass i.e. how many users the MSP has and shows which activities that is necessary in these stages. Theoretical implication and Practical implication – The study suggests activities necessary for retaining users on MSPs seen to certain stages of development. Additional contributions are (1) in the beginning, MSPs should initially focus on the platform side who provides the most viable product, (2) mass in users is a prerequisite for finding the right matches, and (3) “super-platforms” with many value offerings will be key for retaining users and long-term success. The practical implications are (1) which activities that are necessary on a certain side of the MSP, (2) guiding managers with which activities that are suitable in a certain stage of platform development, and (3) provide managers with the ability to plan future activities. Limitations and Future Research – This study is conducted in South-east Asia which implies that a similar study should be conducted in a western context. Furthermore, it is limited to a single-case study of an MSP, although there were exploratory and confirmative interviews with other companies. Future research should therefore include a multiple-case study to compare how different MSPs work with retention. Lastly, further studies into what critical mass is and how to estimate that, should be considered.

Recently, we observed many networked market are served almost by a single platform, and can called that situation be winner-take-all. We could observed that the top website occupy huge market, and still be the top for long time. Conversely, the other website only shares the tiny market. This paper chooses the biggest Taiwan portal Yahoo!Kimo to be the research case. In addition, the case object is its e-commerce department, which is the Yahoo! only e-commerce department worldwide. Through this case, we could find out the truth of winner-take-all. In this research, we use in-depth interview and combine with secondary data. According to past researches and the situation of Yahoo!Kimo, we address the research question as follow: (1) How does Yahoo!Kimo develop their e-store platforms to maintain their e-commerce leading position in Taiwan. (2) Is there a winner-take-all phenomenon on Yahoo!Kimo? After generalize the data, we found that although Yahoo! first time enters Taiwan not successful. Their strategy is merge different kinds website, such as the leading portal Kimo, the most visiting blog Wretch, and Monday.Tech. They got their human resource and technology sooner, then become the top one portal in Taiwan provides variety services for users. For foreign website and companies enter a new market will be a good role model. Moreover, we prove Yahoo!Kimo is role model of winner-take-all.

This dissertation contains three chapters. Each applies the tools of applied microeconomics to questions in labor economics, the economics of education, and social economics, respectively. In the first chapter, which is joint work with Amanda Pallais, we present the results of a series of field experiments in an online labor market designed to test whether workers referred to a firm by existing employees perform differently from their non-referred counterparts and, if so, why. We find that referred workers have higher performance and lower turnover than non-referred workers. We demonstrate a large role for selection: referred workers perform better and persist longer even at jobs to which they are not referred at a firm where their referrers do not work. Team production is also important: referred workers are much more productive when working with their own referrer than with someone else's referrer. / Economics

Recent advances in social media have profound technical and economic implications for innovative design. This research is motivated to investigate social network effects on product design with a focus on the interface of engineering design, viral marketing, and social computing. This dissertation envisions a new paradigm of design, called viral product design for social network effects. The research problem is formulated as identification of both an optimal set of product configurations and an optimal set of seed customers so as to maximize product adoption via online social networks through equilibrium solutions to marketing-engineering coordination. Fundamental issues are investigated and a technical framework is proposed with integrated decision-based design methods. Results of case studies demonstrate that the proposed research is able to bridge the gaps between the domains of engineering design and viral marketing by incorporating social network effects. The proposed work is geared towards new design theory and decision models by integrating peer influence of social networks, which shed light on understanding the social aspect of design. The dissertation reveals the fundamental issues underlying viral product design, including the identification of viral attributes, customer preference modeling incorporating subjective experiences, the dynamics of the diffusion mechanism of online social networks, formulation of adoption maximization, and coordination between the marketing and engineering domains. In order to tackle the fundamental issues, a technical framework of viral product design for social network effects is proposed. Accordingly, mathematical and computational models are developed within the framework to support 1) latent customer needs elicitation for viral product attributes extraction, 2) customer preference modeling and quantification for product choice decision making, 3) social network modeling for product adoption prediction, and 4) viral product design evaluation by adoption maximization. These coherent models along the technical framework lay the theoretical foundation of this research, as described below. First, in order to extract potential viral product attributes, latent customer needs elicitation is emphasized. This is because latent customer needs can delight customers unexpectedly, and thus lead to potential product adoption to a large extent. We propose to elicit latent customer needs by use case analogical reasoning from sentiment analysis of online product reviews. A case study of Kindle Fire HD tablets shows the potential and feasibility of the proposed method. The extracted product attributes and attribute levels provide the choice set of viral product attributes. Second, based on the extracted product attributes, a customer preference model based on cumulative prospect theory is presented, accommodating subjective experiences in the product choice decision making process. Moreover, a hierarchical Bayesian model with Markov chain Monte Carlo is used to estimate parameters involved in the model. Based on the case study of aircraft cabin interior design, the model parameters under different experimental conditions show systematic influence of subjective experiences in choice decision making. Furthermore, a copula structure is used to construct a holistic product utility, showing customers' overall preferences to a product. This measure is crucial to product choice decision making in the context of social networks. Third, in order to predict product adoption incorporating peer influence of social networks, a linear threshold-hurdle model is proposed. It overcomes multiple drawbacks of traditional diffusion models by modeling activation thresholds, influence probability, adoption spread, holistic utility of the product, and hurdle utility of a customer in a holistic fashion. A case study of Kindle Fire HD tablets demonstrates both the predictive power of the proposed model and interesting results about customers' adoption behavior. This model paves the way for product adoption maximization in large social networks. Fourth, in order to coordinate between marketing-engineering concerns, I formulate a bi-level game theoretic optimization model for viral product design evaluation, in which the leader maximizes product adoption, while the follower optimizes product line performance. Through social network effects in terms of viral product attributes and viral influence attributes, the expected number of product adopters and the expected shared surplus, resulting from the identified product configurations and seed customers, are proved to be larger than those obtained from existing practice of viral marketing and product line design respectively, based on the case study of Kindle Fire HD tablets. Thus, the proposed paradigm of design extends the traditional boundaries among domains of engineering design, viral marketing, and social computing.