• Speaker: Annabelle Gawer, University of Surrey, UK
• Moderator: Hannes Werthner, TU Wien, Austria

About the Event

December 2, 2025
5:00 – 6:00 PM
(17:00) CEST

We are looking forward to seeing you:

Participate via Zoom (Password: 0dzqxqiy).
The talk will also be live-streamed and recorded on the DIGHUM YouTube Channel.

Abstract

In this talk, Professor Annabelle Gawer will discuss digital power. In particular, she will discuss the main implications of the rise of digital platforms and ecosystems on competition, innovation, and power. She develops the argument that digital platform firms and their ecosystems are the emblematic organizational form of the digital age, because they tap into the new ways in which value can be created and captured thanks to pervasive connectivity, the availability of processing power, and globalized digital innovation. The paradox of digital platforms in their current organizational form is that while distributed patterns of value creation characterize the circumstances that allowed them to emerge, the business models they have adopted have led to a centralised modality of value capture.

This has given rise to salient instances of digital platform firms’ abuse of economic power over their ecosystem members and to widespread concerns on digital platforms firms’ abuse of power on other dimensions, including privacy and labour relations. Platforms have therefore become the private governors of vast ecosystems that span over multiple sectors. But the influence of platforms are not limited to economic power. They also exert influence on other spheres of social life, as for example the power to influence opinions, to shape what’s considered important, and to mobilise individuals and collectives. In that way, digital platforms and their ecosystems have also become new institutions of the digital age, in that they shape values, beliefs, and instantiate a distinct institutional logic.

References

Cusumano, M. A., Gawer, A., & Yoffie, D. B. (2019). The Business of Platforms: Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power. New York: Harper Business.

Gawer, A. (2021). Digital platforms and ecosystems: remarks on the dominant organizational forms of the digital age. Innovation: Organization & Management, 24(1), 110–124. https://doi.org/10.1080/14479338.2021.1965888

Gawer, A., & Harracá, M. (2025). Inconsistent platform governance and social contagion of misconduct in digital ecosystems: A complementors perspective. Research Policy 54.8 105300. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2025.105300

Gawer, A., & Phillips, N. (2013). Institutional Work as Logics Shift: The Case of Intel’s Transformation to Platform Leader. Organization Studies, 34(8), 1035-1071. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840613492071

Harracá, M., Castelló, I. & Gawer, A. (2023). How digital platforms organize immaturity: A sociosymbolic framework of platform power. Business Ethics Quarterly, 33(3), 440-472. https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/3BAAA4AA6E0D8960DB08ED339C6F1500/S1052150X22000409a.pdf/div-class-title-how-digital-platforms-organize-immaturity-a-sociosymbolic-framework-of-platform-power-div.pdf

Slides

Slides will be available for download after the lecture.

Video

Recording will be available after the lecture.