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What happens when the processes of crafting and executing strategies become digitalized and how does this process change our current understanding of how actors develop strategy? In this essay, we show that considering the dynamics and social processes related to the digitalization of the strategy making process results in an epistemological shift from digital strategy todigital strategizing. Specifically, when engaging in digital strategizing, we witness new digital practices, a change towards digital practitioners, and a new way of performing practices. In the following, we clarify key differences between digital strategy and digital strategizing and illustrate the advantages and challenges of a sociologically-informed understanding of digital strategizing.

Digital platforms are powerful intermediaries that play an important role in shaping today’s economies and societies. In the eyes of both the public and regulators, the platform economy is defined by dominant companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft (GAFAM) – globally operating tech giants that each operate multiple platforms. These large platform companies are known for building and exploiting large indirect network effects (the more users, the higher the value of the platform for other users). They offer users convenient and now ubiquitous products that have become the infrastructures for the digital economy (such as app stores, search engines, messengers and social networks). Almost all the global platforms were created and are still headquartered in the United States and, more recently, China.o European platforms pursue the same business models as GAFAM, just on a smaller scale? Do European platforms mimic how GAFAM compete?This report is a first attempt to shed light on these questions. Focusing on e-commerce, food delivery, health and care, and social networking, we show that Europe is in fact a plural powerhouse when it comes to creating, delivering and capturing value in these industries. This report presents findings from the research project Platform Alternatives, based at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) and the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), University of Oxford. The project is funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation. The authors acknowledge inputs from Lena Starke.

While seminal work on dynamic capabilities highlights path-dependent trajectories as an important and distinguishing property, recent studies tend to marginalize this feature in favor of an ahistorical and unbound conceptualization. Following the recent “history turn” in strategy and organization research, we examine the essential yet inadequately understood role of path dependence in dynamic capability building and adaptation. Precisely, we demonstrate that dynamic capabilities, as pattern-based, learned, and context-specific entities, are prone to become path-dependent under the effect of self-reinforcing mechanisms. We further show that in the face of discontinuous environmental shifts, path-dependent dynamic capabilities can—paradoxically enough—turn dysfunctional as they perpetuate current, potentially outdated ways through which a firm reconfigures its resource base. Based on this analysis, we identify ad hoc managerial action as the basis for path transformation and path dissolution, as well as path switching and new path creation, which represent complementary ways to deal with path-dependent dynamic capabilities. Our theorizing extends a contingency perspective on dynamic capabilities by shedding light on the limits and potential alternatives of pattern-based adaptation. Version of record

Working conditions on many digital work platforms often contribute to the grand challenge of establishing decent work. While research has examined the public regulation of platform work and worker resistance, little is known about private regulatory models. In this article, we document the development of the “Crowdwork Agreement” forged between platforms and a trade union in the relatively young German crowdworking field. We find that existing templates played an important role in the process of negotiating this new institutional infrastructure, despite the radically new work context. While the platforms drew on the CSR template of voluntary self-regulation via a code of conduct focusing on procedural aspects of decent platform work (i.e., improving work conditions and processes), the union contributed a traditional social partnership template emphasizing accountability, parity and distributive matters. The trade unions approach prevailed in terms of accountability and parity mechanisms, while the platforms were able to uphold the mostly procedural character of their template. This compromise is reflected in many formal and informal interactions, themselves characteristic of a social partnership approach. Our study contributes to research on institutional infrastructures in emerging fields and their role in addressing grand challenges. Accepted version

Es wird zunehmend gesellschaftlich akzeptabel, digitale Plattformen zu verwenden, um das Problem „Zugriff auf Ressourcen“ zu lösen. Diese Akzeptanz lässt sich aus der Perspektive einer technikorientierten Institutionentheorie und ergänzt um Einsichten von Einsichten der technikorientierten Praxistheorie dadurch verständlich machen, dass Plattformen als legitime Grenzobjekte wahrgenommen werden. Dies meint, dass die Praktik, das Problem „Zugriff auf Ressourcen“ auch mittels digitaler Plattformen zu lösen, zunehmend als gesellschaftlich „normal“ angesehen wird und somit keiner Rechtfertigung mehr bedarf.