Abstract
Digital platforms are data-driven firms that mediate transactions online. Effectively, platform markets are monopolies driven by network effects and “winner-take-all” outcomes. Only a few countries, such as China and the United States, have developed large numbers of competitive national firms. How can local platforms emerge and mature outside major economies and successfully compete with global competitors? This dissertation examines the case of Russia, one of the few national internet segments that has produced domestically competitive platforms in key functions, such as search, social media networking, and e-commerce. Drawing upon archival research, interviews, company reports, and case studies of Russian platforms (Yandex, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, and Ozon), this qualitative study explores Russia’s success in breeding advanced platforms and demonstrates that firms’ strategies for creating and leveraging network effects may stem from a social, economic, and political context. Overall, studying Russian platforms contributes to the emerging studies on platform capitalism and its country-specific variations.
List of papers
Paper 1. National Markets in a World of Global Platform Giants: The Persistence of Russian Domestic Competitors (co-authored with Martin Kenney). A revised version of this paper is published in Policy & Internet, 15 (3), 327-350. doi: 10.1002/poi3.341. The paper is included in the thesis. Also available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.341 |
Paper 2. Defending the Motherland: How Russia’s Yandex Competes with Google. To be published. The paper is not available in DUO awaiting publishing. |
Paper 3. Protecting Domestic Platform Economy: How Russia Mitigated Dependence on Western Platforms. To be published. The paper is not available in DUO awaiting publishing. |