The platform business model and business ecosystem: quality management and revenue structures*

A platform is a two-sided market. It is an environment established to allow multiple groups such as suppliers and consumers to exchange their views for fair transactions. Platforms evolve through the connection and interaction of participants, and act as ecosystems of coexistence that can provide values and benefits to all participants. Care must be taken in building such a business ecosystem to successfully stabilize the platform model. This research indicates how a business ecosystem can be constructed by analysing quality management and revenue structures – core elements in any platform business model with a distinct group of users on either side. Through 12 case studies using 30 in-depth interviews and 2 focus group interviews, this research suggests the conceptual framework, ‘12 different types of quality management and revenue structure strategies’. These will serve as the conceptual framework from which to build platform business model ecosystems.     

Mirages and miracles of European small and medium enterprise development

A small‐scale industry ‘renaissance’ has characterized recent academic literature on industrialization and development policies. This comes as a reaction to the manifest difficulties facing mass production economies and to the sometimes spectacular performance of small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), particularly in Europe. The causes of the above success, together with the accompanying theorizations — such as the flexible specialization approach — are manifold and contradictory. Furthermore, theories on the present and future of SMEs vary as regards both optimism and policy implications — supra‐national, national or regional. Recent EU policies towards SMEs present an amalgam of instruments which, albeit often economically effective, constitute chiefly a political gesture.     

The geography of community and political organisation in London today

Set in the context of growing concern about the lack of a coherent political response to the economic crisis, and in the aftermath of devastating urban violence in English cities, this paper highlights the pressing need for new forms of political organisation in countries like the UK. The paper focuses on the remarkable growth and prominence of community organising in the UK. The largest community alliance, called London Citizens, now commands significant support and influence in the capital and is attracting attention from politicians, journalists and commentators from across the UK. The rising profile of community organising flies in the face of much scholarship in the social sciences which has long declared the death of geographical community – and its socio-political significance – in the modern metropolis. The paper provides an overview of this literature and highlights the particular importance of population turnover, increased diversity and stretched social networks. In this context, the paper then explores how London Citizens has been able to use a particular geographical architecture to work with and against these challenges. The paper argues that London Citizens’ territorial but institutionally networked structure is particularly important to its growth and impact. This model of politics locates institutional islands of social solidarity and forges connections between them, creating a new community that is able to mitigate some of the effects of population turnover and stretched social networks in the city-at-large. The paper highlights the strengths and weaknesses of this geo-political architecture, drawing attention to the importance of institutional affiliation, identity-making, the reproduction of collective memory, and the issue of funding.     

The autonomous world reversed: comparing liberal policy and autonomy in the performing arts

Comparative studies of cultural policy commonly emphasize the way in which states treat the autonomy of the arts. Such studies often claim that liberal states promote autonomy, while social democratic states promote more external, instrumental values, such as solidarity, universalism and equality. This article challenges this conception by claiming that in actual cultural policy-making it is in fact the other way around. Based on a comparative study of theater policy in England, Norway and the Netherlands, I find that the focus on artistic autonomy is surprisingly absent in the liberal state of England, compared to what it is in the social democratic state of Norway. Conversely, English theaters are more obliged to work for, and with, the citizens and the community than theaters in Norway are. In the Netherlands, where recent development in general policy has headed in a liberal direction, artistic autonomy actually appears to be increasingly challenged.     

The nonprofit arts organization concept and its transformation in Korea

ABSTRACT

After the Korean War, both the autocratic and later democratic South Korean governments actively fostered the development of Korea’s arts sector, in part by emulating the organizational and legal structures of U.S. nonprofits. Yet, in this policy transfer, Korea has taken a different path, notably rearticulating the U.S.-style hands-off facilitation model to reflect and accommodate Korean political, institutional, and cultural exigencies. We analyze the effects of the resulting cultural policy on Korean public arts institutions, using documentary evidence and narratives from our case studies of two national arts organizations restructured by the government: The National Theater Company of Korea and the Seoul Arts Center. We employ the concept of cultural statism, conditioned by "culture as glorification," resource dependence, and path dependence, to understand the development of Korea’s public arts sector. Specifically, we consider: the government’s desire to use the arts to enhance its image on an international stage shaped by western liberal democratic values; arts leaders’ desire for reliable support (resource dependence); and the tendancy of Koreans to want to be associated with the stability and prestige of the government (path dependence).     

The process of privatisation of cultural heritage and the arts in Italy: analysis and perspectives

During the last decade, institutional changes in the cultural heritage sector triggered some fierce debate in Europe. This paper analyses the complex process of privatising cultural heritage and the arts in Italy, showing how the relationship between this process and urban regeneration policies is tacitly legitimising it, despite the harsh controversies it previously provoked. From a perspective of ‘territorialisation’ discussed in this paper, this policy process could enhance the involvement of the private sector, bringing to light new fields of research and application in the international heritage debate.     

“第七次革命”:政府机构改革进展态势及问题

从建国到现在 ,已经过去了的机构改革有六次 ,加上现在正在进行的一共七次。第七次政府机构改革从 1 998年开始 ,舆论称之为“第七次革命”。总起来看 ,以前的六次行政机构改革尽管力度各不相同 ,裁员、缩编和机构撤并情况不大一样 ,但是它们却有一个共同特点 ,即那些改革不是旨在通过精简机构和裁减人员来达到调整行政机构整体功能和职能的过程 ,而仅仅停留在对机构和人员数量的简单减少上 ,人们称之为“机械式”改革。因为没有改革政府运行机制和职能 ,因而就不可避免地导致“精简———膨胀———再精简———再膨胀”和“越精简越膨胀”的逆向恶性循环现象     

Visual arts and cultural contexts: History and prehistory

Leppert, Richard. Art and the Committed Eye: The Cultural Functions of Imagery. Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1996. xvii + 348 pp. including notes, references, and index. $63.00 cloth, $24.00 paper.

Carr, Christopher and Jill E. Neitzel, eds. Style, Society, and Person: Archaeological and Ethnological Perspectives. New York: Plenum Press, 1995. xx + 477 pp. including index. $69.50 cloth.     

The Ethics Minefield: Issues of responsibility in learning and research

Google Glass was deployed in an Urban Studies field course to gather videographic data for team-based student research projects. We evaluate the potential for wearable computing technology such as Glass, in combination with other mobile computing devices, to enhance reflexive research skills, and videography in particular, during field research. The utility as well as the limitations of Google Glass are discussed, including its actual and potential application for teaching and data gathering purposes in the field. As such, this article constitutes one of the first instances of evaluating Google Glass as a social science research tool.     

The continuing saga around arts funding and the cultural wars in Australia

Cultural policy, and arts funding in particular, has been a site of much contention and discussion in Australia over the past decade. The events of the past two years took this to another level showing major ideological schisms in the present political approach. While the established arts sector was protected and consolidated, the emerging sector, individual artists, and small organisations were all negatively affected. The policy changes demonstrate the implicit challenges of direct political intervention in arts funding. What this period highlights also though is the vulnerability of artists and the philosophical contradictions around the nature of arts funding.     

辽瓷造型与装饰艺术

辽代的瓷器,是我国古代契丹民族在接受隋唐五代时期汉化影响,并吸收中原地区丰厚的瓷化,创造出的独具民族特色和地域特色的实用工艺品。由于辽国是以契丹人为主要统治阶级的多民族地方政权,手工业工匠又主要是汉人和汉化很深的渤海人,因此,这种社会的经济状况决定了辽朝烧制瓷器的造型既有中原形式,又有契丹形式。中