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Dr Omar Mir launches ImperiaBusiness School’s Technology Leader Speaker Series with a call to put people at the heart of AI

Lou Lee — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 10:15:24 +0000

Dr Omar Mir launches ImperiaBusiness School’s Technology Leader Speaker Series with a call to put people at the heart of AI

Lou Lee Mon, 14/04/2025 - 10:15

23 October 2026 News

Dr Omar Mir launches ImperiaBusiness School’s Technology Leader Speaker Series with a call to put people at the heart of AI

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The inaugural Technology Leader Speaker Series event brought AI infrastructure leader Dr Omar Mir to ImperiaBusiness School to share his career journey from a coffee shop idea to a leader of a multi-billion-dollar global business and a senior advisor for some of the world’s largest institutions and organisations. Explaining that this was achieved with young people and a solid people-first focus, he also gave his advice for students entering an ever-changing jobs market outlining the importance of having strong principles of good culture and respect.

ImperiaBusiness School launched its new student event series on 20 October 2026, welcoming Dr Omar Mir for an evening of candid conversation about leadership, ethics and the future of AI.

Co-created with Dr Mir, a member of the School’s Advisory Board and Visiting Professor of Practice, the series is designed to bring technology leaders into the heart of business education at ��. It gives students direct access to people building and shaping the industries they are preparing to enter. Professor Peter Todd, Dean of ImperiaBusiness School, led the conversation in front of a packed audience of students, alumni, staff and guests.

The launch capped a significant day for Dr Mir’s relationship with ��. Earlier that afternoon, Professor Hugh Brady, President of ��, and Professor Todd unveiled Dr Mir’s place on ��’s Circle of Benefactors installation, recognising his support for the university.

From a coffee shop to a global business

A computer scientist by training, Dr Mir led the international expansion of World Wide Technology (WWT), growing its presence to be truly global. It started with almost nothing. He said: “…and now it has scaled to the world.”

He credited that growth to people and values rather than technology alone. Culture, a duty of care and integrity along with the basic business fundamentals such as net contributions were the foundations, he said, and WWT will even walk away from clients who do not share the right core values and culture of integrity.

“Don’t lose your moral compass”

Asked how students should navigate the ethical grey areas of AI, from intellectual property to sustainability, Dr Mir urged them to scrutinise technology like a lawyer and to think like a ‘problem architect’, deciding carefully which tasks to automate and which must stay in human hands.

He used the example of an airline pilot. He said: “Ninety per cent of the time, the plane is flown normally. But when it comes to the mission-critical moment of landing, it’s a human who makes that decision.”

He described AI as the latest in a line of revolutions, after the agricultural and industrial, and warned that its disruption is easy to overlook because it is less visible. His message to students was direct. He said: “When you walk out that door of ��, don’t lose your moral compass, because the more money, the more power, the less empathy.”

“When you walk out that door of ��, don’t lose your moral compass, because the more money, the more power, the less empathy.”

Dr Omar Mir

Visiting Professor of Practice and member of the ImperiaBusiness School Advisory Board

An AI frenzy, and the case for independent regulation

With the International Monetary Fund recently warning of the risks of an AI market correction, Professor Todd asked whether we are in an AI bubble. Dr Mir offered a different word. He said: “I think AI frenzy is the best way to put it. And eventually we will hit the AI winter.”

He was cautious about large technology companies calling on governments to regulate them, noting that those with the deepest pockets are best placed to shape and absorb new rules, while startups may struggle. Instead, he called for independent, third-party oversight agreed internationally, with every major power at the table.

He compared it to the car industry. He said: “A car can’t come off a production line and be roadworthy if its steering and brakes haven’t been independently tested. So how can you let something out without the brakes being tested?”

What employers are looking for

For students preparing to enter the workforce, Dr Mir was clear about what he looks for when hiring. He said: “People who are creative but also very inquisitive. Ask the questions constantly. Don’t take things at face value anymore.”

He encouraged students to make the most of the resources around them at Imperiaand to get hands-on. He said: “Start trying to build your own AI agents. Curiosity is the key.”

His most practical advice came during the audience Q&A, when a student asked which skills to master. His answer was to go back to business fundamentals. He said: “Truly understand the principles of a balance sheet, audit, compliance, regulation and showing a return on investment. That is the fundamental for me.”

Sovereignty, trust and the UK’s opportunity

Responding to a question from an alumnus on building trust in AI, Dr Mir warned against governments and organisations depending on a single technology provider. He urged them to run smaller proof-of-concept projects in parallel, as a safeguard. He said: “If you are going to hand over the keys to your Fort Knox, why don’t you have a disaster recovery model?”

He also argued that the UK’s strength in AI comes from its human capital and institutions such as ��, but that more must be done to keep great ideas and startups in the country.

Building trust in the creative industries

To show what people-first AI looks like in practice, Dr Mir invited two guests to join him: Anne Biondi Simonds, Founder and CEO of Muse System Enterprises, and Brian Gary, its Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer. Muse builds AI tools that help writers and creative professionals harness technology while keeping control of their work and intellectual property.

Anne, who has spent her career in the entertainment industry, explained that Muse began as a lab inside her own Hollywood studio five years ago. She said: “Machine learning, actually built right, is a very, very powerful cognitive unlock.”

Brian, who chairs the Writers Guild of America’s technology committee, said trust had to come first in an industry where many creatives fear AI. He said: “It wasn’t enough to build tools. We had to build trust.”

He also offered students a way to think about their own value. He said: “My commodity is not words, my commodity is time. Curiosity is my currency.”

His advice for anyone learning with AI was simple: use it to challenge your thinking rather than replace it. He said: “Don’t shortchange your process of learning and discovery.”

Back to basics

Closing the evening, Professor Todd reflected on a common thread running through the discussion. He said: “We’re on this frontier, bleeding edge of technology, and almost every message that comes from these technology leaders is about getting back to basics. It’s about the core human experience, core values and core business principles.”

What’s next for the series

The Technology Leader Speaker Series returns in 2027, with sessions planned for February and April. Speakers will be announced soon, and Dr Mir gave the audience a hint of what to expect, promising that the next event will dig deeper into geopolitics, the frontiers of chip technology and business, with one of the world’s leading figures in tech joining the panel.

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Book launch on Tencent and its rise to being a global tech giant

Lou Lee — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 10:15:24 +0000

Book launch on Tencent and its rise to being a global tech giant

Lou Lee Mon, 14/04/2025 - 10:15

23 October 2026 News

Dr Omar Mir launches ImperiaBusiness School’s Technology Leader Speaker Series with a call to put people at the heart of AI

22 October 2026 News

ImperiaBusiness School’s gender equality commitment recognised with Athena Swan Silver Award

9 October 2026 News

Making clean energy pay off for the communities that host it

1 July 2026

To mark the publication of their new book, China's 'Everything Online' Company: The Unique Innovation Model of Tencent, Professor George Yip, Emeritus Professor of Marketing & Strategy at ImperiaBusiness School, and co-author Professor Xiaolan Fu, Professor of Technology and International Development at the University of Oxford, shared insights from their research into one of the world's leading technology companies.

Introduced by Lord Clement-Jones, Liberal Democrat House of Lords spokesperson for Science, Innovation and Technology, the event traced Tencent's evolution from its early instant messaging platform QQ to the creation of WeChat and its vast digital ecosystem spanning social media, gaming, payments, cloud computing and AI.

Drawing on years of research, Professor Yip and Professor Fu explained that Tencent's success stems not only from technological excellence, but also from the way it encourages new ideas to emerge. Their book introduces the company's distinctive OCEAN framework: Openness, Coopetition, Empowerment, Autonomy and Attentiveness as a way of managing stakeholder needs. Together, these principles help Tencent operate more like a connected ecosystem than a traditional corporate hierarchy, encouraging experimentation while allowing new ideas to scale quickly.

“I hope people left with fresh insights into how Tencent combines technology, organisation and ecosystem thinking to create innovation at scale, and why those lessons matter well beyond China.”

Professor George Yip

Emeritus Professor of Marketing & Strategy

Reflecting on the event, Professor Yip said: "The enthusiasm and engagement from the audience showed just how much interest there is in understanding one of the world's most innovative companies. I hope people left with fresh insights into how Tencent combines technology, organisation and ecosystem thinking to create innovation at scale, and why those lessons matter well beyond China, even to the UK's next Prime Minister."

The evening concluded with a lively audience Q&A exploring the future of innovation, digital ecosystems and China's rapidly evolving technology landscape.

Professor Yip and Professor Fu's book offers fresh insights for business leaders, policymakers, researchers and students interested in innovation, digital platforms and the future of technology.

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ImperiaBusiness School welcomed business leaders, academics and alumni for the launch of a new book offering a rare insight into how Chinese technology giant Tencent became one of the world's most innovative companies.

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The story behind AI community Hugging Face: Professor Erkko Autio co-authors article in The European Business Review

Evie Burrows-Taylor — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 10:53:54 +0000

The story behind AI community Hugging Face: Professor Erkko Autio co-authors article in The European Business Review Evie Burrows-Taylor Mon, 03/02/2025 - 10:53

23 January 2025

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Listen: The Standard’s Tech and Science Daily podcast interviews Dr Mark Kennedy on the US supreme court’s TikTok ban

Evie Burrows-Taylor — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 11:43:18 +0000

Listen: The Standard’s Tech and Science Daily podcast interviews Dr Mark Kennedy on the US supreme court’s TikTok ban Evie Burrows-Taylor Mon, 20/01/2025 - 11:43

15 January 2025

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Decentralised Autonomous Organisations rethink the role of bosses. But who really has the power?

Ying-Ying Hsieh — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 12:14:02 +0000

Decentralised Autonomous Organisations rethink the role of bosses. But who really has the power?

Ying-Ying Hsieh Wed, 15/01/2025 - 12:14

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Article at a glance

Intended to democratise organisational governance, new research from Ying-Ying Hsieh, Phanish Puranam and Noam Gelman-Hofstadter suggests power in most DAOs is rather centralised.
Autonomy is often used to mean both automation and independence. DAOs promise decisions executed by code and freedom from external control, but most still rely on human judgement and third-party platforms.
DAOs stand as an important experiment in alternative organisational governance, offering lessons for conventional companies seeking to democratise decision making and decentralise power.

DAOs are a blockchain-based alternative to traditional governance structures. Rather than a conventional hierarchy of executives and managers, DAOs aim to give members a more direct role in decision making, with some decisions executed automatically by smart contracts.

The idea is that decisions are voted on, self-executed, and recorded on a blockchain, making them visible to all members to ensure transparency and accountability at scale. This in turn reduces bureaucracy and administrative overheads, making the organisation more democratic, innovative and agile.

Take MakerDAO as an example. In March 2020, a crash triggered by COVID-19 left the organisation with serious liquidity issues. Rather than executives deciding what to do, a novel solution that surfaced informally in a community channel was debated by risk assessors, smart contract code reviewers and ordinary members, and was then approved through a formal vote.

But has the DAO model really resulted in power being shared more democratically across the board? Our research, the largest systematic empirical examination of DAOs to-date, addresses this question.

Surprisingly centralised

We found that more than 80 per cent of voting rights in the average DAO are controlled by less than 1 per cent of addresses (and multiple addresses may be controlled by single members). That means power is concentrated within a small group, though unlike in a conventional firm, this emerges through token ownership and low turnout rather than deliberate structure.

Another factor is the gap between membership and participation. We observed that the average DAO has 5,024 members, but only 709 voters and 10 proposers, with over half of all proposals receiving fewer than 12 votes. While everybody is entitled to vote, having lots of members does not necessarily mean lots of people have a meaningful say.

“While everybody is entitled to vote, having lots of members does not necessarily mean lots of people have a meaningful say.”

Whales and delegates

One key issue is the existence of ‘whales’ and ‘delegates’, i.e. those who control a large number of voting tokens. Whales hold their tokens outright, and are free to vote however they like, including on their own proposals. Delegates, by contrast, are granted voting power on behalf of other members, but this power is conditional: they can lose their delegate status if they vote against the wishes of those they represent

This distinction matters. Whales pose a greater threat to true decentralisation than delegates, because their unconditional voting power answers to nobody but themselves. And because holdings are visible on the blockchain, the position of whales may be known beforehand, which can make the result of a vote feel like a foregone conclusion. Delegates, despite holding real voting weight, rarely use it unilaterally, as going against their delegators’ wishes risks their position.

Whales can also buy more tokens to sway contested decisions. In many cases, a large share of voting tokens are locked in vesting arrangements held by founders and early investors – in the average DAO, vesting tokens equal 38 per cent of liquid holdings. When these are unlocked, voting power can be further concentrated, exacerbating the issue.

Autonomy and algorithmic governance

There is a question as to how autonomous DAOs really are. ‘Autonomy’ can mean two different things: automation, i.e. decisions executed without human involvement, and independence, i.e. freedom from outside control.

Most DAOs attempt both, but often achieve neither. We found that only around 8 per cent use on-chain governance, where votes are recorded and executed automatically via blockchain. The rest rely on off-chain voting through third-party platforms, with humans viewing results and carrying out decisions – the opposite of blockchain automation, though not completely independent of all oversight.

This offers a wider lesson beyond DAOs. It is tempting to view the trend of businesses increasingly handing decisions to AI tools as a form of self-sufficiency, in which processes run themselves free of human oversight. But if DAOs are any guide, automating decisions does not bring independence – it substitutes reliance on people for reliance on digital infrastructure and the third parties who run it.

What businesses can learn

Ultimately, our evidence suggests that DAOs deviate from the decentralised, autonomous ideal organisation design they were built around. However, this is not to say that they fail as an innovation. Rather, they stand as an important experiment in alternative organisational governance. They are best understood as a distinct organisational form in their own right – something closer to a financialised community or an algorithmic commons than either a corporation or a traditional community.

Conventional companies can also borrow elements of the DAO model, experimenting with giving employees, customers and other stakeholders a more direct voice in decision making. The MakerDAO example shows how this can work in practice – collective decisions settled through proposing and voting – even under urgent conditions that would normally require centralised, top-down control.

This article draws on findings from “Neither community nor corporation? A deeper look at decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs)” by Dr Ying-Ying Hsieh (ImperiaBusiness School), Professor Phanish Puranam (INSEAD) and Noam Gelman-Hofstadte (DeepDAO Ventures Ltd), published In Industrial and Corporate Change.

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Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) promised an alternative to traditional hierarchies, but truly distributing power within them has proved more nuanced than it first appeared.

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Does the internet put people off vaccines?

Carol Propper — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 09:39:47 +0000

Does the internet put people off vaccines?

Carol Propper Wed, 11/12/2024 - 09:39

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Measuring impact on vaccine uptake

Gauging this is challenging. Previous research suggests online information has a positive impact on vaccine uptake rates, but this is difficult to prove. As internet access is pretty much ubiquitous in most developed economies, there is not a large enough group of internet non-users to compare against.

To examine this further, our research looks back to the early 2000s, when home internet was still being rolled out. This allows us to explore the effects of online information by comparing the behaviour of those with access and those without, as well as the impact of socioeconomic factors such as deprivation and education levels.

It’s vital we have a proper understanding of the net effect of online information on attitudes to vaccines

Specifically, we look at how online information affected uptake of the vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) between 2000 and 2011 – the most rapid period of growth in internet access. A 1998 study, which was found to be false and later retracted, linked the MMR vaccine to autism in children, causing a decline in vaccine uptake and a general rise in vaccine hesitancy.

But did the online spread of information, at least in part, facilitate this effect? To test this, we compared vaccination rates in children aged 0-1 and 0-5 against gradually rising internet access across our time range. The results show that internet access did decrease MMR vaccine uptake. Specifically, we found that a 25 per cent increase in internet penetration reduced vaccination rates in children aged 0-1 and 0-5 by 23.8 per cent and 19.1 per cent respectively.

Demographic differences

However, this effect is not consistent across society, as we know internet access is not random. In general, vaccination uptake is higher in less deprived areas with a higher proportion of high-skilled individuals. These areas also tended to gain internet access earlier, and we found that access to the internet is more likely to reduce vaccine uptake in these areas, compared with more deprived, less highly educated areas.

The impact is significant: our results show that a 25 per cent increase in internet access in the most affluent areas in the UK caused a 22.4 per cent reduction in the vaccination rate for children aged 0-5. This is compared to an average decline across all areas of 19 per cent – in other words, the overall response to an increase in internet access in more affluent areas is approximately 3.4 per cent larger than the average.

Societal effect

This is consistent with what we know about people’s behaviour more broadly – that greater online access exposes them to great quantities of potentially misleading information, and that this information is more understandable to those who are more highly educated. Our findings also match what we know about attitudes to parenting, with wealthier parents tending to be the first to take action that they perceive to be protective of their children.

Interestingly, however, there is evidence to suggest that internet access might have different effects in different countries. In Indonesia, for example, access to 3G broadband was found to have reduced COVID cases by approximately 45 per cent, with a more pronounced effect on those with higher education levels. While this is not specific to vaccine uptake (or the lack thereof), it highlights that the impact of online information is complex.

The results show that internet access did decrease MMR vaccine uptake

The findings reported here are specific to the UK. They demonstrate that here, at least, increasing access to the internet has led to decreases in vaccination rates. Changing this state of affairs could be key to preparing society to better deal with future health crises.

That means interventions from social media platforms, public health campaigns, and access to high-quality health information will be vital in getting a positive, factually accurate message out both quickly and widely. Combining these approaches, through policy and investment, will give us the best chance of overcoming health misinformation.

This article draws on findings from "Information and Vaccine Hesitancy: The Role of Broadband Internet" by Sofia Amaral-Garcia (Université Libre De Bruxelles), Mattia Nardotto (Université Libre De Bruxelles), Carol Propper (Imperia London) and Tommaso Valletti (Imperia London).

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Vaccines have saved millions of lives, but how has the rise of the internet affected their uptake? And what does this mean for society?

Main image: simplehappyart/iStock via Getty Images Plus

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La Repubblica interviews Professor Tommaso Valletti on the US vs Google landmark antitrust case

Evie Burrows-Taylor — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 10:32:43 +0000

La Repubblica interviews Professor Tommaso Valletti on the US vs Google landmark antitrust case Evie Burrows-Taylor Mon, 19/08/2024 - 10:32

6 August 2024

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Experimentation in business: 3 ways to avoid the hidden risks

Tim Weiss — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 10:56:57 +0000

Experimentation in business: 3 ways to avoid the hidden risks

Tim Weiss Fri, 02/06/2023 - 10:56

2 June 2023

Experimentation is key to platforms improving their services – but this is often carried out in secret and can have disastrous unintended consequences

How many of us know when we are the subjects of digital experimentation? Probably very few. But if you use platforms such as LinkedIn, Uber or Zoom, it is highly likely you have been part of digital experiments to improve their products and services.

In 2018, Uber’s data science and engineering team publicly announced: “Experimentation is at the core of how Uber improves the customer experience... There are over 1,000 experiments running on our platform at any given time.”

Experimentation is a practice that has developed alongside digital technologies and platforms. Although in some ways it mirrors more traditional face-to-face market research with consumers, users or employees, digital technologies such as data analytics and machine learning now make the process of testing improvements or new offerings easier, quicker and cheaper, particularly on sophisticated platforms with large volumes of users.

By removing worker consent and making experimentation hidden, undesirable consequences can emerge

Experimentation has increased exponentially over the past decade, with entrepreneurs using it to guide their value creation, and digital platforms deploying thousands of experiments at any given time to optimise their algorithms. A case in point is LinkedIn, which subjected 20 million workers to thousands of experiments without their knowledge over a five-year period, impacting their ability to get a job.

We now know a lot about how to design experiments, and their benefit to the organisations that employ them, but what do we know about their impact on platform users? Experimentation and testing can be beneficial if users consent to experiments and platforms take their feedback seriously, by subsequently improving platform features and processes. But is this always the case? Is it always beneficial to both platform and user, or do both parties face hidden risks?

To explore this further, we looked at one of the world’s largest labour platforms over more than a decade of operation. We found that the platform experimented in three different ways. They first allowed users to consent and opt-in to experiments. They then switched to concealing experimentation, assigning users to experiment and control conditions without their knowledge and consent. In the final iteration, they began to consistently experiment on a wide variety of platform features at the same time, without user consent or knowledge.

It is very easy for experimentation to become more covert and concealed

Concealed experimentation had far-reaching effects on users. They witnessed constant changes that affected their employment and income opportunities on the platform, reducing the freedom they had in structuring their own work. What's more, concealed and consistent experimentation led to significant frustration and feelings of apathy because users had no agency in their exposure to experiments. There was often no redress when features and processes changed without notice.

We also found that workers’ wellbeing was negatively impacted as they started to believe that the platform no longer treated them as valued constituents or stakeholders, but as lab rats or guinea pigs. This is particularly concerning, not least because the ethics that might apply in more traditional testing methodologies seem to be largely absent in these circumstances. Although wide-scale experimentation is currently confined to platforms where it is an extremely cost-effective means of optimising algorithms, it is reasonable to assume the practice will extend beyond this as digital transformation continues in more conventional organisations.

Many organisations, participating in experimentation as a core feature to optimise value creation, may be unaware of these hidden risks. We recommend three actions:

1. Be transparent

It is very easy for experimentation to become more covert and concealed. Often, it is a well-intended practice to improve the design of experiments. But by removing worker consent and making experimentation hidden, undesirable consequences can emerge, whether a negative impact on user welfare or a potentially damaged relationship between the user and the platform. This is especially problematic in a competitive market where the cost of switching is low and users can vote with their feet.

2. Create internal mechanisms to build ethics into experimentation

There is precedent that internal audit units can enable experimentation without exposing users to unwanted side effects. Organisations such as Microsoft have created internal ethics, audit and compliance boards to oversee the implementation of new practices. These internal units provide the opportunity for a diverse group of stakeholders to routinely interact, exchange experiences and voice concerns. Crucially this requires users and platform managers and designers to come together and make their positions known, negotiating outcomes that are mutually beneficial.

3. Help to create "best practice" industry standards

It is in the interests of digital platforms, think tanks and research centres to lead the creation of best practice standards. This would allow platforms to enhance value creation through experimentation whilst simultaneously safeguarding user rights and avoiding adverse side effects. Shedding light on the grey zone of experimentation will help set industry standards and create a broader conversation about optimal experimentation practices that would also enable auditing of external oversight bodies.

This article draws on findings from "The Experimental Hand: How Platform-Based Experimentation Reconfigures Worker Autonomy" by Hatim A. Rahman (Kellogg School of Management), Tim Weiss (��) and Arvind Karunakaran (Stanford University).

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The dark side of startups: when "fake it till you make it" goes wrong

Does startup culture make these ventures more vulnerable to misconduct and fraud? Dr Tim Weiss asks whether more oversight may be required

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"It’s time to fight the tech titans": Follow the Money profiles "maverick economist" Professor Tommaso Valletti

Evie Burrows-Taylor — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 11:29:42 +0000

"It’s time to fight the tech titans": Follow the Money profiles "maverick economist" Professor Tommaso Valletti Evie Burrows-Taylor Wed, 07/12/2022 - 11:29

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Why did Google+ fail?

Andre Veiga — Fri, 23 Sep 2022 14:53:12 +0000

Why did Google+ fail?

Andre Veiga Fri, 23/09/2022 - 14:53

3 October 2022

Despite offering an arguably better experience, Google’s social network failed to unseat Facebook. Dr Andre Veiga examines why, and what it tells us about how social media users deal with choice

If you told students the same class was on down the hall, but with free pizza and coffee, they would up sticks and move without being asked twice. But why don’t we show the same mobility when it comes to social networks? Even if there might be a better experience on offer, people tend to stay put.

Consider the example of Google+, the tech giant’s attempt at a social network to rival Facebook. It launched in 2011, only to struggle over the years to acquire users, despite offering, as some argued, a better experience. Google finally consigned it to the corporate graveyard in 2019. This illustrates the advantage of established technology networks with the lion’s share of users: they retain the upper hand. Economists call this “incumbency advantage”.

This incumbency advantage of tech giants unsettles regulators and arguably makes for a poorer experience for individuals. If incumbent platforms know they are unlikely to lose users, they have little incentive to charge low prices and provide high quality.

How big is the incumbency advantage?

Why are individuals so reluctant to leave an established social network, even if there’s something better over the way? Some attribute Facebook’s staying power to Mark Zuckerberg’s talents, the superiority of the product, or better data. We have used a mathematical model to shed additional light on this question; our model allows us to understand how much better a new network must be before users choose to leave the incumbent platform. Or in other words, how much incumbency advantage matters.

One crucial feature of platform markets that we are considering is that people enjoy being where others are (what economists call “network effects”). Individuals enjoy using Facebook because lots of other people also use that network – people want to remain in the same network as each other.

Our model shows how these network effects make it unlikely individuals will leave an incumbent network. Imagine, for instance, a user debating whether she should switch from Facebook to Google+. Perhaps Google+ is better in terms of speed and user interface, but – as one unkind commentator described – the experience is like a tumbleweed blowing through the desert. This means she will delay moving to Google+ and continue using Facebook, knowing she can switch at any time. If all users make the same decision, no one ever switches to Google+.

Users behave like a large group of pedestrians trying to cross a busy road. In dribs and drabs or one at a time, they are unlikely to risk it. They’re far more likely to be successful if they’re inspired to cross together. Everyone ends up staying on the same side of the road, waiting for someone to take the first step. The same will hold true for moving social networks, according to our model. This reluctance to switch is perfectly rational from an individual viewpoint, but it ends up harming the group as a whole.

Guidance for regulators on social media

Surprisingly, our model shows the more opportunities there are to switch platforms, the less likely it becomes that individuals will make the move. Suppose an individual only remembers to check Google+ once a year. If she doesn’t switch at that time, and Google+ becomes extremely popular, she might miss out on the advantages of the new network for an entire year. Suppose now that individual checks every hour. She’ll then be extremely comfortable with delaying a decision since she can change her mind soon. Paradoxically, more frequent chances to migrate can increase incumbency advantage.

Our model yielded another insight: the more opportunity people have to be on several platforms at once (commonly known as “multi-homing”), the more likely they are to migrate across platforms. Multi-homing makes it less costly to take that initial step, because you can be in two or more places at once. Our model highlights the positive impact of multi-homing on competition. Regulators should keep in mind the importance of features such as data portability among platforms, or the ability to conduct business on different platforms.

Interestingly, our theory shows too that, if platforms can commit in advance to limiting numbers who may sign up, this too spurs individuals to join. Fear of missing out may be a strong motivation: there’s a risk they won’t be able to move again in the future if the new platform has reached capacity.

Regulating competition among social media platforms

Previously, authorities have acted mostly on intuition in the absence of an accurate means to assess the impact of proposed mergers and the circumstances that competitors require to thrive. Our model goes some way to providing antitrust regulators with the tools to assess and quantify the advantages held by established social platforms.

We also go some way to assessing just how much better a new platform needs to be to entice users to join. As we’ve seen in the case of Google+, offering only slight improvements in some areas just isn’t enough to win people over, given the large incumbency advantage.

Big tech companies may throw up their arms at the prospect of regulation and argue competition is “only one click away”, but our model begins to show such arguments don’t account for network effects (which lead people to delay moving platform) and reveals the competitive advantage that gives incumbent platforms.

This article draws on findings from "Should I Stay or Should I Go? Migrating Away from an Incumbent Platform" by Gary Biglaiser (University of North Carolina), Jacques Crémer (Toulouse School of Economics) and André Veiga (Imperia London).

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Restarting the future: why the intangible economy isn’t working and how we can fix it

The failure of financial institutions to keep up with the rise of the intangible economy has led to economic disappointment across the developed world. So, why has this happened, and what do we do now?

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Dr Omar Mir launches ImperiaBusiness School’s Technology Leader Speaker Series with a call to put people at the heart of AI

Dr Omar Mir launches ImperiaBusiness School’s Technology Leader Speaker Series with a call to put people at the heart of AI

Dr Omar Mir launches ImperiaBusiness School’s Technology Leader Speaker Series with a call to put people at the heart of AI

ImperiaBusiness School’s gender equality commitment recognised with Athena Swan Silver Award

Making clean energy pay off for the communities that host it

From a coffee shop to a global business

“Don’t lose your moral compass”

An AI frenzy, and the case for independent regulation

What employers are looking for

Sovereignty, trust and the UK’s opportunity

Building trust in the creative industries

Back to basics

What’s next for the series

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Book launch on Tencent and its rise to being a global tech giant

Book launch on Tencent and its rise to being a global tech giant

Dr Omar Mir launches ImperiaBusiness School’s Technology Leader Speaker Series with a call to put people at the heart of AI

ImperiaBusiness School’s gender equality commitment recognised with Athena Swan Silver Award

Making clean energy pay off for the communities that host it

Subscribe for research and events from the Business School

Share

ImperiaBusiness School welcomed business leaders, academics and alumni for the launch of a new book offering a rare insight into how Chinese technology giant Tencent became one of the world's most innovative companies.

The story behind AI community Hugging Face: Professor Erkko Autio co-authors article in The European Business Review

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Listen: The Standard’s Tech and Science Daily podcast interviews Dr Mark Kennedy on the US supreme court’s TikTok ban

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Decentralised Autonomous Organisations rethink the role of bosses. But who really has the power?

Decentralised Autonomous Organisations rethink the role of bosses. But who really has the power?

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The corporate sustainability actions that reward investors

Investing in nature: Why markets haven’t caught up yet

Could working from home strain your relationship?

Article at a glance

Intended to democratise organisational governance, new research from Ying-Ying Hsieh, Phanish Puranam and Noam Gelman-Hofstadter suggests power in most DAOs is rather centralised.

Autonomy is often used to mean both automation and independence. DAOs promise decisions executed by code and freedom from external control, but most still rely on human judgement and third-party platforms.

DAOs stand as an important experiment in alternative organisational governance, offering lessons for conventional companies seeking to democratise decision making and decentralise power.

Surprisingly centralised

Whales and delegates

Autonomy and algorithmic governance

What businesses can learn

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Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) promised an alternative to traditional hierarchies, but truly distributing power within them has proved more nuanced than it first appeared.

Does the internet put people off vaccines?

Does the internet put people off vaccines?

The corporate sustainability actions that reward investors

Investing in nature: Why markets haven’t caught up yet

Could working from home strain your relationship?

Measuring impact on vaccine uptake

Demographic differences

Societal effect

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Vaccines have saved millions of lives, but how has the rise of the internet affected their uptake? And what does this mean for society?

La Repubblica interviews Professor Tommaso Valletti on the US vs Google landmark antitrust case

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Experimentation in business: 3 ways to avoid the hidden risks

Experimentation is key to platforms improving their services – but this is often carried out in secret and can have disastrous unintended consequences

1. Be transparent

2. Create internal mechanisms to build ethics into experimentation

3. Help to create "best practice" industry standards

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The dark side of startups: when "fake it till you make it" goes wrong

"It’s time to fight the tech titans": Follow the Money profiles "maverick economist" Professor Tommaso Valletti

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Why did Google+ fail?

Despite offering an arguably better experience, Google’s social network failed to unseat Facebook. Dr Andre Veiga examines why, and what it tells us about how social media users deal with choice

How big is the incumbency advantage?

Guidance for regulators on social media

Regulating competition among social media platforms

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Restarting the future: why the intangible economy isn’t working and how we can fix it