Geoffrey G Parker is a scholar whose work focuses on distributed innovation, energy markets, and the economics of information. He developed the theory of two-sided markets with Marshall Van Alstyne.
Parker is Professor of Management Science at Tulane University and is a Faculty Fellow at MIT and the MIT Center for Digital Business. He also serves as Director of the Tulane Energy Institute. Parker is co-author of the book Platform Revolution, which was included among the 16 must-read business books for 2016 by Forbes.
Video Geoffrey G Parker
Early life and education
Parker was born in Dayton, Ohio. He received a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University in 1986. He then completed the General Electric Company Financial Management Training Program and held multiple positions in engineering and finance at General Electric in North Carolina and Wisconsin. He obtained an MS in Electrical Engineering (Technology and Policy Program) in 1993 and a PhD in Management Science in 1998, both at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Maps Geoffrey G Parker
Career
Parker is Professor of Management Science at Tulane University and is a Faculty Fellow at MIT and the MIT Center for Digital Business. His teaching includes technical courses giving students the skills they need to transform large data sets into actionable knowledge. Parker has taught undergraduate and full-time MBA courses as well as professional MBA and executive MBA programs. He also serves as Director of the Tulane Energy Institute.
Parker served as a National Science Foundation panelist from 2009 to 2011. He is a senior editor for the journal Production and Operations Management and an associate editor for the journal Management Science and President of the Industry Studies Association. Parker is a member of General Electric's Learning Advisory Board, consisting of academics drawn from across Africa, the United States of America and the United Kingdom, that assists in development and broadening of skills across Africa.
Parker co-organizes and co-chair the annual MIT Platform Strategy Summit, an executive meeting on platform-centered economics and management, where he stressed the growth of platforms, their welfare implications and their takeover of government functions. At the same time, he co-chairs an academic meeting, the Platform Strategy Research Symposium. Parker served as chair of the U.S.-Israel Energy Summit in 2014.
Parker has been appointed as a visiting faculty member at Dartmouth College, where he will be relocating as a full professor and director of the Master of Engineering Management program in July 2016.
Work
Parker has made contributions to the field of network economics and strategy as co-developer of the theory of two-sided markets with Marshall Van Alstyne.
Parker and Van Alstyne observed that, unlike traditional value chains with cost and revenue on different sides, two-sided networks have cost and revenue on both sides, because the "platform" has a distinct group of users on each side. Their approach has been described as the "chicken and egg" problem of how to build a platform. They concluded that the problem must be solved by platform owners, typically by cross-subsidizing between groups or even giving away products or services for free. Two-sided network effects can cause markets to concentrate in the hands of a few firms. These properties inform the strategies and antitrust law approaches at all firms involved in the network.
His research includes studies of distributed innovation, business platform strategy, and platforms to integrate intermittent energy.
Publications
Parkerb's research has appeared in journals such as Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, Energy Economics, Management Science, Production and Operations Management, and Strategic Management Journal. His work has also been featured on business news publications such as "MarketWatch" and "Wired".
He is the co-author of Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy and How to Make Them Work for You. The book describes the information technologies, or platforms, that are used and developed by the biggest and most innovative global companies. Forbes included it among 16 must-read business books for 2016, describing it as "a practical guide to the new business model that is transforming the way we work and live."
Parker also co-wrote Operations Management For Dummies within the For Dummies franchise.
Awards
Parker won the Wick Skinner Early Career Research Accomplishments Award in 2003. He was given the Dean's Excellence in Teaching Award for Graduate Education at Freeman in 2014.
References
External links
- Official website
- Platform Economics
- Platform Revolution
- Articles available for download at SSRN
Source of the article : Wikipedia