Switching costs and network effects bind customers to vendors if products are incompatible, locking customers or even markets in to early choices. Lock-in hinders customers from changing suppliers in response to (predictable or unpredictable) changes in efficiency, and gives vendors lucrative ex...

This paper studies advertising in vertically differentiated product markets with positive consumption externalities. In markets with consumption externalities, the value of the product to the consumer depends on the purchasing decisions of other consumers. In such markets, we show that firms...

This paper endogenizes coordination problems in organizations by allowing for both ex ante coordination of activities, using rules and task guidelines, and ex post coordination, using communication and broad job assignments. It shows that: (i) Task specialization and the division of labour is...

Multi-product firms create value by integrating functional activities such as manufacturing across business units. This integration often requires making functional managers responsible for implementing standardization, thereby limiting business-unit managers’ authority. Realizing synergies...