What drives the work of the world’s leading management thinkers?
That was the question posed at Thinkers50@BUQuestrom: Passion & Purpose, a live virtual event held at Boston University Questrom School of Business on 20th April 2023. Co-sponsored by Thinkers50, Passion & Purpose sought to uncover the motivation behind top management thinkers: what directs their research? What keeps them awake at night and gets them out of bed in the morning? In a fast-paced ideas jam, 14 thinkers each had 15 minutes to present their passion and purpose.
Dartmouth College professor Geoff Parker, co-author of the influential book, Platform Revolution, a Thinkers50 Ranked Thinker and recipient of the Thinkers50 2019 Digital Thinking Award, talked about inverting the firm and the different problems the B2B and B2C platforms are solving. B2C platforms, he explained, are essentially about solving a transaction cost failure, whereas in B2B, where the integration costs are prohibitive, it’s about solving for integration and enablement.