Platforms, Volume 3, Issue 1 (March 2025) – 5 articles

With the rapid expansion of online shopping, website design has become a critical factor influencing user experience and consumer satisfaction. This study examines the relationship between visual marketing elements embedded in e-commerce web page design and consumer satisfaction by analyzing 1500 product pages across five major categories (furniture, small items, food, home appliances, and clothing) on the Japanese platform Rakuten. The analysis reveals that in the furniture category, a higher proportion of images featuring visible faces and video explanations demonstrated positive correlations with consumer satisfaction. For food products, text color diversity demonstrated positive correlations with consumer satisfaction. In the home appliance category, text color and video explanations showed positive correlations with satisfaction, while the number of human images and video music showed negative correlations. For accessory products, images positioned at the website periphery, the number of human images, and video music showed negative correlations with consumer satisfaction. In the apparel category, text color and the number of human images demonstrated negative correlations with consumer satisfaction. However, in the analysis of the entire sample, no significant correlations were observed between visual marketing elements and consumer satisfaction. These findings suggest that visual marketing strategies should be tailored to specific product categories, which may contribute to improving consumer satisfaction with e-commerce platforms. Full article

This study offers a theoretical contribution exploring the interplay between platforms, proximity, and regional development and highlighting platforms’ crucial role in transforming routines and enhancing regional capabilities. It argues that routines, defining regional organization and adaptability, exhibit high transformative potential through platforms. Additionally, the study outlines a five-phase platform integration process in the regional context—sensing, patterns, categories, relations, and sequences—emphasizing the progression from vague platform comprehension to nuanced perception. This symbiotic relationship between platform utilization and routine development reinforces regional adaptability, innovation, and success in a connected landscape, shaping new opportunities for proximity-driven development. Full article

This paper explores the transformative potential of digital platforms in fostering resilient and intelligent urban environments, a critical need considering rapid urbanization and climate change. Through a comparative analysis of various digital platforms in global cities, this study identifies their role in enhancing operational efficiency, participatory governance, and urban innovation. Utilizing a structured maturity model based on the ISO 37123 standard for resilient communities, this research highlights the specific challenges faced by cities at different stages of digital transformation and provides practical recommendations for implementing digital solutions that integrate resilience, sustainability, and smart governance. The analysis underscores the importance of aligning digital platform development with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), offering a pathway for cities to enhance resilience, optimize resource use, and promote citizen engagement. Full article

Research purpose—Economy digital transformation has had a strong impact on several areas, such as employment, economic organization modus operandi, or the digital modernization of economic agents. Technological innovations, such as artificial intelligence, have resulted in new digital products and services that are smarter, autonomous, and complex. This evolution requires ethics and social responsibility as critical components of economic sustainability. Design/methodology/approach—This article analyzes the relevance of ethics and social responsibility among young information systems professionals. Given the technological specificity of the new generation, it was considered an opportunity to analyze sensitivity to their ethical obligations and responsibilities. A survey was sent to about 40 information systems and technology young professionals, as a convenience sample, to assess several dimensions of ethics and social responsibility, and to identify an opportunity for future studies. Findings—The results show that there is responsibility regarding the social effects of technology on technology users. However, it is noted that there is still a long way to go, because decisions regarding ethical and social responsibilities cannot be left to the discretion of each individual professional. Economic organizations should assume values, policies, and rules appropriated to the new order in the context of the information society. Originality/value/practical implications—The present study aimed to evaluate the relevance of ethics and social responsibility to information systems young professionals, and we expect that these results can encourage them to develop greater sensitivity to this issue, contributing to the change needed and desired. Full article

The paper serves to discuss the evolution of platform business models in tourism, the dynamics of market concentration, and regulatory interventions. We present the historical timeline of digitalization in tourism distribution models, starting from the Global Distribution Systems (GDS), and continuing with Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) and their market concentration in the duopoly of Expedia Group versus Booking Holdings Group. We continue to discuss the slow, yet uncertain, breaking of the global duopoly in the travel platforms market. On the one hand, the duopoly is challenged from the “bottom up”, where Airbnb is the most successful example, riding on the wave of popularity of the ideals of the “sharing economy” and the aftermaths of the 2008 global financial crisis. On the other hand, the duopoly is challenged from the “top down”—the most powerful digital players have started to extend their operations to tourism. The second section of the paper identifies three current areas of platformization in tourism operations—distribution, promotion and HRM. We analyze available industry and public statistics indicators in Europe for each of the three dimensions. Finally, we discuss the regulatory responses to the market concentration of travel distribution platforms. Although the challenge of market concentration is a global issue, and the threats are the same in many countries, we limit the discussion of regulation to the European context. In conclusion we discuss the possibilities of future development, and point to the threat of the further acceleration and interconnection of platformization and market concentration in the travel business. Full article