Analysis of markets in the presence of network effects and standards competition

The rapid development of information technology and the digital revolution in recent years have significantly increased the importance of network effects in the success of many new products. When multiple technology standards compete in markets with network effects, consumers' willingness to pay for any given standard depends much more strongly on market size and market share than in markets without network effects. This creates new challenges for marketing strategy. There is a pressing need to understand the marketing implications of technology standards in markets with network effects, for both firms pushing different standards (inter-standards competition) and firms adopting the same standard (intra-standards competition). This dissertation applies theoretical and empirical analyses to address this need. The dissertation consists of two essays. Chapter 2 provides a structural analysis of intra-standard price competition between an innovating firm and imitating firms. Chapter 3 provides a dynamic analysis of new technology diffusion at three levels: product category, platform and brand levels in the presence of inter-standard competition. Data collected from different industries with standards competition are used to test the proposed models.