Platform Reliance and Bypass: Organizational Design Tradeoffs in a News Ecosystem
Oliver Baumann
Professor of Strategy and Organization at the University of Southern Denmark
and
Emil Bakkensen Johansen
Postdoctoral Researcher in Computational Social Science at the Digital Democracy Centre, University of Southern Denmark
--- 27th Nov. 2025, Thursday at 9am EST/3pm CET ---
Organizations embedded in platform ecosystems face a recurring design problem: how tightly to couple to the platform and how to organize for decoupling when needed. This talk examines both sides using evidence from two large scale studies of the Danish news ecosystem. First, we analyze platform reliance – the extent to which outlets use content supplied by a central news agency platform. We find an inverted U relationship between reliance and product distinctiveness: moderate reliance results in the greatest distinctiveness, whereas very low and very high reliance are associated with more homogeneous offerings. The design implication is to manage selective coupling: build routines that exploit shared inputs while protecting differentiation. Second, we study platform bypass during a crisis that threatened the central news agency platform. Member organizations formed direct, lateral collaborations to preserve content flow, effectively bypassing the failing platform. This reconfigured network structure toward greater decentralization during the disruption and helped maintain operations. The design implication is to pre-position bypass capabilities - redundancy, direct ties, and protocols – for rare but consequential shocks. We conclude with portable design principles: (i) calibrate coupling to balance efficiency and distinctiveness; (ii) formalize interface routines so platform inputs do not erode identity; and (iii) develop meta organizational arrangements (shared rules, monitoring, and contingency agreements) that allow field level adaptation when the hub is impaired.
About the Speakers:
Oliver Baumann is Professor of Strategy and Organization at the University of Southern Denmark, where he heads the Strategic Organization Design group. His research examines how organizations learn and adapt in complex, uncertain environments and how design choices shape collaborative problem solving. Methodologically, he develops formal computational models and combines them with experiments, field studies, and computational social science. Current projects address AI‑augmented organizing and the design of news and DAO ecosystems. He is co‑editor of the Journal of Organization Design, serves on the editorial boards of Academy of Management Discoveries, Organization Science, and Strategic Management Journal, and has published in Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, and related outlets.
Emil Bakkensen Johansen is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Computational Social Science at the Digital Democracy Centre, University of Southern Denmark, and affiliated with the Strategic Organization Design group. He studies how platforms and generative AI shape collaboration and product diversity in information ecosystems – particularly the news industry – using natural language processing, network analysis, and econometrics. Ongoing projects examine platform reliance and bypass among news outlets and the effects of autonomous AI imitators on content diversity. His work has been published in Acta Sociologica and presented at major conferences including AoM, SMS, DRUID, and IC2S2.
Last date to Register is 26th November 2025 9 am EST.
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