Managing the Edge, Simulation Economy Edition
Learning to manage the new modes of coordination that exist outside the boundaries of firms is no mean feat - it's much bigger than simply publishing (which is just the most visible example).
Consider
this example - "gold farmers", or essentially, organized arbitrageurs, on WoW. How can firms "manage" this?
It's not enough just to kick them out; the economic forces at work are powerful, and create strong incentives for arbs to keep on arbing at even a relatively large cost to themselves.
What's needed, I think, is a deep understanding of how different these new modes of coordination - in this case, a virtual economy - really are from firms. You can't really "manage" them - at least in the traditional sense of the word. That's the starting point - and it's why more corporate players find themselves unable to create value at the edge.