Faculty Visit and Seminar by Prof. Annabelle Gawer

In April 2025, Prof. Annabelle Gawer, one of the world's leading experts on Digital Platform business strategy, paid a visit to the Faculty of Engineering. The purpose of the visit, orchestrated by Dr. Hila Chalutz-BenGal, was to give a Faculty Seminar and meet with the dean and faculty members, with the goal of establishing a relationship with the Faculty of Engineering at Bar-Ilan University. "About three years ago, we met at a large conference in Europe," says Dr. Chalutz-BenGal. "She is Jewish, born in France, currently living and researching in Britain, but has family in Israel. At the conference, she heard me speaking Hebrew, approached me – and we've been in touch ever since."

Prof. Gawer is a Chaired Professor of Digital Economy and the Director and founder of the CODE Centre for Digital Economy at the University of Surrey, England. Over the years, she has held faculty positions at INSEAD and Imperial College London and visiting faculty positions at Harvard Business School, University of St. Gallen, London Business School, and Oxford University, where she has taught and directed executive education programs. She is currently a Visiting Professor at IMD in Lausanne. Prof. Gawer is a pioneering researcher, advisor to multinational companies, and an internationally renowned expert for policymakers in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Prof. Gawer was the UK’s most-cited female academic in business and economics for two consecutive years (2022 and 2023), according to Stanford University Index.

Prof. Gawer’s seminar at the Faculty of Engineering revolved around recent research concerning dilemmas related to governance and social contagion of complementors’ misconduct in digital platform ecosystems. As part of the research, Prof. Gawer and her colleagues interviewed 46 sellers on Amazon's marketplace, a platform with an established set of rules of conduct. Sometimes these rules are not properly enforced, leading to seller misconduct such as fraud, to which the platform turns a blind eye. As a result, some platform users adopt misconduct behavior as a way to defend themselves against unfair competition under what they perceive to be the indifferent eye of the platform authority. The study and its results produced the innovative concept of "two-faced platform governance," further validating and extending theories of social contagion associated with digital platform users. The study further determines that such negative behavior can be prevented and offers practical tools for selective and discretionary enforcement by digital platforms.

In addition to the seminar, Prof. Gawer met with dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Prof. Orit Shefi to discuss possible collaboration. "She was very impressed with the Faculty and the meaningful work taking place here, and essentially offered to be our ambassador, to be involved in future program development and research efforts, and to help out in any way," says Dr. Chalutz-BenGal. "It's very exciting that a researcher of this caliber expresses her will to actively join forces, and I hope this visit will lead to fruitful and meaningful academic work and outcomes."