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The emergence of the platform economy is reorganizing work, employment, and value creation. The authors argue that the digital platforms are fracturing work itself as the places and types of work are being reorganized into a myriad of platform organized work arrangements with workplaces being potentially anywhere with Internet connectivity. The authors differ from most traditional narratives that focus solely upon either work displacement, a single type of platform-organized value-creating activity, or David Weil’s concentration solely upon the workplace. The authors recognize that even as some work is replaced, other work is being transformed; new work and old work in new arrangements is being created and recreated. The taxonomy begins with the workers employed directly by the platform and its contractors. The authors then introduce the category, platform-mediated work, which we divide into three groups: marketplaces such as Amazon; in-person service provision such as Uber and Airbnb; and remote service provision such as Upwork. The next category, “platform-mediated content creation,” is complex. The authors identify three groups of activities: consignment content creators that include services such as the app stores, YouTube, and Amazon Self-Publishing; non-platform organization content producers, which refers to the enormous number of workers occupied with creating and maintaining websites; and user-generated content which is the non-compensated value creation that ranges from content uploaded to Facebook, Instagram, etc. to reviews on sites such as Yelp. It is only when work and value creation is considered in all of these platform-based manifestations that we can understand the ultimate dimensions of the platform economy and comprehensively understand its implications for work.

This article comments on the management development philosophies and processes encountered during discussions with executives in four multinational high technology corporations and with faculty in five major USA Business Schools. The influence of computer‐based high technologies on management structures and systems within the corporations and on the activities of business schools in researching teaching influences is also reported.

The recent emergence of Chinese digital platform firms, whose size rivals that of the US platform giants, has attracted much popular interest. Given the size and increasing technical sophistication of these firms, there has been increasing interest in whether they have developed sufficient capacities and resources to become global-class competitors for the reigning US platform giants. The authors assembled a database of all overseas operations of the Chinese platform firms. Nine of them have foreign operations, with Tencent and Alibaba being the most important offshore investors. The authors describe the globalization patterns of these firms and analyze the strengths and obstacles to their globalization. Their globalization has proceeded on a number of vectors: first, these firms, with a few exceptions, when they have global strategies, have largely invested in firms with useful technology or content. One common strategy has been to follow Chinese customers abroad. Second, Chinese firms have made equity investments in a number of foreign Internet firms. And yet, in nearly all foreign markets, Chinese websites and apps still trail the US firms in market share and salience. Finally, Chinese investments are concentrated in proximate countries. Chinese platform firms, while having some state-of-the-art technologies, have a far smaller foreign presence than their US competitors do. Finally, the authors consider the implications of their research for discussions of whether emerging nation multinational firms require new theories for explaining their globalization.

Training costs money and the training of semi‐skilled staff is no exception. Indeed the numbers of employees in this category (approximately half the country's total work force) coupled with an often high labour turnover, must make semi‐skilled training one of the major items in the nation's training budget. But should the expenditure be as high as it is?

For many years it has been customary for UK firms to recruit graduates; and as most readers will be aware, large companies devote many expensive man hours to the university ‘milk round’ selecting young men to be trained for scientific, technological, or managerial jobs in industry. On the administrative, commercial, and general management side companies interview undergraduates and graduates, and attempt to select those with a flair for business.

a training primer Established training specialists are very familiar with the developments in industrial training which they initiated over the last decade in this country. However, the newcomer, seeking a broad introduction to the training function is often in a difficult position. While it is true that a wealth of information is now available to him, it is scattered in training journals, the Department of Employment and ITB publications, and in a limited number of specialist books. So far, what has been lacking is a basic and up‐to‐date account of training theory and practice: in other words — a training primer.

These details and drawings of patents granted in the United States arc taken, by permission of the Department of Commerce, from the ‘Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office’. Printed copies of the full specifications can be obtained, price 10 cents each, from the Commissioner of Patents, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. They are usually available for inspection at the British Patent Office, Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, London, W.C.2.