Geng Sun, Yeongin Kim, Yinliang (Ricky) Tan, Geoffrey G. Parker
{"title":"Dinner at Your Doorstep: Service Innovation via the Gig Economy on Food Delivery Platforms","authors":"Geng Sun, Yeongin Kim, Yinliang (Ricky) Tan, Geoffrey G. Parker","doi":"10.1287/isre.2022.0119","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Despite the rapid growth of online food delivery (OFD) market, the impact of its three-sided nature—encompassing consumers, restaurants, and gig drivers—on incentives and payoffs remains unclear compared to the traditional two-sided model. This study examines how OFD platforms make optimal choices in a competitive environment involving pricing and service quality. The analysis reveals that insights from two-sided platforms don’t seamlessly translate to OFD markets. The triad nature of OFD can either dampen or heighten price competition in the buyer-seller market, altering subsidization dynamics for platforms. While conventional platforms suffer from negative network effects due to participation pressure, OFD platforms can adapt service strategies to mitigate this. However, introducing gig labor might not always benefit OFD platforms as it could trigger a prisoner’s dilemma situation by empowering competing platforms. The study underscores the dependence of platform strategies on network effects’ strength. As the gig economy rises, the employment status of gig workers garners controversy. The study demonstrates that implementing minimum wage regulations, while benefiting gig drivers, might diminish societal welfare. These findings offer guidance to policymakers aiming to balance gig workers’ interests with overall societal concerns.","PeriodicalId":48411,"journal":{"name":"Information Systems Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Information Systems Research","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2022.0119","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"INFORMATION SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Despite the rapid growth of online food delivery (OFD) market, the impact of its three-sided nature—encompassing consumers, restaurants, and gig drivers—on incentives and payoffs remains unclear compared to the traditional two-sided model. This study examines how OFD platforms make optimal choices in a competitive environment involving pricing and service quality. The analysis reveals that insights from two-sided platforms don’t seamlessly translate to OFD markets. The triad nature of OFD can either dampen or heighten price competition in the buyer-seller market, altering subsidization dynamics for platforms. While conventional platforms suffer from negative network effects due to participation pressure, OFD platforms can adapt service strategies to mitigate this. However, introducing gig labor might not always benefit OFD platforms as it could trigger a prisoner’s dilemma situation by empowering competing platforms. The study underscores the dependence of platform strategies on network effects’ strength. As the gig economy rises, the employment status of gig workers garners controversy. The study demonstrates that implementing minimum wage regulations, while benefiting gig drivers, might diminish societal welfare. These findings offer guidance to policymakers aiming to balance gig workers’ interests with overall societal concerns.
期刊介绍:
ISR (Information Systems Research) is a journal of INFORMS, the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. Information Systems Research is a leading international journal of theory, research, and intellectual development, focused on information systems in organizations, institutions, the economy, and society.