共享經濟背景下平台粘性研究

Abstract

The Opinions on Supporting Multi-Channel Flexible Employment, issued by the General Office of the State Council in 2020, clearly states that it supports the development of new forms of employment, the creation of more flexible jobs, and the absorption of more workers for employment. After the outbreak of the new crown epidemic in 2020, the ranks of odd-job workers grew larger and larger due to the unstable economic situation, the pressure of life, and the epidemic prevention and control of home-based offices. In order to match the supply and demand of labor in the gig economy, gig platforms continue to develop. In addition to matching labor supply and demand in the labor market, the gig platform studied in this paper also provides recruitment information, service fee settlement, labor complaints and other related services. Practitioners of the casual labor economy work without time and space constraints, and are not restricted by specific industry sectors, so their work autonomy and flexibility are greatly enhanced. These factors that are advantages for the practitioners of the gig economy are factors to be worried about for gig platforms. Gig platforms are exposed to fluctuations and instability in labor supply, and thus gig platforms suffer from a lack of user stickiness and a poor willingness to continue to use them. If a gig platform fails to attract and retain a large number of practitioners, it may often face two problems: one is that sometimes there is a labor shortage problem, and labor-using enterprises have difficulty in recruiting workers, which discourages labor-using enterprises from using the platform; and the other is that sometimes there is a labor surplus problem, and there is a scarcity of employment opportunities for workers and fewer jobs, which discourages users of gig platforms, and this will affect the survival of the platform in the long run. Therefore, how to prevent the loss of users and enhance user stickiness has become an urgent problem to be solved.

Currently, there are not many researches on the user stickiness of gig platforms by scholars, but along with the expansion of the scale of gig economy, these gig platforms have become an important part of China's gig economy, and it is necessary to explore how the personal characteristics of the users of the gig platforms, the characteristics of the platform use behavior and the platform operation strategy affect the continuous use behavior of odd-job workers, and thus influence the stickiness of the platforms, which is important for the platforms to formulate targeted platform operation strategies for different groups of odd-job workers, and then enhance the experience of odd-job workers' use of the platforms and enhance the stickiness of the platforms, and further promote the development of China's gig economy.

Based on a large number of literature studies, this paper explores the factors affecting the user stickiness of the gig platform and their interactions with each other based on the SOR theory, the rational behavior theory, the technology acceptance model, the trust theory, and the satisfaction theory, following the principle of combining qualitative and quantitative research, and adopting the methodology of literature study, in-depth interview, questionnaire survey, and empirical analysis. Mechanism. In order to explore the influencing factors of the user stickiness of the odd-job platform, this paper takes the odd-job workers on Shangjia Good Rice Bowl platform as the object of investigation, because the service fee of this kind of odd-job workers is usually settled by hourly rate, so the odd-job workers on Shangjia Good Rice Bowl platform are often called hourly-jobs. In this paper, we first conducted semi-structured interviews with 32 hourly workers to obtain interview data, and then coded and analyzed the interview data based on the rooting theory and NVivo software to construct a research model of the factors influencing user stickiness behavior. Then, based on the influencing factors of user stickiness and the characteristics of the gig platform and combining with other scholars' related research, the theoretical model of the influencing factors of user stickiness of gig platform was constructed, and the questionnaire measurement items were designed with reference to related literature. Through the method of questionnaire survey, 341 valid questionnaires were collected, and on the basis of descriptive statistics and reliability analysis of the sample data, the structural equation modeling method was used to empirically analyze the questionnaire data.

The research results show that trust and user satisfaction are influenced by information transparency, peer communication, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use, and that trust and user satisfaction have a significant positive effect on user stickiness. Based on the results of the study, relevant strategies are proposed for the platform to improve user stickiness. First, since the group of odd-job workers is not protected by the labor law itself, the platform managers should pay attention to the way and method of management and give more humanistic care to the group of odd-job workers; second, in order to improve the work motivation of the odd-job workers, the platform can set up diversified incentives; The platform can devise a reasonable promotion mechanism to provide a development path for those odd-job workers who work hard. Finally, to encourage the odd-job workers to introduce and publicize the platform to more people around them and increase the platform's popularity, a referral fee can be set. This study is intended to provide lessons for gig platforms to enhance the stability of labor supply.

Date of Award	4 Mar 2024
Original language	Chinese (Traditional)
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Hong LING (External Supervisor) & Jingjun David XU (Supervisor)