How do platforms improve social capital within sharing economy-based service triads: an information processing perspective

Dun Li; Fu Jia; Tobias Schoenherr; Guoquan Liu

doi:10.1080/09537287.2022.2101959

How do platforms improve social capital within sharing economy-based service triads: an information processing perspective

Dun Li, Fu Jia^*, Tobias Schoenherr, Guoquan Liu

^*Corresponding author for this work

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Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

This study examines how platforms within sharing economy-based service triads (SESTs) can improve their social capital through information processing and knowledge management mechanisms, with the objective to provide better platform services to both service suppliers and end customers. Data were collected through multiple case studies, primarily relying on insight gathered from 32 semi-structured interviews with managers from four sharing economy platform companies in the Chinese ride-sharing (DiDi and Uber China) and logistics-sharing (Huo-che-bang and Yun-man-man) industries. Through our analysis we uncover uncertainties faced by sharing economy platforms in SETSs (including task complexity, over-competition, and task coordination), delineating their information processing requirements. Based on our findings we suggest that these requirements can be addressed by enhanced intra-organizational structures that would contribute to the SESTs’ information processing capacity. Accomplishing this fit between a platform’s information processing requirements and associated information processing capacity carries great promise to not only affect the platform’s knowledge management capability (PKMC) but also the social capital created within SESTs.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	507-524
Journal	Production Planning and Control
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2022.2101959
Publication status	Published - 19 Jul 2022

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10.1080/09537287.2022.2101959Licence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "How do platforms improve social capital within sharing economy-based service triads: an information processing perspective",

abstract = "This study examines how platforms within sharing economy-based service triads (SESTs) can improve their social capital through information processing and knowledge management mechanisms, with the objective to provide better platform services to both service suppliers and end customers. Data were collected through multiple case studies, primarily relying on insight gathered from 32 semi-structured interviews with managers from four sharing economy platform companies in the Chinese ride-sharing (DiDi and Uber China) and logistics-sharing (Huo-che-bang and Yun-man-man) industries. Through our analysis we uncover uncertainties faced by sharing economy platforms in SETSs (including task complexity, over-competition, and task coordination), delineating their information processing requirements. Based on our findings we suggest that these requirements can be addressed by enhanced intra-organizational structures that would contribute to the SESTs{\textquoteright} information processing capacity. Accomplishing this fit between a platform{\textquoteright}s information processing requirements and associated information processing capacity carries great promise to not only affect the platform{\textquoteright}s knowledge management capability (PKMC) but also the social capital created within SESTs.",

author = "Dun Li and Fu Jia and Tobias Schoenherr and Guoquan Liu",

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AU - Schoenherr, Tobias

AU - Liu, Guoquan

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N2 - This study examines how platforms within sharing economy-based service triads (SESTs) can improve their social capital through information processing and knowledge management mechanisms, with the objective to provide better platform services to both service suppliers and end customers. Data were collected through multiple case studies, primarily relying on insight gathered from 32 semi-structured interviews with managers from four sharing economy platform companies in the Chinese ride-sharing (DiDi and Uber China) and logistics-sharing (Huo-che-bang and Yun-man-man) industries. Through our analysis we uncover uncertainties faced by sharing economy platforms in SETSs (including task complexity, over-competition, and task coordination), delineating their information processing requirements. Based on our findings we suggest that these requirements can be addressed by enhanced intra-organizational structures that would contribute to the SESTs’ information processing capacity. Accomplishing this fit between a platform’s information processing requirements and associated information processing capacity carries great promise to not only affect the platform’s knowledge management capability (PKMC) but also the social capital created within SESTs.

AB - This study examines how platforms within sharing economy-based service triads (SESTs) can improve their social capital through information processing and knowledge management mechanisms, with the objective to provide better platform services to both service suppliers and end customers. Data were collected through multiple case studies, primarily relying on insight gathered from 32 semi-structured interviews with managers from four sharing economy platform companies in the Chinese ride-sharing (DiDi and Uber China) and logistics-sharing (Huo-che-bang and Yun-man-man) industries. Through our analysis we uncover uncertainties faced by sharing economy platforms in SETSs (including task complexity, over-competition, and task coordination), delineating their information processing requirements. Based on our findings we suggest that these requirements can be addressed by enhanced intra-organizational structures that would contribute to the SESTs’ information processing capacity. Accomplishing this fit between a platform’s information processing requirements and associated information processing capacity carries great promise to not only affect the platform’s knowledge management capability (PKMC) but also the social capital created within SESTs.

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