技能型共享经济买方个人信息披露、服务商信号释义及响应行为研究

Buyers’Personal Information Revelation Policies,Service Providers’Interpretation of the Signal and Responses in Skill-based Sharing Economy Platforms

近年来,技能型共享经济发展如火如荼,却依然面临整体匹配效率较低的问题。传统拍卖领域的信息披露制度设计或可为以买方决定式拍卖为主的技能共享经济领域提供新的洞见。本文基于交易成本理论和信号理论,提出信任效应和审核效应两种作用机制,构建了技能共享任务买方个人信息披露策略对服务商响应行为的影响模型。本文收集一品威客网的业务数据,采用OLS、Poisson、NB、Logist ic 等回归方法,实证考察买方个人信息披露对服务商参与、投标和担保行为的影响,并探索服务商能力对信息披露与服务商投标和担保行为之间关系的调节作用。研究结果表明,能力水平不同的服务商对买方个人信息披露信号的释义不同:高能力服务商倾向于从合作信任角度理解该信号(信任效应),低能力服务商倾向于从对抗审核角度理解该信号(审核效应)。审核效应与信任效应的分化可帮助买方有效筛选出整体能力更强的服务商群体。对于筛选出的已经参与竞标的服务商群体来说,信任效应占据主导地位,进而倾向于投标更短工期并提供担保;服务商能力强化了买方个人信息披露对服务商投标工期的负向影响和对担保行为的正向影响。

The skill-based sharing economy refers to a socio-economic system built around the sharing of resources like skills, experience, and creative ideas. In recent years, the turnover of well-known skill-based sharing platforms such as zbj.com, epwk.com, and Freelancer.com in China and abroad keeps increasing, and the skill sharing economy is in full swing. However, there are still some problems, such as poor overall transactions and low matching efficiency. The information revelation mechanism is one of the most common mechanisms applied in skill-based sharing practices, yet it receives insufficient attention and studies focusing on it are rare to see. Information revelation is one of the most important decisions to make for buyers. The information revelation strategy of the buyer, as the first mover in the interaction between the buyer and the seller, is very likely to affect later-movers’ or the service provider’s behavior. However, it is unclear how this effect happens and what the inf luencing path is. Information revelation designs in traditional auction studies might help to answer this research questions as transactions in skill-based sharing platforms are generally matched via buyer-determined auctions. Yet, researchers on traditional auction designs disagree on the optimal information revelation format, and the debate on the advantages and disadvantages of information disclosure is pending. Moreover, theoretical modelling and lab experiments dominate the auction design literature, and there exists much less empirical evidence based on large-scale practical data. Therefore, this paper attempts to analyze the relationship between the buyers’ personal information revelation strategies(real name, mobile phone number, email address and bank card) and the behaviors of potential service providers(participating, bidding and guarantee-providing behavior) in the skill-based sharing economy, and discuss the inf luence of personal information revelation strategies on the overall transaction performance. Based on the transaction cost theory and signaling theory, this paper provides a framework combined with trust effect and auditing effect. It constructs the theoretical logic of buyers’ information revelation(signaling)-signal interpretation of service providers-total cost estimation of service providers-service providers’ respondent behavior in the skill-based sharing economy, and thus establishes a research model depicting the mechanism of how buyers’ personal information revelation strategies affect the service providers’ behaviors in skill-based sharing economy platforms. Based on data collected from epwk.com, we adopt ordinary least squares regression(OLS), Poisson, negative binomial(NB), and logistic regressions to empirically test the inf luence of the revelation of buyers’ personal information on service providers’ participating, bidding and guarantee-providing behaviors. We also examine the moderating role of the service provider’s capability on the relationship between buyers’ personal information revelation decisions and their bidding and guarantee-providing behaviors. In order to further validate the causality relationship, this paper also adopts the propensity score matching(PSM) method to test the robustness. Results show that in the skillbased sharing economy, buyers’ revelation of more personal information will motivate service providers to behave more favorable to the buyer, thus promotes a better outcome. Specifically, service providers with different capabilities have different interpretations of the buyers’ personal information revelation signals. High-capability service providers tend to understand the signal from the perspective of cooperation and trust(trust effect), whereas low-capability service providers tend to understand the signal from the perspective of competition and auditing(auditing effect). This differentiation between trust and auditing effects enables buyers to effectively sift out service providers who have higher capabilities. For the selected service providers who have participated in the bidding, the trust effect occupies a dominant position, thus they are more inclined to bid shorter duration and willing to provide guarantee. Besides, the capability of the service provider also strengthens the negative effect of personal information revelation on bidding duration and the positive effect on the guarantee provision. This paper extends the classic transaction cost theory and signaling theory into the new context of skill-based sharing economy, and contributes to the literature of information revelation in the skill-based sharing economy. It also responds to the practical issues in skill-based sharing platforms and provides guidance for information revelation designs and buyers’ related strategies.