质量保证机制、平台治理透明度与旅游线路在线销售——携程网的准自然实验研究

Quality Assurance Mechanisms, Transparency of Platform Governance and Online Sales of Tour Routes:A Quasi-natural Experiment from Ctrip

旅游线路质量难以提前识别,多元化的质量保证机制可有效降低旅游者在线购买的感知风险,进而推动在线销售。而电商平台的治理透明度则为消费者识别质量信号提供有力保证。当前,多数研究聚焦于用户生成内容(UGC)的影响,缺乏对平台认证作用解释,聚焦旅游线路的影响研究更为少见。文章利用携程网2017年6月调整平台治理透明度的准自然实验机会,使用6个月225个细分市场出境包价旅游产品数据,检验了基于UGC和基于平台认证两种质量保证机制对在线销售的影响。首先,稳健估计了基于平台认证这一新质量信号的作用,发现钻级每提高1个等级平均可增加30.3%在线销量。其次,严谨证实了基于UGC的口碑评分与在线销量呈倒U形关系。研究还验证了平台治理透明度调整对上述两种质量保证机制的调节效应。结果显示,透明度的提高使得口碑评分与在线销量的关系变为平缓的U形,说明在极端高分的评分有用性得到加强,但是对平台认证不具有显著的调节效应。研究结果为构建品质驱动的旅游电商平台生态系统提供了实践启示。

Due to the difficulty in evaluating tourist routes’ service quality before taking the trip, tourists face the high perceived risk of service quality when they purchase tourist routes online. The e-commerce platform ecosystem needs to pay attention to consumer uncertainty about product quality. To ensure the healthy development of platform ecosystems, the platform needs to provide various quality assurance mechanisms to help consumers assess route quality. However, most extant studies have presented evidence on user-generated quality assurance mechanisms such as Internet word-of-mouth. Few research has been conducted on the role of platform certification. Research has further revealed that user-generated online word of mouth can be distorted due to behavioral and environmental influences and thus fail to reflect the service quality accurately in hotels and other service sectors.Following classification of quality signal sources, this study identifies two types of quality mechanisms: user-generated quality(self-generated from customers) and certification-based quality from platform. While the user-generated quality assurance mechanism transmits information from the customers’ review and comments on e-commerce platform, the certification-based quality delivers quality information by platform owners. In other words, different quality assurance mechanisms may present quality assurance differences among the platform owners and customers. Therefore, this paper explores the effect of two quality mechanisms on online sales of tour routes. Two hypotheses of direct effects are proposed.The effects of quality assurance mechanisms depend on not only the transmission of quality signal but also the transparency of platform governance. Transparency of platform governance refers to the visibility extent of collecting a series of policies formulated by the platform owners to coordinate the behaviors of multiple ecosystem participants. High visibility of platform governance will improve the transmission efficiency of quality signal and reduce consumer perceived costs.In this paper, using data from Ctrip.com, we aim to identify and measure the causal impact of two types of quality assurance mechanisms on online sales of outbound travel routes. In particular, we exploit an exogenous shock to quality assurance mechanisms caused by a change of transparency of platform governance, which gives rise to a quasi-natural experimental design in June 2017. Three main findings have been identified as follows:(1) This paper provides a robust estimate of the role of platform certification. Keeping search technology and other factors constant, increasing a diamond level will leads to a 30.3% increase in online sales of travel routes.(2) Research results verify that the usergenerated quality assurance mechanism has an inverted U-shaped relationship with online sales.(3) We attribute the effect to the increased transparency of platform governance. The higher transparency helps strengthen the relationship between user-generated quality assurance mechanism and online sales in the short-term, and increase the impact of certification-based quality assurance mechanism in the long-term.This paper has the potential to generate scientific insights for designing quality assurance mechanisms in e-commerce platform and promoting the healthy evolution of the platform ecosystem.