平台接入、线上声誉与市场竞争格局

Platform Access,Online Reputation and Market Competition Pattern

随着数字化进程的深入,企业普遍选择平台接入,并积累形成线上声誉,影响市场竞争格局。本文基于酒店行业进行理论与实证分析,研究平台接入如何通过线上声誉影响入住率及市场竞争格局。理论模型表明,较高平台接入程度可优化酒店线上声誉,弱化信息不对称,提高入住率;非连锁酒店相比连锁酒店可获得更大收益,行业竞争格局因此改变。实证方面,通过使用1716万个样本点的酒店日度面板数据进行检验发现:(1)平台接入程度较高的酒店比其他酒店入住率高4.5个百分点;(2)非连锁酒店入住率的提高程度比连锁酒店高2.3个百分点,其行业市场份额也显著提升;(3)线上声誉机制作用显著。本文研究结论对各行各业以平台接入方式有效推进数字化转型,建立合理有序线上评分系统以及公平竞争线上营商环境,具有一定现实意义和政策启示。

The advancement of digital technology accelerates the digital transformation of enterprises and one of the most popular ways is platform access.It provides opportunities for both incumbents and entrants and significantly changes the pattern of market competition.Previous studies mainly focused on the overall effect,like efficient matching,brought by platform access,while the heterogeneity of benefits obtained by enterprises was overlooked.The specific mechanism of the effects of platform access on market competition needs further exploration from both theoretical and empirical aspects.Since consumers are more and more inclined to depend on online ratings to make purchase choices for daily consumption,online reputation has become an important factor for platform access to affect the market competition pattern.It weakens the role of the offline reputation mechanism,which can be tested by comparing the effect of platform access on chain stores and non-chain stores.Relevant studies find that the digital economy significantly decreases the value of offline reputations,such as chain and brand,and the motivations of direct operations or franchises are decreasing over time.The platform access adds importance to online reputation and reduces the relative disadvantage in offline reputation of non-chain stores,which may reshape the market competition pattern.Based on the theoretical and empirical analysis of the hotel industry,we examine how platform access affects occupancy rates and market competition patterns through online reputation.The theoretical model shows that more platform access would raise a hotel's online reputation,reduce information asymmetry and increase occupancy rate;and the beneficial effects obtained by non-chain hotels are higher than by chain hotels.Using hotel-daily panel data with over 17 million observations,the empirical estimation shows that platform access would enhance the occupancy rate of hotels with more platform access by 4.5 percentage points more than that of other hotels.It would also increase 2.3 percentage points of non-chain hotels over that of chain hotels and significantly enlarge the market share of non-chain hotels.Moreover,a positive online reputation significantly increases the occupancy rate.Our work contributes to the literature in the following three aspects.First,our work provides a theoretical framework and empirical evidence for the long-standing controversy over whether online and offline markets are complementary or substitute.It shows that platform access reshapes the pattern of market competition.For offline entity enterprises,a digital platform is not a pure substitute and the effect of platform access can be divergent.Second,by comparing the effects on chain stores and non-chain stores,our work empirically specifies the role of the online reputation mechanism in competition,which matters more and may even dominate the offline reputation with the expansion of the online market.Third,we uniquely measure the degree of access to the hotel platform based on a large data sample.In contrast to the past indicators for access measurement like the computer usage rate,whether to access the Internet as well as whether to use email in the previous studies,we are concerned about the high digitization degree of enterprises and originally set a dummy variable of special hotels,i.e.,the hotels that have established close cooperation with Ctrip in reality,to measure the platform access degree.The relevant conclusions of our study can be applied to various fields of economic digitization,and the policy implication focus on four aspects:first,enterprises should be encouraged to promote digital transformation by platform access,and establish deep cooperative relations with platforms by means of brand stores and senior members,so as to improve the quality and reputation of products or services.Second,the platform should establish a more reasonable and orderly online scoring system to combat fake scoring behaviors.Third,the whole society should build up the low-cost and efficient online business environment,and establish a proper mechanism with commitment,guarantee and accountability to promote online transactions.Fourth,the market should play a better role in setting up competitive mechanism and keep the reasonable order in online economic activities.