Recently, the research Making the Most of Regret: Workers' Relocation Decisions in on-demand Platforms, with professor Jiang Zhongzhong from the School of Business Administration of NEU as the first author, has been accepted by Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (MSOM), a world-class management journal. The research, as an important embodiment and key symbol of high-level international cooperation and high-quality research achievements of the school, will contribute to NEU’s development of “a world-class university and world-class disciplines”. The research is co-authored by professor Jiang Zhongzhong from the School of Business Administration of NEU, assistant professor Kong Guangwen from the FOX School of Business and Management of Temple University, and assistant professor Zhang Yinghao from Carl H. Lindner College of Business of University of Cincinnati.
With the progress of intelligent Internet technology, the sharing economy has become an important acting point to foster and strengthen new drivers of economic development in the context where the world economy and China's economy are transforming from high-speed growth to high-quality development. As an important part of the sharing economy, on-demand platforms represented by Uber and Didi usually assume that their employees are perfectly rational people who can make optimal decisions in the operation of supply-demand matching (i.e. matching between employees and customers). In this case, the study explores how bounded rational behaviors affect employees' decision-making and the system performance from the perspective of bounded rationality in behavioral science. In this study, behavioral modeling and behavioral experiments are combined. Firstly, an analytical model taking account of bounded rationality is established and theoretical prediction is made. Then, the model is tested and verified through a series of behavioral experiments. The research findings show that although the bounded rational employees are more willing to move to the regions with a shortage of supply than the perfectly rational employees, the increased transfer behavior cannot fully improve the system performance. Therefore, the study suggests that these platforms formulate corresponding policies, such as information sharing and dynamic salary, to further improve the system performance. An important research finding is that the bounded rational behaviors of employees may increase the profits of the platforms and their employees, and improve the efficiency of supply-demand matching, thus improving the performance of the whole system. This study is the first in the world to include employees’ behavioral deviation (bounded rational behaviors) in the policy design for on-demand platforms, and it confirms the significance of behavioral factors. According to the research findings, policies not taking account of employees’ behavior deviation may lead to losses to the profits of the platforms and the benefits of their employees and customers, which is not conducive to the healthy development of the on-demand market in the sharing economy. Nowadays, China's economic development has entered a new era. This study will have a reference significance for vigorously developing the sharing economy, thoroughly carrying out the new development concept, promoting the supply-side structural reform, implementing the innovation-driven development strategy, and boosting the "Internet plus" action.
MSOM is a prestigious operations management journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). It is one of the top three internationally recognized journals in the field of management science and operations management, with the other two as Management Science and Operations Research, which are both subordinate to INFORMS.