Pay, Pat, and Clawback: Incentivizing Service Providers’ Participation in On-Demand Digital Platforms
通过与大型按需数字平台合作进行12项微型随机实验，研究了货币与非货币激励组合及损失厌恶框架如何影响服务提供者的参与水平，发现非货币激励会抑制货币激励的效果，且损失厌恶框架仅增强非货币激励的有效性。
A critical governance challenge for on-demand digital platforms is to increase the participation of their service providers. In this research, we design novel incentive structures by taking the unique features of on-demand digital platforms into account. In 12 micro randomized trials conducted in partnership with a major on-demand digital platform, we examine how combining monetary with nonmonetary incentives and providing them within a loss-aversion framework could motivate service providers to increase their participation levels. We show that in on-demand platforms the nonmonetary incentives inhibit the impact of monetary incentives on service provider participation once they are offered together. Furthermore, in contrast to traditional work settings, offering incentives within a loss-aversion framework only increases the effectiveness of nonmonetary incentives. We provide theoretical explanations and empirical examinations for these counterintuitive results. The insights from this research could be used by on-demand digital platforms to effectively mobilize and sustain their service providers’ participation to meet real-time stochastic demand. This paper was accepted by Anindya Ghose, information systems. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.02603 .