{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,2]],"date-time":"2025-08-02T17:26:56Z","timestamp":1754155616803,"version":"3.41.2"},"reference-count":36,"publisher":"Emerald","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,16]],"date-time":"2023-10-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1697414400000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/site-policies"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["IMDS"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2024,1,2]]},"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Purpose<\/jats:title><jats:p>For an entrant platform in the on-demand service market, choosing an appropriate employment model is critical. This study explores how the entrant optimally chooses the employment model to achieve better performance and investigates the optimal pricing strategies and wage schemes for both incumbent and entrant platforms.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Design\/methodology\/approach<\/jats:title><jats:p>Based on the Hotelling model, the authors develop a game-theoretic framework to study the incumbent's and entrant's optimal service prices and wage schemes. Moreover, the authors determine the entrant's optimal employment model by comparing the entrant's optimal profits under different market configurations and analytically analyze the impacts of some critical factors on the platforms' decision-making.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Findings<\/jats:title><jats:p>This study reveals that the impacts of the unit misfit cost of suppliers or consumers on the pricing strategies and wage schemes vary with different operational efficiencies of platforms. Only when both the service efficiency of contractors and the basic employee benefits are low, entrants should adopt the employee model. Moreover, a lower unit misfit cost of suppliers or consumers makes entrants more likely to choose the contractor model. However, the service efficiency of contractors has nonmonotonic effects on the entrant's decision.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Originality\/value<\/jats:title><jats:p>This study focuses on an entrant's decision on the optimal employment model in an on-demand service market, considering the competition between entrants and incumbents on both the supplier and consumer sides, which has not been investigated in the prior literature.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1108\/imds-04-2023-0243","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,13]],"date-time":"2023-10-13T13:46:45Z","timestamp":1697204805000},"page":"29-63","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Optimal employment model for an\u00a0entrant platform in on-demand service market"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"124","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0226-0976","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ling","family":"Zhang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5646-0397","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Nan","family":"Feng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4301-001X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Haiyang","family":"Feng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Minqiang","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"140","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,16]]},"reference":[{"issue":"3","key":"key2023122714451399500_ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"556","DOI":"10.1287\/msom.2018.0707","article-title":"Coordinating supply and demand on an on-demand service platform with impatient customers","volume":"21","year":"2019","journal-title":"Manufacturing and Service Operations Management"},{"year":"2020","key":"key2023122714451399500_ref002","article-title":"Do workers and customers benefit from competition between on-demand service platforms?"},{"issue":"1","key":"key2023122714451399500_ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"110","DOI":"10.1287\/msom.2020.0964","article-title":"Labor welfare in on-demand service platforms","volume":"24","year":"2022","journal-title":"Manufacturing and Service Operations Management"},{"key":"key2023122714451399500_ref004","unstructured":"Bika, N. 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