Research On The Market Operation Strategies Of Firms In The Sharing Economy

With the progress of modern information technology,the sharing economy has rapidly emerged,developed and matured worldwide.The sharing economy has the characteristics of mass,high efficiency and experience,and its typical types include product sharing,space sharing,information sharing,labor sharing,capital sharing,capacity sharing and so on.This research focuses on two types of sharing economy,that is,information sharing and capacity sharing.In particular,information sharing occurs between consumers and capacity sharing occurs between firms.Consumer information sharing is very common,wherein consumers having purchased a certain kind of goods share their experience information of the purchased goods on the network platform,to help later consumers better understand these goods so as to make better purchase decisions.Firm capacity sharing also has a long history,wherein firms can better adapt to market competition and reduce idle waste by sharing their own idle capacity with their competitors.For consumer information sharing and firm capacity sharing,the related research needs to be improved.The previous literature on consumer information sharing mainly focuses on its empirical aspects,and lacks the exploration of the mechanisms of firm and consumer behaviors.Meanwhile,firms' coopetition under firm capacity sharing remains to be clarified.In order to better guide the behaviors of participants in the sharing economy and promote the prosperity of the sharing economy,it is necessary to study the firms that occupy the core position of consumer information sharing and firm capacity sharing,and clarify their behavior mechanisms and subsequent consequences.To this end,this research studies the firms' market operation strategies under consumer information sharing and firm capacity sharing.By using several methods such as game theory,numerical simulation and case analysis,this research systematically analyzes the behavior mechanisms of participants in the sharing economy by establishing the theoretical models of consumer information sharing and firm capacity sharing,respectively,and focuses on exploring the market operation strategies of firms,so as to provide references for the behavior decisions of firms and consumers under consumer information sharing and firm capacity sharing.The main works and contributions of this research are shown as follows.Firstly,the dynamic pricing strategy of the firm under consumer information sharing is studied.Product quality design is exogenous,but the designed product is hit by random quality shock in the manufacturing process,so the sold quality has some uncertainty.Both the firm and consumers donot know the realized sold quality.Consumers make strategicdecisions about the timing of product purchase.This research establishes a theoretical model including dynamic pricing and bilateral social learning of firm and consumers.Comparing the equilibrium results of the established model with those of no consumer information sharing,this research discusses the influence of uncertain factors in the process of consumer information sharing on the comparison results.Secondly,the quality design strategy of firm under consumer information sharing is studied.The firm first makes the product design quality decision,but the designed product is hit by random quality shock in the manufacturing process,so the sold quality has some uncertainty.The firm knows the sold quality of the products it produces,but consumers donot.Therefore,this research explores product quality design in the context of information asymmetry between firm and consumers and consumer social learning.In addition,this research also analyzes how firm profit and consumer welfare under consumer information sharing are affected by uncertain factors in the process of consumer information sharing.Thirdly,the coopetition strategies of firms under firm capacity sharing are studied.This research first establishes a coopetition game model in the context of unilateral firm capacity sharing and compares market competition and firm profit under both linear transfer payment contract and revenue sharing contract.Further,this research is extended by building a coopetition game model in the context of bilateral capacity sharing,which is verified by a case study.In summary,this research studies the market operation strategies of firms and their corresponding market performances under both consumer information sharing and firm capacity sharing.The research conclusions can generate meaningful management insights and provide decision references for participants in consumer information sharing and firm capacity sharing.