Reputation has often been proposed as the central mechanism that creates trust in the sharing economy. However, some sharing platforms that focus primarily on social rather than economically driven exchanges have managed to facilitate exchanges between users without the use of a reputation system. This could indicate that socially driven exchanges are in less need of reputation systems and that having sufficient trust is less problematic. We examine the effect of seller reputation on sales and price as proxies for trust, using a large dataset from a Dutch meal-sharing platform. This platform aims to stimulate social interactions between people via meal sharing. Multilevel regression analyses were used to test the association of reputation with trust. Our main empirical results are that reputation affects both sales and price positively, consistent with the existing reputation literature. We also found evidence of the presence of an information effect, i.e., the influence of reputation on sharing decreases when additional profile information is provided (e.g., a profile photo, a product description). Our results thus confirm the effectiveness of reputation in more socially driven exchanges also. Consequently, platform owners are advised to use reputation on their platform to increase sharing between its users.
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An overview of innovations in a particular area, for example retail developments in the fashion sector (Van Vliet, 2014), and a subsequent discussion about the probability as to whether these innovations will realise a ‘breakthrough’, has to be supplemented with the question of what the added value is for the customer of such a new service or product. The added value for the customer must not only be clear as to its direct (instrumental or hedonic) incentives but it must also be tested on its merits from a business point of view. This requires a methodology. Working with business models is a method for describing the added value of products/services for customers in a systematic and structured manner. The fact that this is not always simple is evident from the discussions about retail developments, which do not excel in well-grounded business models. If there is talk about business models at all, it is more likely to concern strategic positioning in the market or value chain, or the discussion is about specifics like earning- and distribution-models (see Molenaar, 2011; Shopping 2020, 2014). Here we shall deal with two aspects of business models. First of all we shall look at the different perspectives in the use of business models, ultimately arriving at four distinctive perspectives or methods of use. Secondly, we shall outline the context within which business models operate. As a conclusion we shall distil a research framework from these discussions by presenting an integrated model as the basis for further research into new services and product.
The benefits of collaborative purchasing are many, yet in the healthcare sector, in particular at hospitals, it is still uncommon. In this paper we identify major impediments for collaborative purchasing, resulting in a first component of our proposed collaborative e-purchasing model for hospitals; as a second component it contains a collaborative purchasing typology. After analysis of a first validation round with hospital purchasing professionals, the results show four applicable purchasing types and fourteen collaborative purchasing impediments that are perceived as important for hospitals. The model is further extended by possible IT solutions, identified by experts, addressing the specific fourteen impediments. We conclude that the collaborative e-purchasing model can be used by healthcare consortia, branche organizations, partnering healthcare institutes and multi-site healthcare institutes as a means to help identifying strategies to initiate, manage and evaluate collaborative purchasing practices.
