IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ejores/v207y2010i3p1658-1668.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pricing peer-produced services: Quality, capacity, and competition issues

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Yung-Ming
  • Lee, Yi-Lin

Abstract

Peer production has played an important role in the economics of Web 2.0 related services in which user participation and contribution become the main driving dynamics. However, the quality of peer-produced services is uncertain because of inherently decentralized and heterogeneous participants. In the paper, utilizing reliability and game theoretic models, we develop a QoS measure and pricing schemes for this emerging type of service under various market structures. Our results suggest that a monopolistic platform provider has no incentive to offer multiple quality classes of service. Two competing platform providers may offer identical service contracts but still receive non-negative profit. If they offer heterogeneous service contracts, the provider with the lower quality service may provide higher quality than he advertises. This research contributes to the literature with a number of unique and interesting implications for the issues of service contract design, capacity planning, and market interactions for operations of community-based or peer-produced services.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Yung-Ming & Lee, Yi-Lin, 2010. "Pricing peer-produced services: Quality, capacity, and competition issues," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 207(3), pages 1658-1668, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:207:y:2010:i:3:p:1658-1668
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377-2217(10)00453-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Josh Lerner & Jean Tirole, 2002. "Some Simple Economics of Open Source," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 197-234, June.
    2. Bruce Kogut & Anca Metiu, 2001. "Open-Source Software Development and Distributed Innovation," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 17(2), pages 248-264, Summer.
    3. Besiki Stvilia & Michael B. Twidale & Linda C. Smith & Les Gasser, 2008. "Information quality work organization in wikipedia," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 59(6), pages 983-1001, April.
    4. Teng, Jinn-Tsair & Thompson, Gerald L., 1996. "Optimal strategies for general price-quality decision models of new products with learning production costs," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 93(3), pages 476-489, September.
    5. Ravi Anupindi & Li Jiang, 2008. "Capacity Investment Under Postponement Strategies, Market Competition, and Demand Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(11), pages 1876-1890, November.
    6. Voros, Jozsef, 2006. "The dynamics of price, quality and productivity improvement decisions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 170(3), pages 809-823, May.
    7. Uday Karmarkar & Richard Pitbladdo, 1993. "Internal Pricing and Cost Allocation in a Model of Multiproduct Competition with Finite Capacity Increments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(9), pages 1039-1053, September.
    8. Ganesh Iyer, 1998. "Coordinating Channels Under Price and Nonprice Competition," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(4), pages 338-355.
    9. Manu Goyal & Serguei Netessine, 2007. "Strategic Technology Choice and Capacity Investment Under Demand Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(2), pages 192-207, February.
    10. Song, Qingyang & Jamalipour, Abbas, 2008. "A quality of service negotiation-based vertical handoff decision scheme in heterogeneous wireless systems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 191(3), pages 1059-1074, December.
    11. Carliss Y. Baldwin & Kim B. Clark, 2006. "The Architecture of Participation: Does Code Architecture Mitigate Free Riding in the Open Source Development Model?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(7), pages 1116-1127, July.
    12. Rajiv D. Banker & Inder Khosla & Kingshuk K. Sinha, 1998. "Quality and Competition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(9), pages 1179-1192, September.
    13. Karen A. Bantel & Susan E. Jackson, 1989. "Top management and innovations in banking: Does the composition of the top team make a difference?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(S1), pages 107-124, June.
    14. Richard P. Bagozzi & Utpal M. Dholakia, 2006. "Open Source Software User Communities: A Study of Participation in Linux User Groups," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(7), pages 1099-1115, July.
    15. Bhargava, Hemant K. & Sun, Daewon, 2008. "Pricing under quality of service uncertainty: Market segmentation via statistical QoS guarantees," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 191(3), pages 1189-1204, December.
    16. J. Christopher Westland, 1992. "Congestion and Network Externalities in the Short Run Pricing of Information System Services," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(7), pages 992-1009, July.
    17. Gérard P. Cachon & Fuqiang Zhang, 2007. "Obtaining Fast Service in a Queueing System via Performance-Based Allocation of Demand," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(3), pages 408-420, March.
    18. Stephen M. Gilbert & Z. Kevin Weng, 1998. "Incentive Effects Favor Nonconsolidating Queues in a Service System: The Principal--Agent Perspective," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(12-Part-1), pages 1662-1669, December.
    19. Zhang, Zhongju & Dey, Debabrata & Tan, Yong, 2008. "Price and QoS competition in data communication services," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 187(3), pages 871-886, June.
    20. Lakhani, Karim R. & von Hippel, Eric, 2003. "How open source software works: "free" user-to-user assistance," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 923-943, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhang, Cuihua & Xing, Peng, 2015. "A research on service quality decision-making of Chinese communications industry based on quantum game," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 432(C), pages 9-15.
    2. Reza RAJABIUN & Catherine MIDDLETON, 2015. "Lemons on the Edge of the Internet: The Importance of Transparency for Broadband Network Quality," Communications & Strategies, IDATE, Com&Strat dept., vol. 1(98), pages 119-136, 2nd quart.
    3. Vörös, József, 2013. "Multi-period models for analyzing the dynamics of process improvement activities," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 230(3), pages 615-623.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Frank Nagle, 2019. "Open Source Software and Firm Productivity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 1191-1215, March.
    2. Maha Shaikh & Emmanuelle Vaast, 2016. "Folding and Unfolding: Balancing Openness and Transparency in Open Source Communities," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(4), pages 813-833, December.
    3. Sheen S. Levine & Michael J. Prietula, 2014. "Open Collaboration for Innovation: Principles and Performance," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(5), pages 1414-1433, October.
    4. Engelhardt, Sebastian v. & Freytag, Andreas, 2013. "Institutions, culture, and open source," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 90-110.
    5. Giuri, Paola & Ploner, Matteo & Rullani, Francesco & Torrisi, Salvatore, 2010. "Skills, division of labor and performance in collective inventions: Evidence from open source software," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 54-68, January.
    6. Blecker, Thorsten & Abdelkafi, Nizar & Raasch, Christina, 2008. "Enabling and sustaining collaborative innovation," Working Papers 52, Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Institute for Technology and Innovation Management.
    7. Elina H. Hwang & Param Vir Singh & Linda Argote, 2015. "Knowledge Sharing in Online Communities: Learning to Cross Geographic and Hierarchical Boundaries," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(6), pages 1593-1611, December.
    8. Simon Gaechter & Georg von Krogh & Stefan Haefliger, 2006. "Private-Collective Innovation and the Fragility of Knowledge Sharing," Discussion Papers 2006-21, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    9. Shane Greenstein & Grace Gu & Feng Zhu, 2021. "Ideology and Composition Among an Online Crowd: Evidence from Wikipedians," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(5), pages 3067-3086, May.
    10. Francesco Rullani & Francesco Zirpoli, 2013. "Coordination of joint search in distributed innovation processes: Lessons from the effects of initial code release in Open Source Software development," Working Papers 20, Department of Management, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia.
    11. Stefan Haefliger & Georg von Krogh & Sebastian Spaeth, 2008. "Code Reuse in Open Source Software," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(1), pages 180-193, January.
    12. Gächter, Simon & von Krogh, Georg & Haefliger, Stefan, 2010. "Initiating private-collective innovation: The fragility of knowledge sharing," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 893-906, September.
    13. Denise Anthony & Sean W. Smith & Timothy Williamson, 2009. "Reputation and Reliability in Collective Goods," Rationality and Society, , vol. 21(3), pages 283-306, August.
    14. Smirnova, Inna & Reitzig, Markus & Alexy, Oliver, 2022. "What makes the right OSS contributor tick? Treatments to motivate high-skilled developers," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(1).
    15. Voros, Jozsef, 2006. "The dynamics of price, quality and productivity improvement decisions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 170(3), pages 809-823, May.
    16. Islam, Mazhar & Miller, Jacob & Park, Haemin Dennis, 2017. "But what will it cost me? How do private costs of participation affect open source software projects?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(6), pages 1062-1070.
    17. Becker, Markus C. & Rullani, Francesco & Zirpoli, Francesco, 2021. "The role of digital artefacts in early stages of distributed innovation processes," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(10).
    18. Nicolai j. Foss & Lars Frederiksen & Francesco Rullani, 2016. "Problem‐formulation and problem‐solving in self‐organized communities: How modes of communication shape project behaviors in the free open‐source software community," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(13), pages 2589-2610, December.
    19. Subramanyam, Ramanath & Xia, Mu, 2006. "Free/Libre Open Source Software Development in Developing and Developed Countries: An Exploratory Study," Working Papers 06-0110, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    20. Haruvy Ernan E & Wu Fang & Chakravarty Sujoy, 2005. "Incentives for Developers’ Contributions and Product Performance Metrics in Open Source Development: An Empirical Exploration," IIMA Working Papers WP2005-03-04, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:207:y:2010:i:3:p:1658-1668. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.