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Buoyed by the desire to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and develop sustainable urban transportation, the dockless bike-sharing industry boomed in China during 2017–2018. To the surprise of the stakeholders, this industry dramatically ebbed in 2019. The dockless bike-sharing system deviated from a problem-solver to a troublemaker in a very short period. The oversupplied and excessively discarded shared bikes caused a big waste of resources and serious pollution to the environment. In this paper, the decision-making of the key players of the industry, i.e. business operators, investors, customers and government, is analyzed through the lens of the cognitive bias. This paper aims to illuminate the process of how this innovative transport solution turned to a disastrous ending, which caused damage to urban environment and financial loss to investors.

In this study, a qualitative analysis based on the rich secondary data sources is conducted. A rich amount of qualitative data including news reports, government policies, consulting reports and companies’ annual reports etc. were collected.

The study shows, in the product introduction period, the government, business operators, investors and consumers fell into the cognitive bias. They over focused on the positive side such as high-tech, eco-friendly, convenient image of the dockless bike-sharing solution. Thereby, the key stakeholders made irrational decisions in product adoption and management. This study moves toward increasing key stakeholders’ awareness of the imperative to reduce these biases when promoting eco-innovations. This study also recommends a prudent attitude with a rational and comprehensive thinking style in dealing with eco-innovation and the emerging sharing economy.

To solve the cognitive biases, this study recommends that people use rational decision-making style to examine and adopt the dockless bike-sharing solutions. Practical recommendations to tackle the existing recycling crisis of the dockless bike-sharing industry are also discussed.

Students will be able to analyse competitive situations of the focal firm in the platform market, factors that make the focal firm become dominant in the sharing economy through the technology platform and the focal firm’s motives and growth strategies through mergers and acquisitions and overseas expansion, as well as give recommendations on the focal firm’s strategies to move forward to achieve and maintain its competitive position in the platform market.

On 4^th April, 2018, Meituan-Dianping (Meituan), a Chinese group-buying website for consumer products and retail services acquired Mobike, a Chinese dockless bike-sharing platform for US$2.7bn. Mobike had raised several rounds of funding for its large investments and operations in this highly competitive and cash-intensive industry. However, it was still struggling to survive and make a profit in the Chinese and overseas markets. It was believed that the merger between the companies was the only viable alternative. Had Meituan’s Chief Executive Officer made the right decision in acquiring Mobike? After Mobike became an integral part of Meituan, what should be done to turn this technology platform to be profitable in the Chinese and overseas market?

The case is intended for senior undergraduate or graduate-level courses in business schools.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Bike-sharing is popular worldwide, and it has led to a new development direction in green transportation. However, the collapse of many bike-sharing startups and residual social problems has brought about contradictions and challenges to the development of the industry. The purpose of this paper is to determine how internal factors affect the survival of bike-sharing startups.

The authors used binary logit regression as the measurement model to conduct an empirical analysis based on 137 bike-sharing startups in China. The study focuses on using traditional theoretical evidence and considers the uniqueness of the industry to jointly explore the survival factors that influence the emerging business model of bike-sharing.

The results show that entrepreneurial team size and differentiation strategy positively influence survival. Founder-CEOs have a negative impact on survival. Founders' entrepreneurial experience and venture capital have no significant influence on survival.

The results verify the role of traditional survival factors in the new business model of sharing economy and fill the research gap on the survival strategy of startups. This study offers a unique perspective for researchers to better understand the sharing economy industry and provides practical guidance for entrepreneurs and investors to enter the market.

The overnight introduction of tens of thousands of dockless bike-share bicycles in Singapore with its indiscriminate parking drew the attention of the media, which generated extensive news reports on the activities carried out by bike-sharing operators. Given the meteoric rise and fall of the industry, this study examines the influence of agenda-setting of news reporting on the public’s perception of the industry and the impact on the firms’ corporate reputation.

Utilizing the Reputation Quotient Index, the study content analyzed 147 textual data of online reports which were crawled over two years between 2017 and 2018 from six mainstream news organizations.

Our findings showed that the news reports carried more negative frames in the headlines and body content. It also found that only five out of six dimensions of the Index were emphasized with varying degrees of importance, indicating that the corporate reputation as determined by the media reports did not collectively represent the operators’ past actions and results with valued outcomes.

Practical implications discussed included the need to integrate corporate strategies into public relations programs and the importance of engaging the media to demonstrate congruence between business objectives and positive social impact on society.

Although the study limited its data collection only to online media reports, it is one of the few research to provide empirical evidence concerning the media’s influence on the public’s perceptions and reputation of the nascent bike-sharing industry.

The purpose of this study is to connect disruptive innovation and sharing economy by exploring the underlying mechanisms of how a disruptive innovation–based business project creates, delivers and captures value in sharing economy through analyzing the case of bike sharing in China.

An elaborate case study is used to unfold the process as well as the underlying mechanism and relationships among disruptive innovation, business model, bike-sharing business and value creation in sharing economy.

Bike sharing case fits well in disruptive innovation theory. Its low price and great convenience have led to rapid development in China. However, failures to improve their products and services and build an effective business model which can create, deliver and capture value have caused the failure of many bike-sharing companies. Other factors such as strategic decision-making, internal management problems, external conflicts as well as uncivilized consumer behaviors have also inhibited the sustainable development of bike-sharing companies.

The theoretical contributions of this study include the following: to explore how a disruptive innovation–based business creates, delivers and captures value successfully in sharing economy. This study contributes to both research and practice on disruptive innovation and sharing economy.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the motivations and barriers behind the adoption of bike-sharing services, explore the influence of individual values and environmental knowledge on bike-sharing adoption and analyze the relationship between reasons, attitude and intention to utilize bike-sharing.

The study initially conducted a semi-structured interview with 19 bike-sharing users and performed a thematic analysis to identify the context-specific motivators and barriers. The identified factors were then incorporated into the behavioral reasoning theory (BRT) framework and quantitatively examined using the data gathered from 412 Indian bike-sharing users.

The findings outlined the complex reasoning process underlying bike-sharing adoption and how environmental value and attitude are related to the reasons. Further, the study examined the moderating impact of environmental knowledge, which was overlooked in previous studies.

The study provides valuable suggestions to bike-sharing businesses, which helps them to induce facilitators and remove barriers.

Behavioral research in bike-sharing is in its embryonic stage. This is one of the initial attempts to address this knowledge deficit by comprehensively examining the factors affecting bike-sharing intention through the theoretical lens of BRT.

Bicycle sharing offers a novel way to create smart and sustainable mobility solutions for the future. The purpose of this study is to draw on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT 2) framework for identifying the factors necessary to predict bike-sharing intention among users in India.

Data were collected through a questionnaire distributed across four major cities in India, and 515 responses were analyzed. A sequential approach was employed to analyze the data using Partial Least Square–Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA).

The findings from PLS analysis revealed that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation and price value are the salient variables that affect users' intentions to participate in bike sharing. In addition, based on fsQCA, six configurations of causal conditions are presented as intermediate solutions that produce the same results. Although antecedent conditions, such as habit and social influence, had an insignificant effect on individuals' BSI, they create conditions sufficient to encourage users' participation in bike sharing in combination with other variables.

A few limitations of this research and the implications of the findings in terms of theory and policy implications are also discussed.

The reported study is one of the earliest to explain bike-sharing adoption in India using the UTAUT 2 model.

The expansion of bike-sharing enterprises has led to a series of social problems, and due to the high breakage rate and high recycling cost of bike sharing, enterprises are reluctant to maintain them. Therefore, government regulation does play a leading role in maintaining bike sharing. This study’s purpose is to investigate how the government should regulate the bike-sharing enterprises that maintain bicycles.

Firstly, the authors assume that there is only one bike-sharing enterprise and establish a game model that the government regulates the enterprise. Furthermore, the authors extend the model to the case that there are two competing enterprises in the market. Finally, through numerical analysis, the influence of various factors on the government strategy and revenue is analyzed.

The authors find that the regulatory probability of two enterprises are regulated by the government is larger than that of one enterprise. When two bike-sharing enterprises compete without government regulation, both will choose the non-self-discipline strategy, thus falling into the Prisoner's Dilemma. If the government regulates them, then both enterprises will choose the self-discipline strategy. Finally, through numerical analysis, it is found that the self-discipline behavior of bike-sharing enterprises is related to the government regulatory probability, the cost of self-discipline, the probability of being reported and the penalties. Interestingly, the cost of government regulation will not affect the regulation probability of government.

This research provides a theoretical reference for the government to make the regulation strategies of bike sharing and achieve the sustainable development of bike sharing.

This research provides a theoretical reference for the government to make the regulation strategies of bike sharing and achieve the sustainable development of bike sharing.

This study aims to explore the essential factors of the reason for (RF) and reason against (RA) and their impact on tourist attitudes and intentions to use e-bike sharing services by using a novel approach based on behavioral reasoning theory (BRT).

A quantitative method was used to collect data from 292 tourists and analyze the data using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique.

The outcomes indicate that both “RF” and “RA” are crucial in affecting tourist attitudes and intentions to use e-bike-sharing services. In addition, factors such as convenience, price saving and time saving were identified as “RF” while “RA” weather conditions, safety concerns and image barriers were identified that affect tourist attitudes and intention to use e-bike sharing services. These findings also indicate that tourists’ values of openness to change significantly influence “RF” and have no impact on “RA” and attitude toward e-bike-sharing services.

This study provides valuable insights that complement the existing literature on electric bike sharing and BRT in the context of promoting sustainable and eco-friendly consumption.

This research takes a significant step forward in investigating the tourist attitudes and intentions toward using e-bike sharing services in a tourist destination growing economy by using the BRT theory and proposing a model that considers both the “RF” and “RA” using e-bikes for urban transportation.

本研究旨在利用基于 BRT 的新方法, 探讨使用电动自行车共享服务的支持原因（RF）和反对原因（RA）的基本因素及其对游客使用电动自行车共享服务的态度和意图的影响。

采用定量方法收集 292 名游客的数据, 并使用 PLS-SEM 技术分析数据。

结果表明“RF”和“RA”对于影响游客使用电动自行车共享服务的态度和意图至关重要。此外, 方便、节省价格和节省时间等因素被确定为“RF”, 而“RA”则被确定为影响游客态度和使用电动自行车共享服务意愿的天气条件、安全问题和形象障碍。这些发现还表明, 游客对变革的开放价值观显着影响“RF”, 但对“RA”和对电动自行车共享服务的态度没有影响。

这项研究提供了宝贵的见解, 在促进可持续和环保消费的背景下补充了有关电动自行车共享和 BRT 的现有文献。

本研究利用 BRT 理论, 在调查经济增长的旅游目的地中游客对使用电动自行车共享服务的态度和意图方面迈出了重要一步, 并提出了一个同时考虑“RF”和“RA”的模型用于城市交通的电动自行车。”

Este estudio pretende explorar los factores esenciales de las razones a favor (RF) y en contra (RA) y su impacto en las actitudes e intenciones de los turistas de utilizar los servicios de bicicletas eléctricas compartidas (e-bike sharing) utilizando un enfoque novedoso basado en la BRT.

Se utilizó un método cuantitativo para recopilar datos de 292 turistas y analizarlos mediante la técnica PLS-SEM.

Los resultados indican que tanto la “RF” como la “RA” son cruciales para afectar a las actitudes e intenciones de los turistas de utilizar los servicios de e-bike-sharing. Además, se identificaron como “RF” factores como la comodidad, el ahorro de precio y el ahorro de tiempo, mientras que como “RA” se identificaron las condiciones meteorológicas, las preocupaciones por la seguridad y las barreras de imagen que afectan a las actitudes de los turistas y a su intención de utilizar los servicios de e-bike sharing. Estos resultados también indican que los valores de apertura al cambio de los turistas influyen significativamente en “RF” y no tienen ningún impacto en “RA” ni en la actitud hacia los servicios de e-bike sharing.

Este estudio aporta valiosas ideas que complementan la bibliografía existente sobre el uso compartido de bicicletas eléctricas (e-bike sharing) y el BRT en el contexto de la promoción de un consumo sostenible y respetuoso con el medio ambiente.”

Esta investigación da un importante paso adelante en la investigación de las actitudes e intenciones de los turistas hacia la utilización de los servicios de e-bike sharing en un destino turístico de economía en crecimiento utilizando la teoría del BRT y proponiendo un modelo que tiene en cuenta tanto la “RF” como la “RA” que utilizan las e-bikes para el transporte urbano.”

Access-based services (ABSs) provide short-term access to goods, physical facilities, space or labor in exchange for access fees without transferring legal ownership (e.g. bike-sharing). This study aims to investigate what service providers can do to minimize financial losses when customers misbehave with the service providers’ assets in ABSs. The study also examines the effects of product misuse on subsequent customers and what factors may mitigate it.

The study uses a scenario-based experiment to test the conceptual model.

Injunctive norms reduce the mediating effect of descriptive norms on misbehavior contagion. As generally accepted and approved (injunctive) norms become salient, they override the impact of prevailing (descriptive) norms, thereby breaking the vicious cycle of misbehavior contagion. Customer-company identification (CCI) and reduced interpersonal anonymity mitigate the effects of previous misbehavior on misbehavior contagion.

ABS firms should strive to mitigate the financial and reputational losses they suffer from customer misbehavior. Such mitigation would be a win-win for the ABS firm (reduced misbehavior) and the customers (improved user experience).

The research complements prior research highlighting the role of social norms in misbehavior contagion. The study demonstrates the role of boundary conditions by investigating the interactive effects of descriptive and injunctive norms. In addition, it shows the positive impact of CCI and reduced interpersonal anonymity on containing misbehavior contagion.