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This paper aims to develop a dynamic two-sided stable matching method based on preference information of the matching objects in uncertain environments, so as to solve the matching problem of cloud manufacturing tasks and services with load balancing.

For dynamic two-sided matching, due to the complexity of social environment and the limitation of human cognition, hesitation and fuzziness always exist in the process of multi-criteria assessment. First, in order to obtain the accurate preference information of each matching object, uncertain linguistic variables, uncertain preference ordinal and incomplete complementary matrices are used to evaluate multi-criteria preference information. This process is undertaken by considering the probability of each possible matching pair. Second, the preference information at different times is integrated by using the time-series weight to obtain the comprehensive satisfaction degree matrices of the matching objects. Further, the load adjustment parameter is used to increase the satisfaction degree of the matching objects. Afterward, a dynamic two-sided stable matching optimization model is constructed by considering stable matching conditions. The model aims to maximize the satisfaction degree and minimizes the difference in the satisfaction degree of matching objects. The optimal stable matching results can be obtained by solving the optimization model. Finally, a numerical example and comparative analysis are presented to demonstrate the characteristics of the proposed method.

Uncertain linguistic variables, uncertain preference orders and incomplete complementary matrices are used to describe multi-criteria preference information of the matching objects in uncertain environments. A dynamic two-sided stable matching method is proposed, based on which a DTSMDM (dynamic two-sided matching decision-making) model of cloud manufacturing with load balancing can be constructed. The study proved that the authors can use the proposed method to obtain stable matching pairs and higher matching objective value through comparative analysis and the sensitivity analysis.

A new method for the two-sided matching decision-making problem of cloud manufacturing with load balancing is proposed in this paper, which allows the matching objects to elicit language evaluation under uncertain environment more flexibly to implement dynamic two-sided matching based on preference information at different times. This method is suitable for dealing with a variety of TSMDM (two-sided matching decision-making) problems.

This study focuses on the self-organized cooperative consumption of platform participants on social media platform, and reveals how the brand owner cooperates with two-sided customers to achieve value co-creation.

The authors adopted a case study approach to explore how a Chinese beauty startup developed collaborative networks from 2013 to 2022, and tracked the the changes of network structure and cooperation mechanism.

The study finds that the brand owner cooperates with two-sided customers to integrate resources and establish diverse relational trust, which enhances the evolution of a heterogeneous collaborative network for value co-creation.

The study builds upon traditional dyadic actor-to-actor interactions between providers and customers, develops a novel interaction framework of actor-to-network to explain the value co-creation by collaborative networking, reveals the self-organized mechanism of cooperative consumption on social media.

This paper aims to investigate how user expectations affect value-added service (VAS) investment and pricing decisions of two-sided platforms. It draws on the information asymmetry theory and offers suggestions on how platform operators can manage user expectations.

According to the game theory, this study considers three user expectations (responsive, passive and wary). By framing the Hotelling duopoly model and comparing the VAS investment, price and platform profits, the optimal platform decision is analyzed and discussed.

The conclusions demonstrate that the monopolistic two-sided platform obtains more profits from the informed users with responsive expectations than uninformed users with passive or wary expectations. The marginal investment cost and cross-network externalities are two key factors that determine the platform's VAS investment and pricing strategies of passive or wary users. Furthermore, considering the expectation preferences, i.e. the uniformed users hold wary expectations with more information and hold passive expectations with less or no information, the results suggest that the proportion of wary users to all uninformed users increases the platform's VAS investment, profits and the price of informed users, and increase (decrease) the price of uninformed users when the cross-network externalities of informed users are relatively small (larger).

These results can provide insightful enlightenment into how platform operators utilize bilateral users' expectations and information level to guide their VAS investment and pricing decisions.

This paper is one of the first to explore the impact of three user expectations and the heterogeneity of preferences in informing users' passive or wary expectations, based on different levels of information on the decision-making of two-sided platforms regarding VAS.

Omnichannel has become increasingly important with the development of e-commerce. In omnichannel, merchants expect customers to get the products and services at anytime, anywhere and in any way, and the same is true for customers. This drives multihoming in online platforms for both merchants and customers. Thus, once both customers and merchants are multihomed, what price and subsidy decisions should be made between platforms to compete to obtain optimal profits? The main purpose of this paper is to solve these problems and provide decision-making for two-sided platforms in omnichannel.

This study builds a dual Hotelling model to capture the utility and network effects of customers and merchants on two-sided platforms. This study introduces the exposure effect and convenience effect of multihomed customers and merchants in the model and analyzes the impact of these effects in the market with multihoming on one side. Then, this study extends the model to the market with multihoming on both sides and makes the pricing decision for two-sided platform when considering the exposure effect and convenience effect through an equilibrium solution. Finally, this study also uses numerical analysis to simulate the decision and profit of the platform.

This paper finds that the convenience effect will only increase social welfare when customers are single-homed and merchants are multihomed. In addition, when both users are multihomed, the platform will subsidize to attract merchants and customers if the convenience effect and exposure effect are relatively high. This study also finds that network effects come not only from the same platform but also from another platform in the case with multihoming on both sides. And network effects in the heterogeneous platform will be reduced by the convenience effect and exposure effect.

According to the behavioral characteristics of merchants and customers in omnichannel, this paper first adopts the dual Hotelling model to study the pricing of two-sided platforms with multihoming on both sides. This paper shows that network effects originate not only from the same platform but also from another platform and that the exposure effect and the convenience effect can exist as cross-platform network effects, which provides a new explanation for network effects in markets with multihoming on both sides. This research extends the theory of network effects and plays an important role in the development of two-sided platforms in omnichannel.

This study examines the interplay between media-induced emotional crisis framing (anger vs sadness) and message sidedness of crisis response on publics’ attribution of crisis responsibility as well as subsequent company evaluation and supportive behavioral intention.

A 2 (emotion: anger vs sadness) x 2 (crisis response: one-sided vs two-sided) online experiment was conducted among 161 participants in the USA.

Results showed that anger-inducing media framing of the crisis elicited higher levels of crisis responsibility attribution and more negative company evaluation, compared with sadness-inducing media framing. One-sided message response was more effective than two-sided message response in lowering attribution of crisis responsibility when sadness was induced, but no difference was found under the anger-induced condition. Attribution of crisis responsibility fully mediated the effects of emotional crisis framing on company evaluation and supportive behavioral intention toward the company.

This study is among the first to examine the interaction effect between emotional media framing and response message sidedness in an ambiguous crisis. Drawing on the interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks, this study integrates the situational crisis communication theory, appraisal-tendency framework and message sidedness in persuasion literature. As such, it contributes to theoretical development in crisis communication and offers communication managers guidance on how to effectively address emotionally framed crises.

This study highlights the impact of mental accounts on a user's decision-making regarding payment schemes and aims to determine the pricing strategy for the first-enjoy-after-pay service offered by the two-sided media platforms.

This study establishes a game-theoretic model and utilizes backward induction to derive the equilibrium price by maximizing the monopolist's profit.

The findings indicate that the conditions for a two-sided media platform to offer the first-enjoy-after-pay service depend on the trade-off between pleasure attenuation and pain buffering and the effect of time discounts. Moreover, the authors found that the time discount is a critical factor in determining pricing strategies under various payment schemes offered by the platform.

This work adopts a uniform pricing strategy for users who opt for either immediate or post-payment schemes. Nevertheless, it is important to note that this approach has limitations in terms of offering discriminatory pricing for those who choose both payment schemes.

This analytical work provides valuable insights for two-sided media platforms to optimize their payment scheme strategies and pricing considering the influence of a user's mental account.

In a two-sided media platform, the authors provide applicable conditions for the platform to offer first-enjoy-after-pay service considering the effect of mental accounts. Further, the authors show the optimal pricing strategy under different payment schemes provided by the platform.

From the perspective of two-sided review systems, this study aims to investigate how guests’ prior reputation influences their subsequent satisfaction on Airbnb.

This study applied a conceptual framework based on social capital theory to explain the effect of guests’ reputation decided by hosts’ prior evaluations on their subsequent satisfaction. The authors collected 96,204 guest reviews posted for 17,325 properties on Airbnb and used the review polarity to measure guest satisfaction. All historical evaluations generated by hosts for each guest were collected and treated as a proxy of guest reputation. Ordinary least squares regressions were conducted to estimate the effect of guests’ reputation on their subsequent satisfaction.

Results show that guests whose historical evaluations have higher valences or larger variations tend to be more satisfied in their subsequent bookings. However, the number of reviews that guests received from hosts in the past does not influence their subsequent satisfaction.

This study provides new insights into the hospitality literature by identifying the influencing factors of guest satisfaction on peer-to-peer rental platforms from the perspective of two-sided review systems. Results also present practical implications to property owners and website designers to gain a deeper understanding of the determinants of guest satisfaction and the consequences of social interactions between hosts and guests.

This study is a novel attempt that analyzes the effect of guests’ reputation on their satisfaction with subsequent bookings based on two-sided review systems on peer-to-peer rental platforms. Thus, this study provides a starting point for investigating how two-sided review systems affect use behavior on peer-to-peer rental platforms.

Due to the cross-network effect, two-sided users communicate with each other, producing a coupling network. To study the spread of platform self-operation in two-sided users' marketing and purchasing tactics, this paper considers the differences in reputation acquired by platform-owned and third-party operating channels.

This study proposes a two-layer network with cross-network links: one layer represents the social network of consumers, while the other layer represents the competitive network of buyers. A closed system of differential equations, based on the binary dynamics of the stochastic network, is developed to study the trend and stability points of the platform self-operation dissemination. Then the overall benefits of platform are analyzed to unify the platform diffusion and pricing strategies.

The degree of difference in social influence and cross-network effects affect diffusion synergistically. Cross-network effects hinder diffusion when there is a significant difference of social influence between consumers and sellers but promote diffusion when there is little difference of social influence between consumers and sellers. Additionally, the network weights and reputation gap exhibit a nonlinear correlation with diffusion. For pricing strategy of the platform, it can achieve maximum profit when the pricing of self-operated goods and third-party-operated goods is equal.

This study considers the complex network architecture created by bilateral markets and the dynamic influence of group interactions on product. Additionally, this study takes reputation into account when considering the price and dissemination tactics of various operating channels, offering guidelines for platforms to control merchants and mediate disputes between various operating channels.

The attempt to establish a common European framework for core platforms' duties and responsibilities toward other actors in the digital environment is at the core of the recent scholarly debate surrounding the Digital Markets Act (DMA) proposal. In particular, the everlasting juxtaposition between the “data power” – as emerging from recent cases (Section 2) – that dominant tech companies enjoy and the concept of consumer sovereignty (Section 3) lies at the core of the proposal's attempt to identify digital core platforms as market gatekeepers. Accordingly, this chapter critically investigates the divide between power imbalance and consumer sovereignty in light of the architecture designed by the DMA, with a specific focus on its effectiveness in identifying gatekeepers' power drivers (Section 4). After highlighting the main critical aspects of the pertinent rules, opportunities for fruitful developments are then identified through the reframing of some of the notions considered in the proposal, and namely the role of “lock-in” effects and “data accumulation” (Section 5). Lastly, this chapter suggests that the DMA advancements – while desirable – are bound to be fragmentary in the absence of a wider appraisal of the nature of data power imbalance dynamics in the modern digital markets (Section 6).

Although e-wallet adoption has grown in recent years, there are some countries like Peru with low penetration rates. Contrary to prior studies that focused on customers' adoption of e-wallets, this study focuses on merchants' adoption to fully understand the use of these services. Additionally, considering that e-wallets are two-sided markets with the co-existence of two distinct economic agents (customer and merchants) interacting through these platforms, this study is the first to assess the dynamics of inter-side benefits from the merchants' perspective. Finally, interoperability was also included to determine its role in countries where the interaction between different e-wallets is limited.

Based on two-sided markets and social cognitive theory, a model was proposed including merchants' perceived benefits associated with the use of e-wallets, for them and for their customers (inter-side). Additionally, technical issues such as interoperability were measured. Data were collected from nanostore owners in Lima in 2022. A structural equation modeling technique was used to determine the impact of both types of benefits and technical features on merchants' adoption of e-wallets. Finally, a polynomial regression with response surface methodology was used to assess the interaction of the benefits for both sides of the platform from the merchants' perspective.

The two-sided-market features of e-wallets were validated. From merchants' view, the use of these platforms is the result of balancing the benefits for them and for their customers, and the interaction between these two types of benefits varies according to the socio-economic level in which the nanostore operates. Additionally, interoperability was found to be important for merchants, so future policies should commit to achieve an ecosystem that facilitates the interoperability not only among e-wallets but also between e-wallets and third-party services. Finally, since service availability is also important for merchants, e-wallet providers should invest in improving their infrastructure's scalability.

Prior studies have mainly focused on the customer side of e-wallets, with little research about the adoption of digital payment methods by the merchant side. In addition, no study has focused on the effect of one of the sides of the platform on the other side (inter-side benefits) when adopting these services. Finally, the effect of interoperability across platforms has not been addressed in detail yet. This study aims to fill these gaps by proposing a framework to understand the adoption of these services by merchants in terms of inter-side benefits and technical issues.