喻园管理论坛2023年第22期(总第845期)
演讲主题: Description and Demonstration Signals as Complements and Substitutes in an Online Market for Mental Healthcare
互联网心理咨询市场的新用户择医决策机制研究
主 讲 人: 周军杰，汕头大学商学院副教授
主 持 人: 邓朝华，威尼斯欢乐娱人城·首页管理科学与信息管理系教授
活动时间: 2023年3月31日（周五）10:00-12:00
活动地点: 管理大楼207教室
主讲人简介：
周军杰，汕头大学商学院副教授。研究聚焦基于机器学习与计量模型方法的智慧养老与智慧医疗等交叉学科研究，近期关注传统服务的数字化与智能化转型，以第一或通讯作者身份在国际顶级期刊MIS Quarterly (UTD24)及California Management Review（原FT45）、Journal of Knowledge Management、中国管理科学、管理评论等国内外主要期刊发表论文多篇。
活动简介：
Online markets for mental health care (OMMH) allow clients to connect remotely with counselors to receive psychological therapy. Rooted in signaling theory and in the specific context of an OMMH, we theorize relative credibility of signals as the boundary condition that determines whether the demonstration signal of responsiveness to client questions substitutes or complements the two description signals of professional qualifications and counseling style in predicting market demand for counselors from new clients in an OMMH. Based on a panel dataset of 823 observations from 309 counselors participating on YiXinLi, a leading OMMH in China, we tested our hypotheses using linguistic and sentiment analysis methods and zero-inflated negative binomial models. We found broad support for nine out of ten hypotheses. Findings are robust with respect to different measures of variables, potential endogeneity from the simultaneity of responsiveness and counselor demand, and potential selection bias from both observable and endogenous covariates. Our study extends the literature on signaling in online markets in the unique context of OMMH by showing that: (1) relative credibility of signals is the boundary condition that determines when a demonstration signal will complement and when it will substitute for a description signal, (2) previous clients’ feedback on counselors’ empathy and warmth was deemed not credible by new clients in the context of online counseling, and (3) responsiveness to client questions is the most influential predictor of market demand from new clients in an OMMH.
