The sooner, the better? Interactions of stakeholders in online food delivery service platforms

PurposeThis research aims to explore the interactions of stakeholders in online food delivery (OFD) platforms, including restaurants, the delivery system and the platform, and the effect on total sales. In order to comprehensively analyze the service of stakeholders, the authors adopted the time duration which provides a unified metric for assessing service performance.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model analysis to verify the interactions among restaurants, the delivery system, and the platform itself, and to assess their effects on the sales. Data were collected from one of the biggest OFD service platforms in China – Eleme.com.FindingsFirst, the findings confirmed that the service performance of restaurants, the delivery system and the platform itself influence one another. There is a bidirectional causality between food preparation time (FPT) and actual delivery time (ACDT), as well as between FPT and advance arrival time (ADAT), ACDT and ADAT. Second, the service performance of restaurants, the delivery system, and the platform itself all positively affect sales, thus demonstrating unidirectional causality.Originality/valueThe current research is a pioneering empirical study, as it confirms the dynamic interactions between participants in OFD platforms and the dynamic influence of their respective service performances on sales. The findings of this research have a number of implications for the management and operation of online food ordering and delivery platforms.

Modeling and simulation of microblog-based public health emergency-associated public opinion communication.

With the advent of the era of "we media," many people's opinions have become easily accessible. Public health emergencies have always been an important aspect of public opinion exchange and emotional communication. In view of this sudden group panic, public opinion cannot be effectively monitored, controlled or guided. This makes it easy to amplify the beliefs and irrationality of social emotions, that threaten social security and stability. Considering the important role of opinion leaders in micro-blogs and users' interest in micro-blog information, a SIR model of public opinion propagation is constructed based on the novel coronavirus pneumonia model and micro-blog's public health emergencies information. The parameters of the model are calculated by combining the actual crawl data from the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic period, and the trends in the evolution of public opinion are simulated by MATLAB. The simulation results are consistent with the actual development of public opinion dissemination, which shows the effectiveness of the model. These research findings can help the government understand the principles that guide the propagation of public opinion and advise an appropriate time to control and correctly guide public opinion.