Dimension, Content, and Role of Platform Psychological Contract: Based on Online Ride-Hailing Users

摘要

Online sharing platforms are a new form of enterprising organizations. Their interaction with users exhibits unique characteristics. Based on the extant literature on psychological contracts and interviews, a survey, and statistical analyses of online ride-hailing users, we explore the dimension, content, and role of platform psychological contracts. The results show that the platform psychological contract includes transactional and relational dimensions. The latter dimension features social responsibility contents, which are distinct from that of a traditional enterprise. Using the scale developed herein, we further examine the effect of psychological contract breach on platform relationship quality. Evidently, both dimensions of psychological contract breach are negatively correlated with platform relationship quality. Besides, the value-added validity of relational psychological contract breach with respect to platform relationship quality is higher, suggesting the importance of the relational psychological contract.