Crowdsourcing for Sustainable Urban Logistics: Exploring the Factors Influencing Crowd Workers’ Participative Behavior

Lijuan Huang, Guojie Xie, John Blenkinsopp, Raoyi Huang and Hou Bin
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Lijuan Huang: School of Management, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510000, China
Guojie Xie: School of Management, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510000, China
John Blenkinsopp: Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, UK
Raoyi Huang: Faculty of Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong 37075, China
Hou Bin: School of Business, Hunan University of Technology, Zhuzhou 412000, China

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 8, 1-20

Abstract: With crowd logistics becoming a crucial part of the last-mile delivery challenge in many cities, continued participation of crowd workers has become an essential issue affecting the growth of the crowd logistics platform. Understanding how people are motivated to continue their participation in crowd logistics can provide some clarity as to what policies and measures should be undertaken by the industry to support its further growth. Using the Push–Pull–Mooring (PPM) theory, we developed a research model to explain the factors influencing crowd workers’ participative behavior. Survey data from 455 crowd workers were analyzed using SmartPLS3.0 software. The results show monetary rewards and trust have a significant positive impact on the willingness of crowd workers to continue participating in crowd logistics, while work enjoyment from previous work and entry barriers for work have a significant negative impact. Trust plays an intermediary role between monetary incentives and crowd workers’ willingness to continue participating. Based on the findings of this study, we recommend that crowd logistics platforms should offer reasonable monetary incentives and keep these under constant review, build a high degree of trust and cooperation with their crowd workers, and initiate activities geared towards promoting satisfaction at work.

Keywords: crowd workers; crowd logistics; PPM theory; motivating factors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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