TY - JOUR
T1 - Prosocial behaviors and economic performance
T2 - Evidence from an online mental healthcare platform
AU - Yan, Zhijun
AU - Kuang, Lini
AU - Qiu, Liangfei
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Production and Operations Management Society.
PY - 2022/10
Y1 - 2022/10
N2 - With the growth of online mental healthcare platforms, health professionals have been providing online consultation services during their spare time. However, little is known about the prosocial behaviors of health professionals on these platforms and their effect on professionals’ economic performance. In this research, we aim to identify and quantify the main effect of prosocial behaviors (i.e., offering free services) on future economic performance and the potential mediation effects of relationship capital and reputation capital in an online mental healthcare platform. Based on signaling and commitment theories, we use a panel dataset from a Chinese online mental healthcare platform to test our hypotheses. Our findings show that a mental health professional's previous prosocial behavior has a positive impact on economic performance and that this effect may manifest through the relationship capital pathway. However, reputation capital generated from prosocial behaviors does not significantly mediate the impact of prosocial behavior on economic performance. Our research provides important implications for healthcare operations concerning service offerings and healthcare providers’ performance on online mental healthcare platforms.
AB - With the growth of online mental healthcare platforms, health professionals have been providing online consultation services during their spare time. However, little is known about the prosocial behaviors of health professionals on these platforms and their effect on professionals’ economic performance. In this research, we aim to identify and quantify the main effect of prosocial behaviors (i.e., offering free services) on future economic performance and the potential mediation effects of relationship capital and reputation capital in an online mental healthcare platform. Based on signaling and commitment theories, we use a panel dataset from a Chinese online mental healthcare platform to test our hypotheses. Our findings show that a mental health professional's previous prosocial behavior has a positive impact on economic performance and that this effect may manifest through the relationship capital pathway. However, reputation capital generated from prosocial behaviors does not significantly mediate the impact of prosocial behavior on economic performance. Our research provides important implications for healthcare operations concerning service offerings and healthcare providers’ performance on online mental healthcare platforms.
KW - economic performance
KW - free online health services
KW - online healthcare operation
KW - online mental healthcare platform
KW - prosocial behaviors
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85133920822&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/poms.13792
DO - 10.1111/poms.13792
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85133920822
SN - 1059-1478
VL - 31
SP - 3859
EP - 3876
JO - Production and Operations Management
JF - Production and Operations Management
IS - 10
ER -
