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The impacts of patients’ gift giving behavior on physicians’ service quality

  • School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

The Online health community (OHC) provides convenience and benefits. Simultaneously, it also generates informal social moral problems regarding payment. However, few studies have explored the physicians’ service delivery from the patients’ perspective. Using unique interaction data between doctors and patients from an online health consultation community, we empirically examined how patients’ gift giving behavior influences physicians’ service delivery, and how this influence is being moderated by physicians’ gift receiving ratio and social morality, using a difference-in-difference model. We find that the giving of gifts by patients has a positive impact on the physicians’ service quality. Furthermore, this effect is significantly moderated by the physicians’ gift receiving ratio and social morality. We discuss the implications of these findings for patients consulting in OHCs and for OHC designers.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSmart Health - International Conference, ICSH 2017, Proceedings
EditorsElena Karahanna, Indranil Bardhan, Hsinchun Chen, Daniel Dajun Zeng
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages42-53
Number of pages12
ISBN (Print)9783319679631
DOIs
StatePublished - 2017
Externally publishedYes
EventInternational Conference on Smart Health, ICSH 2017 - Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Duration: 26 Jun 201727 Jun 2017

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume10347 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

ConferenceInternational Conference on Smart Health, ICSH 2017
Country/TerritoryHong Kong
CityHong Kong
Period26/06/1727/06/17

Keywords

  • Gift giving
  • Online health community
  • Service quality

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