讲座题目：Gender-Based Operational IssuesArising from On-Demand Ride-Hailing Platforms: Safety Concerns, ServiceSystems, and Pricing and Wage Policy

讲座时间：2019年5月13日下午2:00-4:00

讲座地点：主教615会议室

摘要：Motivated by the recentdevelopment of “women only” ride-hailing platforms that aim to address thesafety concerns raised by female riders and drivers, we examine whether aplatform such as Didi should offer gender-specific services (i.e., a “dedicated”system in which riders are matched with drivers of the same gender) instead ofthe current gender-neutral services (i.e., a “pooling” system in which ridersare matched with drivers randomly without taking their gender intoconsideration). We make an initial attempt to examine if and whengender-specific services can enable the platform to address female safetyconcerns and improve its profitability. We find that gender-specific dedicatedsystems can be a profitable way for the ride-hailing platform to address safetyconcerns raised by female riders and drivers. We pinpoint that a key obstaclefor the platform to move to the dedicated system is the limited female laborsize, which reduces the system’s economies of scale. The “equal policy"under which the platform has to impose the same price and wage on both thefemale subsystem and the male subsystem further burdens the platform.

ShortBio: Yulan Wang is currently an associate professor in the Department of theLogistics and Maritime Studies at the Faculty of Business of the Hong KongPolytechnic University. She received her Ph.D degree in Business Administrationfrom Duke University. She obtained both her BS and MS degrees from ShanghaiJiao Tong University. Her research work has been published in leading academicjournals such as Management Science, Operations Research, Manufacturing &Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, amongothers. Her research interests include supply chain management, sustainabilityoperations, and the behavioral issues in operations management. She serves asthe senior editor for Production and Operations Management and the associateeditor for Omega. She is the editorial review board member of Production andOperations Management and the editorial advisory board member of TransportationResearch - Part E.

本讲座是2019年中央财经大学专题学术讲座资助项目。