MKTG 556 | Session 8 | Platform Exploitation: When Service Agents Defect with Customers from Online Service Platforms - 2022

Qiang (Kris) Zhou, B.J. Allen, Richard T. Gretz, and Mark B. Houston

Introduciton:

This research investigates "platform exploitation," a phenomenon where service agents on purely labor-based online platforms (e.g., Zeel, Freelancer, Rover) defect with customers to transact off-platform, thereby avoiding commission fees. Through multiple methods—a qualitative theories-in-use study, a large-scale hazard-model analysis, and two experiments—the authors identify antecedents, mechanisms, and managerial countermeasures. They discover that high-quality and long-tenured agents are more likely to defect, that interaction frequency and service repetitiveness increase off-platform behavior, and that interventions such as sliding-scale fees or community-building efforts can reduce exploitation.