The Antecedents of Courier Continuance Participation Intention: A Dyadic Analysis of Courier–Customer Interactions in Crowdsourcing Delivery

Abstract

Crowdsourcing delivery has emerged as an innovative solution for last-mile delivery in the sharing economy era. However, enhancing courier continuance participation intention is an increasing challenge for crowdsourcing delivery platforms due to the independence of crowdsourced couriers. Given that couriers and customers are subject to interdependencies and may influence each other in delivery service systems, this paper utilizes a dyadic analysis to examine how courier–customer interactions may influence the continuance participation intention of couriers. Specifically, we investigate the influence mechanism of customer satisfaction and courier job satisfaction, as well as the mediating role of courier pay satisfaction, drawing upon the balance theory and distributive justice theory. The empirical results of 261 courier–customer dyads indicate that the customer side impacts the courier side in both direct and indirect ways. There is a direct satisfaction transmission in courier–customer delivery service interactions. Meanwhile, satisfied customers indirectly enhance courier job satisfaction via the mediator of courier pay satisfaction, which in turn strengthens courier continuance participation intention. Our study offers novel insights for administrators on the influence of courier–customer interactions and pay satisfaction on courier continuance participation intention, contributing to decreasing couriers’ turnover in the fluid crowdsourcing labor market.