%0 Journal Article
%T How does freemium strategy affect the demand of the paid premium mobile healthcare service: From an information asymmetry perspective
%A Yuanrong Hu
%J Information Development
%@ 1741-6469
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/0266666917724496
%X This paper studies the impact of physicians¡¯ freemium strategy on demand for physicians¡¯ paid premium services in the mobile healthcare setting. In addition, the moderating effects of physicians¡¯ quality indicators are investigated with reference to two dimensions: (1) individual-specific quality indicator, related to the physician¡¯s personal skills and measured by the physician¡¯s professional title; (2) hospital-specific quality indicators, related to the hospital¡¯s quality information and measured by the hospital¡¯s grade and location. Using a sample of 71,256 physicians observed over a 15-week period on the largest Chinese mobile healthcare platform, we find that the free service can significantly increase demand for physicians¡¯ paid services. Both the hospital-specific and individual-specific quality indicators reinforce this impact. For chief (and associate chief) physicians working in the tertiary hospital setting and in a large city, a 1% increase in the free service will lead to a 0.358% increase in demand for the physician¡¯s paid Text&Picture consultation service, whereas the increase is only 0.075% for junior physicians in non-tertiary hospitals and in a small city. However, among the most active physicians, the reinforcing effect of the individual-specific quality indicator weakens, while the effect of the hospital-specific quality indicators becomes even stronger. The results provide several implications both from the theoretical and the practical perspective
%K mobile healthcare
%K freemium strategy
%K information asymmetry
%K quality uncertainty
%K quality indicator
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0266666917724496