literature review

Sorry for the late response and the long requirements I have. Maybe it is better to show my research question and my own thoughts in a more detailed way first. This is what I wrote for the introduction of this topic and hope this can help you to understand my topic better.

“My research question is what factors contribute to the emergence of the Agency Model in Chinese food delivery industry. There are currently three business modes in Chinese food delivery industry: Direct mode, Crowdsourcing mode and Agency Mode. Under the Agency Model, agencies are set as bridges of the platform and riders. The platform distributes orders to different agencies and those agencies can recruit their own riders to complete the orders. This mode is unique in three aspects. From the riders’ point of view, the riders under this mode sign contract with the agency instead of the platform directly while they are under both the strict regulations from these two sides (Shen, 2019). For those agencies, they are responsible for the contracted riders who are normally full-time, while they also have a pool of part-time riders to meet the excess demand during certain peak times. In addition, the agencies are able to set riders’ salaries, and those riders will not be sent to other companies for short-term work which distinguishes the agencies under the Agency Model from the traditional labor dispatching companies. This Agency Model, the most promising business model for the Chinese food delivery industry (Shen, 2019), however, leads to many problems for both the agencies and riders. Those agencies normally adopt a low-cost strategy as they are in a highly competitive environment and the industry doesn’t require high skills. The high turnover rate for about 10% per month, however, is against this low-cost strategy as recruiting one rider costs the agency approximately 500 yuan which is about 58 pounds. It is also difficult for the agencies to manage and regulate those poorly educated riders. For the riders, they face the strict regulations set by both the agencies and the platform which leads to stress and more traffic accidents as the platform cares highly about the customers’ satisfaction. Therefore, my research question is what the reasons for the appearance of Agency Model in the Chinese food delivery industry are.

In order to find out the reasons why this certain human resource practice emerges, I go to literature containing country and industry factors which can influence the human resource policies and practices. There are a lot of frameworks regarding the country factors. Rubery and Grimshaw (2003) mentioned that the interlocking set of institutional arrangements and societal structures lead to nationally specific employment and production systems, where the institutions include governments, laws and legal systems etc. Whitley (1999) raised business systems framework containing cultural, financial, political and labor systems. ‘organizational isomorphism’ as suggested by institutional perspective, through which firms introduce similar HR practices resulting in a convergence of HR systems among organizations (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983), can be one industry-level factor. There is a possibility that this unique Agency Model evolves and develops through this way as China already has various agent models used in Airline industries before the gig economy. Based on the resources-based view, Becker and Gerhart (1996) elaborate that organization’s sustained competitive advantage built through causal ambiguity and path dependency requires certain HR practices. Industry-level capital intensity and firm-level characteristics such as firm size, unionization and ownership in the empirical study in China have significant effects on use of labor contracts in a manufacturing context (Huang & Verma, 2015). The Chinese food delivery industry has some uniqueness compared with Deliveroo in UK which does not have this Agent Model, regarding recruitment, reward and regulations. Therefore, I would like to investigate the reasons for the appearance of Agency Model in the Chinese food delivery industry, which belongs to a unique human resource practice in managing the riders. This unique practice may also spread into other areas which meet the similar conditions with the Chinese takeaway industry.”

Sorry for haven’t raised these before as I didn’t thought my previous expression would cause such a big misunderstanding.

For the work, my wishes are as follows.

For CIA approach, I would like to have definitions and some descriptions and the relevant literatures as well because this is a Literature review. Please delete the union’s part and do not mention union. I have one reading you can referred to and maybe you can get my needs better.

For the culture systems’ part, I want to have this focus on the country level not individual level. This means that the Hofstede’s collectivism and relationship is emphasized. Please do not mention the food culture and focus just on the broad level as this work should focus on Agency Model not the food delivery itself.

For labor system, I want to see literature related to the education and employment in China and if possible, training as well. Please do not mention that the management can pick whoever the riders they want as my focus is this Agency Model which you can regard as a human dispatching company or even the subsidiary offering services.

For political systems, I do not want see policies for customers but just human right regulations for companies in human dispatching, like labor contracts and insurances. I want this with more legal aspects. I also do not want foreign direct investment as this is a human resource management work not economics, which requires a broader level. Also more literature please.

For Organizational Isomorphism, I want definitions and more relevant literatures like which one raised what relevant conclusions. I also have one reading for reference. I want this focus on the traditional labor dispatching model and other agency models in Chinese industry, or relevant literatures. The focus is the Agency Model not the food delivery industry or the platform.

And for Chinese Traditional labour Dispatching Companies, actually, this means labor companies, which have hired workers to do whatever work other companies want. Not the delivery services or companies like DHL. It is like a cleaning service company ask the agencies for temporary workers to help with the cleaning work for a single day. The worker may have other jobs the next day. This kind of agencies is what I mean Traditional labor Dispatching Companies, the focus is labor.

For the Comparison with Delivery Industry in the UK, I want to see just differences in labor systems, like the Deliveroo doesn’t have Agency Model and hires more students and maybe people with higher education level who are there for fit or fine, instead of money.