Study on effect of collaborative governance participation willingness of online food delivery platform restaurants and consumers from perspective of control theory: Based on moderating effects of perceived risks

The popularization of the Internet and the convenience of e-commerce are driving the online restaurant industry’s rapid development of worldwide. However, serious information asymmetries in online food delivery (OFD) transactions not only aggravate food safety risks, resulting in simultaneous government and market failures, but also intensify consumers’ perceived risks. This paper innovatively constructs a research framework for the governance participation willingness of OFD platform restaurants and consumers under the moderating effects of perceived risks from the perspective of control theory and then develops scales for analyzing the governance willingness of both restaurants and consumers. Using data collected through a survey, this paper explores the effect of control elements on governance participation by restaurants and consumers and analyzes the moderating effects of perceived food safety risks. Results showed that both government regulations and restaurant reputation (formal control elements) and online complaints and restaurant management response (informal control elements) can increase governance participation willingness among both platform restaurants and consumers. The moderating effects of perceived risks are partially significant. When the risks perceived by restaurants and consumers are strong, government regulation and online complaints can more effectively boost the governance participation willingness of restaurants and consumers, respectively. At this moment, consumers’ willingness to pursue problem solving through online complaints is evidently enhanced. Accordingly, the perceived risks and the online complaints jointly motivate restaurants and consumers to participate in governance activities.