Research On The Compensation Mechanisms Of Streamers

Today,live streaming has become the latest craze and is further subdivided into different categories such as entertainment live streaming and e-commerce live streaming.In the entertainment live streaming,streamers interact with users in real-time and receive gifts from fans.In the e-commerce live streaming,with the help of platforms,manufacturers,MCN agencies,and so on,streamers demonstrate and promote products to consumers.According to estimates,last year in China,the market size of live streaming gifting alone reached 223 billion RMB,and that of live streaming e-commerce was even higher,reaching a trillion RMB.The effort level of the streamer plays an important role in the live broadcast.Therefore,how to motivate streamers to exert higher efforts and promote the development of the industry is a problem worthy of attention.At present,compensation plans are widely used as incentive tools on mainstream platforms to motivate streamers.Taking entertainment live streaming as an example,platforms often provide bonuses to streamers based on their gift proceeds.Based on the two settings of entertainment live broadcast and e-commerce live broadcast,this paper proposes the following research questions.First,in the entertainment live streaming,how will the incentive compensation mechanisms affect the performances of streamers and the profits of the platform?Second,in the e-commerce live streaming,how will the presence of other players(such as manufacturers)affect the design of streamers’ compensation?In response to the above questions,this paper establishes game-theoretical models and analyze optimal decisions of the players under different settings.The main work is as follows.In entertainment live streaming,the platform provides non-contracted streamers with a straight commission plan and contracted streamers with one of three alternative compensation plans,namely,the basic compensation plan,salary-based incentive plan,and commission-based incentive plan.By exploring and comparing the streamers’optimal decisions under different compensation plans,we find that bonuses do not always motivate streamers to perform better.The salary-based bonus is only effective for streamers whose ability is neither low nor high while the commission-based bonus can effectively motivate the majority of streamers except those having extremely low ability or some low-intermediate-ability streamers.In addition,by designing a proper incentive plan,the platform can attract high-ability streamers to sign up with it and obtain higher profits.Considering the e-commerce setting,we build a game-theoretical model compromising a manufacturer,an MCN,and a streamer.To be specific,we evaluate how the live-selling pact set by the manufacturer,which includes a commission rate and a minimum sales requirement,influences the streamer’s compensation plan.Our result shows that MCN acts as a mediator between the manufacturer and the streamer.When the manufacturer sets a sales target that is relatively low,the MCN further increases the requirement for the streamer so that the system obtains higher revenue.However,when the requirement set by the manufacturer becomes too challenging for the streamer to fulfill,the MCN offers the streamer a slightly higher commission rate as a motivation.In addition,MCN does not always choose its most capable streamer to sell products in virtual room.We extend the research on live streaming by incorporating streamers’ compensation plans into platform operation as well as the live streaming commerce supply chain.For future studies,it would be of interest to extend our work to a live streaming platform where the streamers obtain their income from different sources.Second,one can also consider the situation in which several live streaming platforms compete in the end-consumer market.