This thesis explores the puzzling subnational variation of policymaking for the online ride-hailing industry (ORS) in China. Chengdu and Jinan are two similar cities on many economic and political levels. They are both capital cities of their provinces, new first-tier cities in terms of their economic size and both have a large population. Yet, they adopted significantly different ORS policies. This thesis asks why two similar cities in China have diverging policy outcomes. Using a method of difference (MOD) strategy to compare these two similar cases with diverging outcomes, the thesis evaluates three potential explanations. They are as follows: (1) historical legacies and political communities, (2) the cadre evaluation system (CES), and (3) government-business relationships. Using a historical institutionalism theoretical framework with comparative capitalism and economic sociology roots, this thesis finds that a mixture of CES incentives and government business relationship patterns has had a determining impact on diverging outcomes in Jinan and Chengdu. There have been two phases of ORS policymaking in China until now. In phase 1, Chengdu had a laxer ORS policy than Jinan. A comparison of historical legacies and political communities tells us that Chengdu has been a more market-oriented city than Jinan. More importantly, Jinan’s government had a more intimate relationship with local taxi agencies, which proved to be the major cause of subnational differences. In phase 2, Chengdu’s ORS policy was found to be more stringent than Jinan’s. In this case, the significant variable leading to Chengdu’s tightened policy was the target-setting of the cadre evaluation system (CES). The CES specifically required Chengdu’s government to ban non-green vehicles from the ORS market while Jinan did not encounter the same requirement. Moreover, Jinan can exclude non-green vehicles from its environmental protection plan while Chengdu cannot. This thesis observes a structural distortion caused by the CES. Throughout the two phases of ORS policymaking, both governments play a consistently dominant role. However, the government-business relationship remains flexible. If the relationship is viewed as an institution, it is composed of informal procedures, conventions, and orders where actors accommodate each other. The largest privately-owned ORS enterprise, Didi, has declared that their preferences are taken into consideration by the government. Some questions remain as to how the government processes those preferences and how much importance it attaches to them, but this illustrates the mutual accommodation of the government and an enterprise within an informal institution. By some unwritten but conventional procedures, they coordinate with each other. This thesis furthers the study of the government-business relationship in China. It not only unearths the institutional factors of subnational variation for ORS policymaking, but also verifies the presence of institutional flexibility in China. This thesis is an important addition to the literature on government-business ties in China because it does beyond the study of rent-seeking to evaluate the multifaceted ways in which the Chinese government can build relationships with enterprises.

This study examines the impact and potential of cargo bikes as socio-economically and ecologically beneficial modes of transportation. It focuses on the perspectives of cargo bike pool members and the challenges faced by pool operators. Three interviews were conducted with cargo bike pool operators in Sweden to understand the challenges and considerations involved in establishing and operating a pooling service, as well as their opinions on its financial future. Additionally, a user survey targeting pool members from one of the interviewed operators was conducted in 2020. The survey investigated user barriers, motivations, opinions towards the pooling service, and its effect on user mobility habits before and after joining. Although the acceptance and utilization of these services depend on factors such as proximity, pricing, availability, quality, and convenience of the service. The findings show that pooling services increase member interest in owning and using cargo bikes as a replacement for cars. However, concerns regarding the marketability of cargo-bike pools alone are raised in this study, thus, to enhance the attractiveness of cargo-bike pools, this study suggests incorporating additional modes of transportation, offering supplementary value propositions, and ensuring a user-friendly experience. On the operator side, this study highlights the importance of stakeholder collaboration in maximizing the potential of cargo bike pools for sustainable transportation enabling resource sharing, and marketing efforts, and improving the overall service by leveraging financial, spatial, and logistical benefits. Finally, this study finds that the current state of cargo bike pools necessitates collaboration and subsidies from municipalities and stakeholders. Suggesting innovations in business models and increased marketing strategies that capture a broader demographic through an enhanced value proposition that includes other forms of modality and benefits in their services, are vital for the growth of cargo biking through pooling systems.  The research provides insights for prospective operators in establishing and operating cargo bike pools, emphasizing considerations related to the physical layout, financial aspects, marketing, and value proposition of the service and has broader implications in how to encourage more sustainable mobility practices.

Location-sharing services have become increasingly popular with the proliferation of smartphones and online social networks. People share their locations with each other to record their daily lives or satisfy their social needs. At the same time, inappropriate disclosure of location information poses threats to people's privacy. One of the reasons why people fail to protect their location privacy is the difficulty of using the current mechanisms to manually configure location-privacy settings. Since people's location-privacy preferences are context-aware, manual configuration is cumbersome. People's incapability and unwillingness to do so lead to unexpected location disclosures that violate their location privacy. In this thesis, we investigate the feasibility of using recommender systems to help people protect their location privacy. We examine the performance of location-privacy recommender systems and compare it with the state-of-the-art. We also conduct online user studies to understand people's acceptance of such recommender systems and their concerns. We revise our design of the systems according to the results of the user studies. We find that user-based collaborative filtering can accurately recommend location-privacy preferences and outperform the state-of-the-art when training data are insufficient. From users' perspective, their acceptance of location-privacy recommender systems is affected by the openness and the context of recommendations and their privacy concerns about the systems. It is feasible to use data obfuscation or decentralisation to alleviate people's concerns and meanwhile keep the systems robust against malicious data attacks.

Background: Provide insights on the potential drivers of service loyalty in access-based services, especially when the consumers have the option to switch between owning a product or accessing a product through a service. By examining service loyalty in access-based services in the context of e-scooter sharing services, the researchers contribute to the service research field. Aim: Conceptualize service loyalty by considering the ownership dilemma in access-based services in micromobility. More specifically, the study aims to find what are potential drivers of service loyalty, what effects does ownership advantage have on service loyalty and what variables mediate the customer satisfaction – service loyalty relationship in said services. Methodology: A quantitative study, in which a survey method is chosen to gather empirical data. The survey was distributed as an online questionnaire via online platforms. In addition, an e-scooter sharing service company, Helbiz, shared the survey on their official Twitter and Facebook handles. A total of 249 responses was received. Findings: PLS-SEM was used as a statistical analysis tool to analyse the gathered data. Data suggests that customer satisfaction, service image, affective commitment and relative advantage are drivers of service loyalty in access-based services in micromobility. Furthermore, the effect of ownership advantage on service loyalty proved to be inconclusive as the result was not statistically significant. Finally, data indicates that service image, affective commitment and relative advantage mediate the customer satisfaction – service loyalty relationship.