Author(s)

Meiyu Li, Ying Zuo, Chunfen Tong, Quan Zhang

Corresponding Author

Quan Zhang

Abstract

The underlying cause for the imbalance between supply and demand of smart home services for the elderly in China lies in the improper coordination of interests between the supply and demand sides, i.e. the differentiation between the elderly’ expectation for smart home services at a low price and the enterprises’ supply of smart home services at a high price. In response to this challenge, government subsidy is not suitable for China’s national conditions of aging before getting rich with a large population. Thus, constructing an interest coordination mechanism between supply and demand sides could be a feasible solution. We conduct a systematic analysis on three commonly used PPP modes in China and found that service outsourcing, franchising and equity cooperation may reasonably coordinate the interests between the supply and demand sides, which can not only bring benefits to the enterprises, but also promote the high-quality and low-price supply of smart home services for the elderly. To be specific, the advantage of service outsourcing mode is to form institutionalized interest compensation channel between supply and demand sides, and the advantage of franchising mode and equity cooperation mode is to produce sufficient interest compensation resources. Local governments should choose appropriate PPP mode to coordinate the interest differentiation between supply and demand sides in smart home services for the elderly according to the specific circumstances.

Keywords

Smart home services for the elderly; interest coordination mechanism; PPP