Dongjiao Daojia: Governing a Rapidly Growing Platform

Xue Zhang, Yang Chen, Yulian Ding, Rong Fu, Brandon Schaufele, Chao Yang

Product #:W51383

Supplier:Ivey

Discipline:General Management, Organizational Behaviour/Leadership

Setting:China, 2024

Details:Case (PDF) • 12 pages • 2026-07-30

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This case examines the rapid growth of Dongjiao Daojia (Dongjiao), a Chinese online-to-offline in-home massage platform. After limited success with an offline massage parlor, the company had pivoted to a digital platform model in 2019, leveraging network effects to attract massage therapists and customers through subsidies, training, and platform governance innovations. As Dongjiao expanded rapidly across China, it faced major challenges managing thousands of semi-autonomous service providers while maintaining service quality and platform reputation. The case explores platform governance, decentralized management, incentive design, network externalities, and the role of digital technologies and in scaling labor-intensive platform businesses.

Learning Objectives

This case is suitable for use in undergraduate and graduate courses, particularly courses on strategic management and microeconomics for managers.

After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:

Analyze the drivers behind the platformization transformation.
Understand the concepts of same-side and cross-side network effects and identify methods to activate them.
Identify governance challenges in managing service providers at scale.
Evaluate the trade-offs between centralized and decentralized governance structures in supporting platform growth, service quality, and participant motivation.