A cross-cultural analysis of how individualism and collectivism impact collaborative consumption

Abstract

The practice of collaborative consumption is increasingly spreading and diversifying nowadays, impacting both individuals and businesses. This paper seeks to contribute to the emerging debate that acknowledges its global importance by providing a cultural understanding of the deeper mechanisms underlying attitudes and intentions associated with collaborative consumption. The survey design aims to integrate personal norms, behavioral beliefs and individualism-collectivism constructs within the theory of planned behavior framework and thus to better explain the intention to engage in collaborative consumption. The study was conducted in Romania and Italy and a Partial Least Squares – Path Modeling approach was implemented to analyze the data. The findings illustrates the role played by responsibility, uniqueness and advice, as cultural facets revealed by the Auckland Individualism and Collectivism Scale –as significant predecessors of attitude and subjective norms related to collaborative consumption. Responsibility is the dimension with a positive impact on attitude in both countries, and even on behavioral intention in Italy, while advice and uniqueness show a certain degree of leverage only in Romania. The implications reinforce the need for tailored approaches at the cultural level in order to increase the uptake of collaborative consumption.