Abstract
Existing sharing economy (SE) studies tend to focus on the nature of SEs, their business models, and impact. However, there are limited in-depth studies on what motivates consumers’ participation in sustainable SE context, particularly in short-term rentals involving safety risks arising from face-to-face engagement with strangers while consuming the services. Applying the perceived value theory and extended theory of planned behavior, this study examines the relationships among consumers’ perceived value (gain versus loss), past experience, and behavioral intentions in sustainable consumption of short-term rentals offered on smart online matching platforms. Based on a survey of 421 Chinese consumers, our study has demonstrated that social appeal and economic appeal (gains) are positively related to behavioral intentions. Second, we establish that the relationship between perceived risk (loss) and behavioral intentions is inverted U-shaped, enriching the existing literature which has assumed a linear relationship. Finally, our study shows that past experience positively moderates the influence of social appeal on behavioral intentions. This suggests that, compared with consumers having little or no past experience, the positive relationship between social appeal and behavioral intentions is stronger for consumers having much past experience. On the other hand, past experience has no effect on the relationship between economic appeal and behavioral intentions.
Highlights
The growing popularity of sharing economy (SE) and its impact on multiple aspects of today’s society at various levels has captured increasing public attention in recent years
Many providers of SE platforms started off with the purpose of providing consumers with access to excess capacity owned by non-professional individuals, with some focusing on P2P short-term rental services (e.g., U.S.-based Airbnb), while others on P2P lending (e.g., FundingCircle) and P2P ridesharing services (e.g., Uber)
Applying extended TPB (ETPB) [19], we further investigate the impact of contingency factors on the relationship between the antecedents and consumers’ behavioral intentions
Summary
The growing popularity of sharing economy (SE) and its impact on multiple aspects of today’s society at various levels has captured increasing public attention in recent years. Given the scale of its social, economic and ecological impact, it is important to examine the antecedents influencing individuals’ behavioral intentions in participating in SE Understanding these factors will enable the policy makers to support the growth of SE enterprises in a way that will contribute to the socio-economic progress of the city, and govern their operating industries to achieve sustainable development. We seek to understand the gain part of perceived value by examining how economic appeal and social appeal affect consumers’ behavioral intentions in short-term rentals. As prior research has under-studied some important contingency factors when discussing the direct relationship between factors and behavioral intentions (e.g., [26]), we explore how past experience influences the relationships that economic appeal and social appeal have with consumers’ behavioral intentions. We will conclude the paper with theoretical and managerial implications, limitations, and future directions for research
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