Evaluating collaborative consumption platforms from a consumer perspective

Abstract

Collaborative consumption (CC) platforms are growing tremendously because they facilitate exchange with owners who have unutilised resources and individuals who want to access those resources at a low cost. We study the intention to recommend and intention to share CC platforms, by combining the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology, and consumer trust with social media. This study contributes to several objectives of the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) such as to increase access to transportation (SDG 11), material consumption and improve resource efficiency (SDG 12), and reduce climate change and gas emissions (SDG 13). From a sample of 247 CC Platform users, our results successfully validated the hypotheses to capture important factors of CC Platforms, analysing the key determinants of sharing intention, user behaviour, satisfaction, trust, and intention to recommend. The model presents a high explained variation for all dependent constructs and identifies satisfaction as a mediation variable. Hence, this model provides new insights into CC Platforms from various dimensions, which is an emerging topic for researchers.