Abstract
AbstractCarsharing is often promoted as a potentially environmental‐friendly alternative to individual car ownership. However, various carsharing programs have displayed limited success in the past. An initial field study of a new carsharing service is such a story of failure: The introduction of this new service at a medium‐sized German university generated unexpectedly low adoption rates so that the service was eventually scaled down and then suspended. Quantitative field study results as well as additional qualitative focus groups reveal that missing compatibility is a key barrier to adoption. Drawing on extant conceptual frameworks of user participation in sharing business models, a factorial survey identifies the importance of different dimensions of carsharing business models for their acceptance. The results reveal that a set of convenience and lifestyle dimensions influences usage intentions, including mode of drive, pickup and drop‐off mode, service level, price model, availability, and type of market mediation. In contrast, vehicle fleet does not appear to influence carsharing models' acceptance. These findings contribute to research on business model configuration as well as the attitude–behavior gap in the sharing economy by determining relevant dimensions of a carsharing business model that can bridge the gap between basically positive attitudes and usage resistance. Thereby, they also serve for concrete managerial recommendations.
Highlights
THE RELEVANCE OF BUSINESS MODEL CHARACTERISTICS FOR THE ADOPTION OF CARSHARING SERVICES “[Carsharing] is a good concept ... [but] I wouldn't use it except for very rare cases.” (Interview quote of focus group participant).Carsharing is often described as ecological alternative to car ownership, and these environmental effects of carsharing have received significant scholarly attention (e.g., Baptista, Melo, & Rolim, 2014; Firnkorn & Müller, 2012; Peterson & Simkins, 2019; Rabbitt & Ghosh, 2016)
Vehicle fleet does not appear to influence carsharing models' acceptance. These findings contribute to research on business model configuration as well as the attitude–behavior gap in the sharing economy by determining relevant dimensions of a carsharing business model that can bridge the gap between basically positive attitudes and usage resistance
Our initial field study of a carsharing business model failure and the follow-up focus groups indicated that a positive attitude toward carsharing is not a good predictor of usage, we show that compatibility of specific dimension of the carsharing system with consumers living situation is essential for acceptance and usage intention
Summary
THE RELEVANCE OF BUSINESS MODEL CHARACTERISTICS FOR THE ADOPTION OF CARSHARING SERVICES “[Carsharing] is a good concept ... [but] I wouldn't use it except for very rare cases.” (Interview quote of focus group participant).Carsharing is often described as ecological alternative to car ownership, and these environmental effects of carsharing have received significant scholarly attention (e.g., Baptista, Melo, & Rolim, 2014; Firnkorn & Müller, 2012; Peterson & Simkins, 2019; Rabbitt & Ghosh, 2016). Carsharing services differ in their environmental impacts partly due to their different business model design, for example, free-floating and station-based systems (Münzel, Boon, Frenken, & Vaskelainen, 2017). Numerous carsharing programs seem to have disappointed, which has led service providers such as Citroën MultiCity (www.multicity-carsharing.de), Cité Lib (an initiative by Toyota, Place Gre'net, 2017), and car2go in UK (BBC News, 2014) to exit their respective markets. The reasons for these failures are unclear though, especially with regard to consumers' (non)adoption behavior (Monitor Deloitte, 2017; Perboli, Ferrero, Musso, & Vesco, 2018)
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