Institutional trust and repurchase intention in the sharing economy: The moderating roles of information privacy concerns and security concerns

Abstract

The sharing economy has accumulated a great number of experienced users, which makes repurchase behaviors a major concern. This research concentrates on two types of institutional trust, namely, trust in the platform and trust in the community of providers, and their various effects in shaping repurchase intention under different conditions specified by the innate human perception of risks. Drawing upon the privacy calculus model, we identify two types of risk-related perceptions, i.e., information privacy concerns and security concerns, as the primary situational factors for trust to take effect. We then propose a model to illustrate how these two types of trust operate under the boundary conditions specified by information privacy concerns and security concerns. Our findings based on experienced users of sharing accommodation platforms in China suggest that both types of institutional trust can promote repurchase intention, and their effects are moderated by both information privacy concerns and security concerns to varying extents. In doing so, our study contributes to the existing studies by confirming the essential role of institutional trust in driving repurchase behaviors and by adding a new understanding of institutional trust in platform-based businesses such as the sharing economy.