The relative importance of the business model motive for customer participation in the sharing economy

Abstract

The sharing economy, defined by peer-to-peer interactions through a platform, has been gaining ground in recent years. In this study, we discuss the relative importance of customers' perceived motives to participate in the two most common models of the sharing economy: access-based consumption and ownership-transfer. We focus on taxi-hailing and post-delivery as examples of access-based consumption and second-hand trade as an example of the ownership-transfer. While these two contain heterogeneous business model patterns that can motivate customers differently, common motives are significant in both models. We study common motives and motives aligned with the business model patterns, which we call business model motives, i.e. variety for the ownership-transfer model and availability for the access-based. We demonstrate that while the business model pattern is different, the relative importance of the business model motive vis-à-vis other motives is similar. The novelty of our work lies in its coverage of more than one model of the sharing economy and juxtaposing motives across them.