Unjustified trust beliefs: Trust conflation on sharing economy platforms

Abstract

Previous research has addressed the benefits of trust mechanisms on sharing economy platforms, and digital trust cues are widely accepted to immediately boost trust beliefs amongst peer consumers; yet little is known about whether such trust beliefs are justified. Our mixed-methods, abductive research explores trust conflation by peer consumers who are relatively unfamiliar with a platform, and how this may differ from the trust differentiation of more experienced peer consumers. We find that when peer consumers start to use a sharing economy platform, they perceive that various digital trust cues influence multiple trustees across different levels simultaneously, forming unjustified beliefs provoked by trust conflation relating to the platform intermediary and peer providers. Once peer consumers have had more time to gain relevant knowledge, they develop more accurate beliefs by differentiating relationships between digital trust cues and multiple trustees.