The Sharing Economy: Why People Participate in Collaborative Consumption
Aalto University - Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT; University of Tampere - Game Research Lab
Copenhagen Business School
Helsinki Institute for Information Technology
May 30, 2013
In recent years, ICTs have afforded the rise of the so called “collaborative consumption” (CC) – a form of consumption where people share consumption of goods and services online. CC has been expected to alleviate societal problems such as hyper-consumption, pollution, and poverty by lowering transaction costs related to coordination of economic activities within communities. However, beyond anecdotal evidence, there is a dearth of empirical studies on attitudes toward such peer-to-peer economies and the intentions to participate in them. The motivation to participate in CC is often regarded as fuelled by the aspirations to do good, but at the same time CC offers participants possible economic benefits. In this paper we investigate the role of these intrinsic and extrinsic motivations in attitudes and participation. The study employs survey data (N=168) and structural equation modeling (SEM-PLS). The results show that, whereas intrinsic motivations strongly predict attitudes, they do not translate as well into usage intentions. Conversely, economic benefits predict use intentions but do not significantly influence attitude. Furthermore, the attitude-behavior gap seems to loom in the consumption behaviour related to collaborative consumption; people perceive the activity positively and say good things about it, but they might not still participate in it themselves.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 27
Keywords: collaborative consumption, sharing economy, social commerce, sharing, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, sustainability, ecological consumption, self-determination theory, hedonic consumptionworking papers series
Date posted: May 31, 2013 ; Last revised: February 25, 2014
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