Cheng Et Al (2018) A Mixed Method Investigation of Sharing Economy Driven Car-Hailing Services - Online and Offline Perspectives - LT 2019-06-28 13-47-33

Workspace for 'Cheng et al (2018) A mixed method investigation of sharing econom
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Service quality is an important aspect in m-

commerce (Salameh & Hassan, 2015) that can
determine customer behavior, satisfaction, and
intention to use certain product/service (Bolton &
Drew, 1991; Parasuraman et al., 1988; Parasuraman
et al., 1994). It is argued that service quality provides
long-term success and can be competitive
advantage (Caro & Garcia, 2007). Therefore, it is
important to assess and measure the service quality
especially services provided in m-commerce
environment (Huang et al., 2015).
-Shilvia2017 - Service…tation Services.pdf, p.2
These studies proposed that situational

settings may influence the factors of
service quality as well and raised questions Platform responsiveness refers to the
on whether these service quality willingness of a platform to help
dimensions were available in different passengers and to provide real-time
research backgrounds (e.g. Lee & Lin, services. In the sharing economy driven
This study aims to analyze the service quality of
2005; Kuo, Wu, & Deng, 2009). car-hailing platforms, a higher level of 20 criteria that can be used to measure online
online transportation focusing on the technology
-Cheng et al (201…e perspectives, p.2 platform responsiveness ensures timely transportation service quality.
aspect.
transaction match. According to one -Shilvia2017 - Service…tation Services.pdf, p.1
interviewee: “Sometimes it is really
annoying. I was in desperate need of car,
but simply no drivers would offer me a ride. The current mesurement model in the existing
Sometimes the drivers already received my studies was developed in general m-commerce
order, but it really took time to reach my perspectives and there is still few research
destination. I think the matching algorithm specifically addressing online transportation service
of the platform should be improved.” (I8) quality. Online transportation services have unique
-Cheng et al (201…e perspectives, p.4 characteristics among other m-commerce services in
term of the nature of its services. It has distinct
services process, involves inseparable physical
electronic commerce, e-service quality is
For offline service quality factors, services (i.e. drivers, vehicle, etc.) and the user’s
comprised of the following dimensions:
information congruity refers to the match tendency to use the services repeatedly. Therefore
website design (Hahn, Sparks, Wilkins, &
between the descriptions from the platform it is important to study online transportation services.
Jin, 2017), information quality (Xu et al.,
and the information showed offline. -Shilvia2017 - Service…tation Services.pdf, p.2
2013), and interface interactivity (Ku &
Chen, 2015). According to schema congruity theory and
-Cheng et al (201…e perspectives, p.2 cognitive fit theory, mismatch of information
relates to users’ mental processing and Online car-hailing, also called real-time
influences individuals’ satisfaction ride sharing, ride-hailing, on-demand rides
According to literature review of e- perception (Huang, Tan, Ke, & Wei, 2013). and ride-sourcing (Rayle et al., 2016), is a
service quality in the e-retailing industry Said one interviewee: “I had several typical service form in the sharing
(Collier & Bienstock, 2006), the dimensions experiences on the mismatch of online economy. It is a service that allows drivers
of e-service quality were extended to profiles. The platform shows the license of and passengers to arrange one-time shared
include the delivery of the desired product one car, but the car in real life is another rides ahead of time or on short notice
or service, online process quality (in- model with different license number” (I22). (Amey et al., 2011). Since its emergence,
cluding functionality, information accuracy, -Cheng et al (201…e perspectives, p.4 there existed many issues (e.g., service
design, privacy and ease of use), and quality, regulations, and conflicts with the
service failure recovery. Competence is the offline entity’s traditional taxi industry). Nevertheless, as a
-Cheng et al (201…e perspectives, p.2 capability to ensure the offline service, for service form of sharing economy, it gathers
example, to provide promised services and drivers, passengers, governments, and
a lack of studies that focus on service to do a capable job. From the interview payment companies through the Internet. It
quality dimensions in customer-to-cus- comments, one lady complained: “Once I solves the problems of idle resource
tomer (C2C) relationships. Given our focus used Didi (a well-known car-hailing app in utilization and information asymmetry
on service quality of car- hailing services in China), the driver had no clue for the route. through an efficient matching mechanism
sharing economy driven mobile commerce He kept making detours, which not only and realizes the transformation of traffic
markets, the service providers are the wasted my time but also wasted my money. resources from ownership to access rights.
registered drivers through the platform and I think the driver was simply not competent Therefore, how to solve the existing issues
the business relationship is C2C in nature. to offer me a ride.” (I19) and exert advantages to promote the
-Cheng et al (201…e perspectives, p.2 -Cheng et al (201…e perspectives, p.4 healthy growth of the sharing economy
becomes an important task.
For empathy we have slightly different -Zuo & Zhu 2019 -…economy.pdf, p.2
definition than the one proposed by
Parasuraman et al. (1988). In the context of
sharing economy driven riding service,
empathy refers to offline entities’ personality
and benevolence to the customers. For
example, one interviewee said: “Sometimes
the drivers are not caring. I am already really
tired after work and when I ask for a car-
hailing service, I just want to take a rest
during the riding process. However, the
driver keeps talking to me. It’s annoying.
And sometimes, they (the drivers) keep the
Huang et al. (2005), in his study, developed a AC in a very low temperature. I really can’t
scale to assess mobile service quality for virtual and stand it. Even after I remind them that I feel
physical products named as M- S-QUAL. The study cold, they still hesitate to keep the AC
proposed a model with nine (9) dimensions which are warmer.” (I64)
efficiency, system avaibility, content, privacy, -Cheng et al (201…e perspectives, p.4
fullfilment, responsiveness, compensation, contact,
dan billing (Huang et al., 2005)
Meanwhile, Lu et al. (2009) and Stiakakis and

Georgiadis (2011) proposed different set of
measurement dimension which are interaction
quality, environment quality, and outcome quality
Salameh and Hasan (2015) who proposed a

model to measure mobile service quality and identify
the relationship between service quality, customer
satisfaction, and behavioral intention.
User loyalty refers to individuals’ affective

and cognitive commit- ment towards a
service and reflects their dedication towards
a service (Kim & Son, 2009).
-Cheng et al (201…e perspectives, p.2
A customer’s continuous intention or

behavior has always been an indicator of
success (Salanova, Agut, & Peiró, 2005)
Management and psychological theories n the context of sharing economy driven

expectancy-disconfirmation theory, post car-hailing mobile commerce, if the service
of attitude formation and changes support adoption satisfaction is a function of
the roles of service quality and satisfaction outperforms expectations (positive
expectations, perceived performance, and disconfirmation), post-purchase satisfaction
in shaping users’ loyalty (Baldi & Thaung, disconfirmation of beliefs (Hossain &
2002; Harris, Rettie, & Cheung, 2005; Xu et is likely to result, thus leading to user
Quaddus, 2012) loyalty
al., 2013). -Cheng et al (201…e perspectives, p.2
-Cheng et al (201…e perspectives, p.2 -Cheng et al (201…e perspectives, p.2
based on the theory of planned behavior,

attitude towards behavior, subjective norms,
and perceived behavioral control, together
shape an individual's behavioral intentions
and ultimate behavior (Liao, Liu, Liu, To, &
Lin, 2011; Wang & Chang, 2014; Yen & Lu,
2008).
Based on the theoretical lens and existing

literature, user service, satisfaction, and
loyalty are three frequently investigated
constructs when investigating post usage
behaviors.
Service quality was proposed to directly

influence loyalty, and satisfaction was
validated to be a mediator between service
quality and loyalty (Caruana, 2002; Orel &
Kara, 2014)
The positive relationship between

satisfaction and user loyalty was validated
in various studies in different contexts
(Kumar, Dalla Pozza, & Ganesh, 2013; Lee,
Moon, Kim, & Mun, 2015; Walsh,
Evanschitzky, & Wunderlich, 2008), where
some studies even proposed that
satisfaction was the strongest indicator of
loyalty intention (Zhao, Lu, Zhang, & Chau,
2012)
As the research objective of this study is

to investigate the mechanisms of user
loyalty from a service quality perspective
and to explore the antecedents of service
quality from both online and offline
perspectives, we aim to adopt the basic
model comprised of service quality,
satisfaction, and loyalty as our research
framework. Based on existing studies, we
posit the following relationships in car-
hailing business: H1. Service quality (a:
Online service quality; b: Offline service
quality) influences satisfaction perceptions,
such that satisfaction will be higher for
users who perceived a higher level of
service quality (a: Online service quality; b:
Offline service quality) H2. Service quality
(a: Online service quality; b: Offline service
quality) influences user loyalty, such that
loyalty will be higher for users who
perceived a higher level of service quality (a:
Online service quality; b: Offline service
quality) H3. Satisfaction influences user
loyalty such that higher satisfaction leads to
higher user loyalty. H4. Satisfaction
mediates the effect of service quality (a:
online service quality; b: offline service
quality) on loyalty.
According to the research scope,

namely to measure the relative strength of
the most commonly cited determinants as
mentioned in literature on the two
introduced endogenous variables, the
framework is conceptualized without
additional interdependencies between
the determinant variables.
-Collaborative co…elihood of.pdf, p.3
The first component in the framework is

the variable community belonging.
Research has been emphasizing the
emerging role of collective co-production
(Peters et al., 2012) and community
belonging (Närvänen et al. 2013) on
consumption behavior. Community
memberships or the aspi- ration to be
part of a group or community is argued to
be one determinant of practicing sharing
or collaborative consumption activities
(Ostrom, 1990; Nelson and Rademacher,
2009; Galbreth et al., 2012). In one of their
book chapters, “From Generation Me to
Generation We,” Botsman and Rogers
co- production experiences serve as a Third, because the notion of community
(2010:41) discuss a shift in society, which
means to connect to the self and create is at the core of collaborative
has become evident in recent years.
meaning and fulfillment in the life of the consumption, including temporary
They argue that today’s facebook
consumer. sharing events, we use community theory
generation seeks to connect with like-
-Peters et al 2012…n process.pdf, p.1 as a lens to guide our research.
minded people in online and offline
-Albinsson_et_al-…Behaviour.pdf, p.3
communities, which enable them to
practice collaborative consumption.
Albinsson and Perera (2012) stress a Collaborative co-production consists of Sharing is a key element of collaborative
sense of community to be a principle “a partnership of consumers with the consumption. Belk (2007: p. 126) defined
driver of (regular) participation in sharing company to create a service, brand sharing as, “the act and process of
activities. They argue that people make identity, or product,” distributing what is ours to others for their
use of community gatherings to share -Peters et al 2012…process.pdf, p.2 use and/or the act or process of receiving
knowledge and goods for ideological and or taking something from others for our
practical reasons. This leads to use.
hypothesize the following: H1a: -Albinsson_et_al-…Behaviour.pdf, p.4
Community belonging has a positive The paper provides a typology of online
impact on the satisfaction with a sharing community dynamics, emphasizing the importance
option. H1b: Community belonging has a of challenging practices for community
positive impact on the likelihood of using development.
a sharing option again. -Narvanen 2013 Onlin…unity dynamics.pdf, p.1
-Collaborative co…elihood of.pdf, p.3 According to Bagozzi (1975), a
utilitarian exchange involves the exchange
of goods for money or other goods
motivated by the value or antici- pated
use of the objects exchanged. In the
studied context, the direct utilitarian value
is absent because participants contribute
their tangibles and intangibles to a shared
pool from which they, and others, can
draw to fill their respective needs. As
such, in this particular context, utilitarian
value is very much dependent upon the
behaviors and motives of consumers who
participate. However, symbolic value in
an individual’s self-benefit and might
terms of feeling good about participating
thus be an important determinant of
in such events, not only through sharing
collaborative consumption (based on
goods but also through supporting a
Olson, 1965; Hardin, 1968; Rapoport and
particular ideology, is definitely present in
Chammah, 1970). In fact, many recent
this context.
research contributions have been
-Albinsson_et_al-…Behaviour.pdf, p.9
addressing this topic. Mont (2004) argues
that the satisfaction of car sharing We observed an intense desire to foster
customers would be influenced by cost community building, stemming from
savings, including the initial cost of consumers sense of lack of community
investing in a transportation option. in today’s society. We also note that
Lamberton and Rose (2012) find cost although sharing events should fall into
benefits of sharing to be a key the nonreciprocity realm, many consu-
determinant of usage. Bardhi and mers struggle with this idea. With new
Eckhardt (2012) stress economic sharing business models surfacing in the
concerns to be a major reason (and even marketplace, (e.g., Netflix, clothing and
to exceed other concerns such as ethical toy libraries), we may begin to observe an
ones) in many cases when practicing increase in dialogue pertaining to the
collaborative consumption. Moeller and need for establishing a greater sense of
Wittkowski (2010) emphasize sharing community from consumers, marketers,
options usually to be cheaper than and policy makers.
nonsharing options and consider price -Albinsson_et_al-…ehaviour.pdf, p.10 In this article, we document the variety of means
consciousness to be a principle by which sharing platforms increasingly emphasise
determinant of using sharing options. the idea of being a “community marketplace”
Thus, it is hypothesized that H2a: Cost -sharing economy as c…Oxford Academic, p.16
savings have a positive effect on the
satisfaction with a sharing option. H2b: Sharing events serve as meeting spaces
Cost savings have a positive effect on the for individuals with different backgrounds,
likelihood of using a sharing option again. interests, and motives for participation
-Collaborative co…elihood of.pdf, p.3 -Albinsson_et_al-…ehaviour.pdf, p.10 The central idea is that sociality and belonging are
not just by-products of sharing platforms, offered in
order to motivate participation, but are crucial for
dealing with the relevant problems of trust implied in
We argue that mobilising a sense of community is
a radically decentralised exchange platform,
not only instrumental to promising a more intense
especially when sharing requires co-presence and is
consumption experience; it is crucial to eliciting
based on non-simultaneous, transitive or
users’ active participation in the self-regulation of
generalised reciprocity mechanisms.
peer-to-peer exchanges and for dealing with
-sharing economy as c…Oxford Academic, p.2
relevant trust issues, especially when sharing implies
co-presence and/or non-monetary compensation.
-sharing economy as c…| Oxford Academic, p.1
In times of growing skepticism to- ward
capitalistic structures and anti- When discussing the communitarian dimension of
consumption movements, alternative the sharing economy, it first needs to be highlighted
forms of green, ethical or sustainable that the social opportunities hospitality implies are
consumption become increasingly important motivations for joining sharing platforms
While immensely profitable—Uber and Airbnb are (Schor, 2015; Parigi et al., 2013),
important (Kozinets and Handelman,
among the most valuable private enterprises, -sharing economy as c…Oxford Academic, p.12
2004; Newholm and Shaw, 2007;
according to CB Insights (2017)—their activities
Albinsson et al., 2010; Neilson, 2010;
even prove less green and social than public
Ozanne and Ballantine, 2010; Albinsson
relations would suggest: their much-hyped novelty
and Perera, 2012; Schuitema and De
and trendiness obscuring classist, racist In 2009, the website portrayed Airbnb as different
Groot, 2014).
assumptions about premodern legacies of sharing Sharing platforms do not only favour the from a standard accommodation service, as it
-Collaborative co…elihood of.pdf, p.3
that ignore the daily importance of “non-digital strengthening of social ties among users but also allows users to create “real connections” and “meet
sharing practices” for many including “the work- favour the building of a specific identity and sense of new people” who are “nice folks, folks like you”. In
ing-class, poor, and minority communities” as well as belonging (O’Regan, 2013). They 2010, the website introduced a new feature called
persistent discrimination along class, gender, and -sharing economy as c…Oxford Academic, p.12 “groups” that “enables you to stay with and/or host
race lines (Schor 2014, 5–8). other Airbnb users that share your same interests or
-Pia A. Albinsson, B. Y…aeger (2018).pdf, p.23 have a similar background”.
This is also crucial for inducing users to become -sharing economy as c…Oxford Academic, p.13
active members in the community, that is, to spend
their time writing reviews and commit themselves to
the self-regulation mechanisms to which those
platforms so heavily rely, also based on the The tool allows users to find mutual friends who
The central idea is that sociality and belonging are
not just by-products of sharing platforms, offered in
order to motivate participation, but are crucial for
dealing with the relevant problems of trust implied in
We argue that mobilising a sense of community is
a radically decentralised exchange platform,
not only instrumental to promising a more intense
especially when sharing requires co-presence and is
consumption experience; it is crucial to eliciting
based on non-simultaneous, transitive or
users’ active participation in the self-regulation of
peer-to-peer exchanges and for dealing with

relevant trust issues, especially when sharing implies
co-presence and/or non-monetary compensation.
-sharing economy as c…| Oxford Academic, p.1
When discussing the communitarian dimension of
Page 3 (row 3, column 1) the sharing economy, it first needs to be highlighted

that the social opportunities hospitality implies are
important motivations for joining sharing platforms
While immensely profitable—Uber and Airbnb are (Schor, 2015; Parigi et al., 2013),
among the most valuable private enterprises, -sharing economy as c…Oxford Academic, p.12
according to CB Insights (2017)—their activities
even prove less green and social than public
relations would suggest: their much-hyped novelty
and trendiness obscuring classist, racist In 2009, the website portrayed Airbnb as different
assumptions about premodern legacies of sharing Sharing platforms do not only favour the from a standard accommodation service, as it
that ignore the daily importance of “non-digital strengthening of social ties among users but also allows users to create “real connections” and “meet
sharing practices” for many including “the work- favour the building of a specific identity and sense of new people” who are “nice folks, folks like you”. In
ing-class, poor, and minority communities” as well as belonging (O’Regan, 2013). They 2010, the website introduced a new feature called
persistent discrimination along class, gender, and -sharing economy as c…Oxford Academic, p.12 “groups” that “enables you to stay with and/or host
Hamari et al. (2013) conceptualize eco-
race lines (Schor 2014, 5–8). other Airbnb users that share your same interests or
logical sustainable consumption as a key
-Pia A. Albinsson, B. Y…aeger (2018).pdf, p.23 have a similar background”.
determinant of the intention to share. This is also crucial for inducing users to become -sharing economy as c…Oxford Academic, p.13
Indeed, sharing solutions are generally Dùng trong phần dícussion cho active members in the community, that is, to spend
considered to have a positive environmental impact their time writing reviews and commit themselves to
environmental impact compared with -Refers to other…mments/excerpts the self-regulation mechanisms to which those
nonsharing solutions because the pooling platforms so heavily rely, also based on the The tool allows users to find mutual friends who
of material goods leads to the increased expectation that everyone else will do the same have stayed with a potential host or are friends with
intensity in the usage of one (Hamari et al., 2015 them or to search for “like-minded” hosts based on
-Collaborative co…elihood of.pdf, p.3 -sharing economy as c…Oxford Academic, p.13 their personal characteristics. Previously called
recommendations, references, as separate from
Cần chỉnh lại yếu tưởng
reviews, can be elicited from anyone in your social
-Refers to other…mments/excerpts
The material required for each episode networks as long as they have an Airbnb profile
is reduced, waste is avoided, and created.
overproduction is countered (Mont, 2004). -sharing economy as c…Oxford Academic, p.13
In fact, studies have shown that users of
car sharing reduced their emissions by up
to 50 per cent per head (Botsman and These platforms, in other words, promise social
Rogers, 2010). This leads to the following connections and sense of belonging not only as a
hypotheses: H3a: Environmental impact by-product of convenient accommodation solutions,
has a positive effect on the satisfaction in order to motivate people to join them or to
with a sharing option. H3b: Environmental increase the intensity, authenticity and depth of their
impact has a positive effect on the consumption experience. This social and
likelihood of using a sharing option again. communitarian dimension is indeed crucial for
-Collaborative co…elihood of.pdf, p.4 extending the scope of sharing beyond the limit of
pre-existing social ties and to perfect strangers, to
reassure users about the reliability of a peer-to-peer
exchange model and for complementing the explicit
and formal mechanisms for increasing trust among
users with implicit and informal controls and
sanctions
When looking at how the sharing economy evolved

in these years, clearly some of the most important
improvements have been in managing the “trust
issue”. Most accommodation sharing platforms, for
example, initially lacked insurance or refund systems.
Their policing mechanisms were almost entirely
reliant on the self-regulation of a community of highly
engaged pioneers and early users. Still today,
requiring users to disclose their identity, personal
profiles, link their social networks and to rate or
reference each other through digital reputation
systems is fundamental, also thanks to the
introduction of identity verification systems, two-way
evaluations, reporting services and other
improvements in the quality and quantity of
information provided to and by the platform
In co trảy to accomodation sharing
industry, trút ít still á problem in ride
hailling. No rquirement for driver and
River vẻification Lead to ưnanted
incidents
As these platforms grow and diffuse, the amount

of information feeding digital reputation systems
increases, but their effectiveness in providing
complete, reliable and undistorted information is
increasingly questionable, whilst the degree of
homophily and the social investment from members
in the network decreases. As the entry of free riders
or less engaged members becomes easier and more
likely, participants’ sense of belonging to a
community of highly motivated and like-minded
individuals weakens. The incentives for behaving
correctly and proactively both online—for example
by leaving honest reviews— and offline, risk
becoming insufficient as long as those incentives are
mainly implicit and enforced horizontally rather than
hierarchically.
Dùng trong phần discussion when

talking abut why trust is not strong in
ride hailing context
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The sharing economy as community marketplace?

Trust, reciprocity and belonging in peer-to-peer
accommodation platforms
Filippo Celata, Cary Yungmee Hendrickson, Venere Stefania Sanna Author Notes
Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Volume 10, Issue 2, July 2017, Pages 349–
363, https://doi-org.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/10.1093/cjres/rsw044
Published: 25 January 2017 Article history
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Abstract
What is the role sociality and belonging play within the particular exchange model that
the sharing economy embodies? This article presents a theoretical review and a
comparative analysis of the main sharing platforms in the accommodation domain in
order to outline a conceptual framework on the relations between trust, reciprocity and
belonging in the sharing economy. We argue that mobilising a sense of community is
not only instrumental to promising a more intense consumption experience; it is
crucial to eliciting users’ active participation in the self-regulation of peer-to-peer
exchanges and for dealing with relevant trust issues, especially when sharing implies
co-presence and/or non-monetary compensation. The drivers and potential outcomes
of the decline in social depth of sharing practices are discussed.
Keywords: sharing economy, hospitality, reciprocity, trust, community

Keywords: D02, L86, O33
Issue Section: Manuscript
Introduction
Sharing practices are historically deeply embedded in interpersonal relationships, are

needed to create ties and enhance trust and guarantee reciprocity among participants.
Internet-based intermediaries have recently emerged and rapidly diffused, thanks to their
ability to extend the opportunities for sharing to distant and previously unrelated strangers
(Bialski, 2011; Schor and Fitzmaurice, 2014). Whether disembedded from pre-existing ties
or not (Parigi et al., 2013), sharing practices continue to require a peculiar social
infrastructure and the establishment of a “community marketplace” where non-
anonymous agents share something more than just goods, that is a certain ethos, solidarity
and sense of belonging (Bardhi and Eckhardt, 2012; Belk, 2010; Molz, 2013; Richardson,
2015). This is especially the case with sharing in the accommodation domain, as discussed in
this article.
Existing research has already documented the extent to which the sharing economy
contributes to the creation or strengthening of social ties and to the building or
enhancement of a sense of community among participants (Parigi et al., 2013; Rosen et al.,
2011; Schor, 2016). This article proposes a different point of view in dealing with this issue.
The aim is to investigate the role such a social and communitarian dimension plays in
sustaining the emergence and diffusion of the particular exchange model offered by the
sharing economy.
The central idea is that sociality and belonging are not just by-products of sharing
platforms, offered in order to motivate participation, but are crucial for dealing with the
relevant problems of trust implied in a radically decentralised exchange platform, especially
when sharing requires co-presence and is based on non-simultaneous, transitive or
A conceptual framework highlighting the relations between sociality, belonging, trust and
reciprocity in the sharing economy is outlined in the second section. The third section aims
at introducing and delimiting our field of enquiry, and we apply our conceptual framework
to a comparative review of the main sharing platforms in the accommodation domain. The
choice of accommodation and hospitality allows a deeper focus on sharing practices for
which the issues of reciprocity and trust are particularly crucial and problematic. Rather
than focusing on a specific platform, this article compares several initiatives within this
vast, peculiar, heterogeneous and rapidly changing sub-sector of the sharing economy. We
discuss therefore how various sharing platforms deal differently with these issues and how
this has evolved over time.
In the following section, we take a closer look at the role that sociality and belonging play in
the emergence and growth of accommodation sharing platforms. The analysis is based
mainly on a systematisation of the emerging body of research and empirical evidence on the
sharing economy, complemented by a content analysis of how sharing platforms’ websites
have changed through the years. We also reflect on whether the social intensity and
communitarian dimension of sharing is declining along with the growth, consolidation and
standardisation of the sharing economy—as some participants, observers and experts have
recently lamented (O’Regan, 2015; Parigi and Cook, 2015; Parigi and State, 2014; Slee, 2013)
—and how the main platforms have reacted. After discussing the causes and the
consequences of such a decline, we provide some concluding remarks.
The article does not provide definitive answers. The aim is to outline a theoretical
framework and to systematise the empirical base for future research on the peculiarities and
prospects of this emerging phenomenon.
Connectivity, value, trust and belonging in the sharing

economy
What is today defined as the “sharing economy” has many antecedents and precursors. The
act of sharing itself is as old as humankind. What is actually new and what has allowed the
scope of the sharing economy to grow dramatically is the emergence of information and
communications technology (ICT) platforms that extend sharing opportunities beyond
friends/relatives or the local/neighbourhood scale to complete and distant strangers (Schor,
2016).
This is obtained by acting upon some crucial dimensions. The first of these dimensions is
connectivity. The sharing economy itself has been defined as “connected consumption”, in
order to emphasise its social but at the same time digital dimension (Schor and Fitzmaurice,
2014). When limited to pre-existing social ties, the scope for potential sharing is obviously
very limited. This is also a problem faced by many community-based and grass-roots
initiatives that are limited to single neighbourhoods or localities (Martin et al., 2015); even
in cases where such networks are extra-local and connect distant users, they are
nonetheless limited in scope, deeply embedded and rely on cohesive communities. These
kinds of community-based networks, consequently, can hardly upscale beyond the
threshold of the community or group from which they originated and indeed often strive
even to survive.
Internet-based intermediaries can provide what self-organised networks or socially

bounded relationships can rarely guarantee: a critical mass of connections as well as
efficient platforms, reputation and compensation systems that are needed to reduce
information asymmetries and transaction costs. While the emergence of these web-based
platforms is often also heralded as a way to eliminate intermediaries by allowing peer-to-
peer exchanges, what these platforms actually do is to substitute existing intermediaries by
changing the traditional means through which consumers interact. Connectivity between
participants is facilitated through a decentralised exchange mechanism that allows for the
management of a potentially infinite number of transactions and the exploitation of huge
economies of scale.
Decentralised and peer-to-peer markets have the advantage of allowing for a much easier,
richer and more direct flow of information between agents, but at the same time reduce the
possibility for hierarchical control (Benkler, 2004, 320). The incredible growth of many
sharing platforms, moreover, could have a number of additional negative consequences that
are further discussed in this article: they increase, for example, the risk of free riding and
opportunistic behaviours and weaken the cohesiveness and homophily of these networks.
The second crucial dimension upon which the emergence and growth of the sharing
economy depends has to do with how the value of what is being shared is compensated. In
many cases, the use of shared goods is monetarily compensated, thus resembling a simple
market transaction, where the only difference is the means through which the exchange is
intermediated. In other cases, which are perhaps more peculiar and interesting, financial
compensation is substituted by a non-monetary exchange, according to a reciprocity
mechanism that can take at least one of the following forms:
A first type of reciprocity is direct, that is A gives B access to A’s asset in exchange for the
simultaneous use (or promise of access in the near future) of the other’s similar asset. A
paradigmatic example of this is home swapping or home exchanges.
A second, more particular form of reciprocity is indirect rather than mutual: A gives B
access to A’s good with the expectation that B will do the same with C and so on. These
cases may be defined as generalised exchange (Takahashi, 2000) or as forms of transitive
reciprocity which are typical of, for example, home-swapping platforms adopting a
point-based or credit system. In such cases, however, the mutuality of transitive
reciprocity may be unequal in terms of the asset’s value, and transitive reciprocity is not
necessarily compulsory. Consequently, and, similarly to the case of generalised
reciprocity discussed below, reciprocal sharing is interpreted as being motivated (also) by
altruism and/or other intrinsic, non-utilitarian motivations and vulnerable to free riding
or opportunism.
A third type of reciprocity is that of those sharing practices rooted in a system of

generalised reciprocity, thus more closely resembling a gift exchange (Belk, 2010). In
these cases, users of shared goods are even less obliged to reciprocate because even if
they do so, the platform does not track what is shared nor by whom. Generalised
reciprocity is typical in the case of many community-based sharing initiatives (for
example, community libraries), which are primarily driven by solidarity. This is also very
often the case for the sharing of non-rival goods such as digital files, where access is
non-exclusionary. But generalised reciprocity mechanisms have also been adopted by
some of the earliest online sharing communities such as Freecycle or CouchSurfing.
Yochai Benkler (2004) interprets these types of non-reciprocal sharing practices as non-
instrumental exchanges based upon a (pro)social behaviour which is not, however, entirely
irrational or merely altruistic. The rationality behind these practices, according to the
author, lies in the fact that sharing is often easier and more efficient than resale markets. In
addition, excluding others from the use of this excess capacity is not without any costs,
whilst sharing instead allows for social and psychological returns (Benkler, 2004). In the
following sections, we further question what then motivates people to join non-reciprocal
sharing networks and reflect on the role social and communitarian motivations and
dimensions play.
In all of these cases, the social, communitarian logic and a certain ethos of sharing are
crucial. Communitarianism is associated with the belief that common formulations of the
good cannot be left to the determination of individuals acting in their own isolated self-
interest (Etzioni, 2014). A sense of community sustains shared beliefs, social order,
solidarity, morality, ethical and collective responsibility, also beyond the scale of cohesive
social groups. Communitarian values are mobilised in sharing practices, as these bring
together strangers who cannot rely on deep connections or strong interpersonal
relationships but need to confide in some sort of common values (McLean and Agyeman,
2015). In other words, in order to minimise the risks of free riding and motivate people to
grant strangers access to their goods, participants in the sharing network should believe or
at least expect that other participants share their motivations and/or ethical orientations to
do so and, if this is not the case, some kind of (social) sanction will be enforced.
The social/ethical component of sharing is also central for the third and final dimension:
trust—the most relevant and problematic issue. As compared to impersonal, monetary
market exchanges, sharing implies a number of relevant problems with regard to trust and
which are directly related to its social depth. As Belk (2007, 2010, 2014) has argued, sharing
implies interdependence, an obligation of care and responsible use from those involved; it
de facto creates a social/communal bond and gives rise to an (implicit and social) debt. The
risk of opportunistic, incorrect, mistrustful behaviours is very high, especially in case of
non-reciprocated, peer-to-peer exchanges in which durable goods are shared, which may
be damaged, or when sharing implies co-presence. Sharing platforms indeed put
considerable efforts towards developing formal and informal mechanisms to enforce and
communicate a sense of reassurance to their “trustworthy” communities of users.
The primary and most formal way to increase trust is standard insurance and/or refund
systems that have been implemented by almost all platforms, although most did not have
them at their outset (see Figure 1). Indeed, as legal cases have been building against some of
the larger sharing economy companies in recent years, it is becoming clear that the
platforms themselves exist in a regulatory grey area where they cannot be held liable as
employers or asset holders, nor do they function like many of their traditional competitors
(Olson and Kemp, 2015, 11).
Figure 1.
View large Download slide
Compensation means and use typology of the main accommodation sharing platforms.
Source: compiled from various sources.
Instead, the most widely diffused mechanisms for increasing trust are digital reputation
systems that rely on users’ ratings, references, feedback and so on (see Guttentag, 2013;
Hamari et al., 2015; Lauterbach et al., 2009; Ronzhyn, 2013; Tan, 2010). However, recent
studies have shown that the information provided through reputation/rating systems is
often skewed, poor, insufficient and may be manipulated or distorted (Adamic et al., 2011;
Ba and Pavlou, 2002; Bolton et al., 2013; Slee, 2013; Zervas et al., 2015).
We argue that even when efficient, unbiased and reliable, a reputation system is not enough.
Additional means to increase trust among members are necessary, for example, by
facilitating an exchange which is not entirely anonymous nor impersonal. What is unique
about the sharing economy is that the objects being shared are not the only protagonists of
the exchange: the subjects themselves are of equal importance. Sharers must present
themselves as appealing subjects, marketed through their online profiles,
bios/backgrounds, personal interests and pictures, similar to personal profiles on social
networks (Ronzhyn, 2013). Whilst the use of personal profiles raises critical issues of self-
branding and digital discrimination (Edelman and Luca, 2014; Edelman et al., 2015), it plays
a relevant role in enhancing trust. The aim is to simulate a situation in which potential
sharers feel comfortable or familiar with the others, can be identified either indirectly or by
directly linking with (other) personal social networking platforms and can even get to know
themselves personally before incurring in the “social obligation” which sharing implies.
More generally, and more indirectly or informally, what these platforms do for enhancing
trust is to stress the social affinities of participants by emphasising their belonging to a
peculiar community of practice which shares something more than just goods, including a
certain ethical and prosocial behaviour. As Richardson (2015) recently argued, the sharing
economy relies heavily on a communitarian imagination similar to that of cyber
(sub)cultures. Reciprocity is not between single individuals participating in the exchange
“but between the members and the community-as-a-whole” (Slee, 2013, 11). Feeling a
sense of belonging in such a community not only motivates owners to bear the costs of
sharing but it also reassures them about other users’ social investment in the network and
about their adherence to a common set of (social) norms and ethical principles (Bardhi and
Eckhardt, 2012). These norms are only loosely enforced in a formal sense—for example
through the acceptance of some code of conduct or terms of services—but they are also
enforced through informal social control (Bicchieri et al., 2004).
A sharing platform “relies on the moral policing of crowdsourced reputation scores and
social network identity verification”, which are too weak to be sufficient (Lee, 2015), given
the highly decentralised exchange mechanism. What a sharing platform is (also) expected to
guarantee to participants is that sort of “selective exclusion” which is typical of sharing
practices in general. Selective exclusion happens when “the owner excludes many putative
users of the functionality and only permits use by those who meet the owner’s social
criteria” (Benkler, 2004, 309–310). Within most sharing economy networks, this cannot be
done directly or entirely by the owner. The platform itself is somehow expected to guarantee
some kind of (informal) system for “the definition and policing of social group boundaries
—who is in and who is out—and the monitoring and enforcement of the terms of social
sharing” (Benkler, 2004).
To summarise, sharing platforms substantially increase the opportunities for connecting

owners to potential (and previously unrelated) users. This occurs through a decentralised
and peer-to-peer exchange system capable of minimising direct transaction costs, as well
as dealing with the indirect transaction costs related to information asymmetries and trust.
Moreover, sharing platforms introduce new forms of reciprocity as well as mechanisms to
minimise risks and enhance the reliability and quality of exchanges based on both explicit
sanctions (for example negative feedback, ratings, references or sanctions for the violation
of formal rules or codes), insurance and refund systems as well as upon implicit sanctions.
The risk of opportunistic, merely instrumental and incorrect behaviour is reduced through
several dispositives: by making the exchange not anonymous, by emphasising and
encouraging participants to describe their affinities, ethical concerns, social obligations
and/or motivations for joining the network and for sharing and by providing indirect and
reputational sanctions. In the following sections, we discuss how this is operationalised
within different sharing initiatives in order to provide some evidence about what role this
social, communitarian dimension of sharing plays, how this is evolving and—possibly—
declining and what the consequences of this are.
Value and reciprocity in accommodation sharing platforms
The issues discussed in the previous section, and trust especially, are of particular relevance
when what is being shared is a privately owned asset like a home or an apartment or a room
or bed within those apartments. Hospitality is indeed one of the most ancient and diffused
forms of sharing. The first intermediaries aimed at facilitating these kind of exchanges and
extending them to distant strangers dates back to the early 1950s. Home-swapping services
such as Servas, founded in 1949, and HomeLink or Intervac, both founded in 1953, were
limited to specific categories of users (for example, teachers), initially published their
listings in phone book-sized catalogues that were printed several times a year and sent by
post (Kirk, 1998).
Following the advent of the Internet, these catalogues went online. The first was HomeLink,
whose website is today translated in 17 languages. Over time, these pioneers were outpaced
by newcomers such as HomeExchange, founded in 1992 and online since 1995. Thanks to a
user-friendly interface, a reliable internal messaging system and an efficient support
service, HomeExchange upscaled and fast pooled a substantial number of connections. It
recently reached 65,000 members, whilst Intervac has adopted a different strategy of
“keep[ing] a low profile, taking care of [only] 30,000 members”, as declared on the website.
Although some of these platforms require a subscription fee, and many of them increased
their fees over time, swapping is free and based upon a system of direct reciprocity. Given
the difficulties in matching offers limited to simultaneous exchanges where both parties
swap houses for an agreed-upon set of dates, and in order to diversify from their
competitors, some home-swapping platforms introduced non-simultaneous exchanges.
This is the case when second homes are swapped, or when people go on a “standard”
vacation leaving their apartments empty. In these cases (for example Love Home Swap,
Trampolinn, Nightswapping and GuestToGuest), hosts earn a credit through a points-based
or a guests credits system or even some sort of virtual currency to be used when they
become guests in the near future. One of the first platforms to experiment with a point-
based system for house swapping was GuestToGuest, launched in 2011, which today has over
170,000 members. Following this, in 2013, a similar business model was introduced by
Nightswapping, a website specialised mainly in shared-accommodation swaps where
“nights are [the] new travel currency”. This platform counts more than 150,000 members in
160 countries and, according to its founder Serge Duriavig, has “modernized the home
exchange idea by removing the reciprocity aspect” (Coronas, 2014). This kind of points-
based system has even inspired other more traditional components of the accommodation
1
industry.
In all cases, although mutual, the exchange is not necessarily equal in terms of value. Even
in the case of a point-based system, the credit is merely proportional to the length of stay
and members can autonomously evaluate with whom to swap according to their
convenience or preference. An exception is Trampolinn, where each property is worth a
different number of points per night based on its value; the aim, according to the website, is
to give “more equity to the home swapping”.
As homes or apartments are usually swapped when empty, these practices imply an
exclusive use of what is shared. Some home-swapping platforms (for example Intervac,
HomeLink and HomeExchange) have also introduced the possibility of a shared use, that is
the exchange of single rooms within larger apartments. As currently advertised on Home-
Exchange.org, some members “prefer (…) privacy”, whilst others “enjoy the social aspect of
a hospitality exchange, and the potential to have a local tour guide”. Whilst for
HomeExchange this formula is direct and reciprocal, HomeLink says that “whether or not a
hospitality exchange is reciprocal is left completely to the discretion of our members”, thus
resembling a generalised reciprocity mechanism. The platform launched a “Homesit”
option for non-reciprocal services, where guests are invited to housesit for hosts while they
are away. The website justifies this opportunity by the “reassurance of having someone care
for its home in its absence” and as “a wonderful way for members to see the world and make
themselves useful to others, while living like a local”.
The platform par excellence for the sharing of rooms, beds or even couches within larger
apartments is CouchSurfing: a radically alternative accommodation service that has
inspired extensive research (for a review, see Andriotis and Agiomirgianakis, 2013).
Founded in 2003, the number of members has more than tripled in the last 4 years; the
platform claims to be “a global community of 10 million people in more than 200,000
cities”. It is, therefore, by far the largest non-monetary accommodation sharing platform,
despite many attempts to emulate its model. Their main competitor, the Hospitality Club,
was founded in 2000 and boasts 790,000 members.
Platforms like CouchSurfing are based on a generalised reciprocity system in which guests
have no obligation to reciprocate, although they are expected to do so if they have the
possibility to host. Besides hospitality, hosts are also expected to guide guests, provide them
with travel-related advice and to socialise with them. CouchSurfing started out as being
entirely free, founded by donations and primarily managed by volunteer, member
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contributors. A fee system—although non-compulsory—was introduced in 2006, and the
platform
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CouchSurfing has been incorporated as a private company, hired non-volunteer staff and
appointed an external board in order to keep the platform more efficient and safe, raising
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many discontents and forms of creative resistance from older members (O’Reagan, 2015).
Due to disagreements about democracy and transparency between members/volunteers
running the Hospitality Club, a spin-off was created in 2007: BeWelcome, as it is known
today, has 80,000 members and is sometimes considered also a not-for-profit alternative
to CouchSurfing.
In addition to the above-mentioned evolution from direct reciprocity towards more “deep”
sharing practices based on non-simultaneous, transitive or even generalised reciprocity,
other home-swapping platforms (for example, Intervac) have moved in the opposite
direction and towards a more business-oriented model by including opportunities for paid
rentals. An example in this regard is Love Home Swap, founded in 2011, with 75,000 listings
by 2015, which allows users to spend points earned by hosting members in standard hotels
and timeshare properties. The aim, according to the platform, is primarily to scale-up as
well as give members the opportunity “to make the most of the time” when their home is
empty and to create a more flexible use of the points they earn by “reinventing the
timeshare model for the sharing economy” (Featherstone, 2015). A similar evolution has
taken place with Nightswapping that recently introduced the possibility of buying points
from the platform. Trampolinn, with 30,000 members in its first year in 2014, functions
similarly but also offers houses, private rooms or beds.
Of the sharing platforms that are monetarily compensated, the most well known and heavily
discussed is undoubtedly Airbnb, founded in 2008. Airbnb has exploded in the last few years,
reaching over 60 million guests worldwide and 2 million listings in 2015. Airbnb offers
indeed a wide range of accommodation opportunities—including traditional bed and
breakfasts (B&Bs)—whose distinction from more traditional and business-oriented or
home/room rentals is blurred. Originally targeting hosts to monetise the “idle capacity” of
extra rooms or beds in their homes, today entire apartments account for 50–60% of Airbnb
listings. The platform, however, radically changed the means by which accommodation
exchanges are intermediated, adopting the decentred, peer-to-peer and non-anonymous
model that is typical of the sharing economy. In the next section, we further document how
(and why) Airbnb has adopted a particular narrative of sharing based on the idea of being a
“community marketplace” operating “outside of the traditional rental industries”. The
reason beyond this is not only to create the image of a prosocial community of travellers and
to promise a more intense and authentic tourism experience but also to deal with the
problems of trust, reliability and personal security inherent in such a loosely controlled
exchange system that often but not always implies the co-presence of hosts and guests.
To summarise, and following Belk (2010), we may say that sharing practices in the
accommodation domain are somehow situated between a mere market exchange (that is
commercial accommodation services) and a gift exchange (that is, traditional forms of
“free” hospitality). The way exchanges are compensated is crucial for situating the
platforms discussed above in between two extremes of sharing practices: those which either
imply monetary compensation or those that are based on generalised reciprocity, that is
more or less “deep” or “hard” sharing. In Figure 2, the various platforms are situated
according to the type of use they entailed and with respect to the form of compensation they
adopted initially, whilst the arrows indicate the tendency of many platforms to diversify and
expand towards other forms of compensation or use. As you move towards the bottom right
of Figure 2, the more the issue of trust increases and becomes problematic. This is because,
in terms of use, sharing one’s own private living space and, eventually, the co-presence of
guests and hosts implies risks to both property damage and personal injury. Moreover, in
terms of value, the absence of either direct or monetary compensation implies that the
timing and/or the value of such compensation may be unbalanced, uncertain and
increasingly left to the users’ discretion.
Figure 2.
View large Download slide
The growth and trust/security improvements of the main accommodation sharing platforms.
Source: compiled from various sources. *Trampolinn, LoveHomeSwap, HomeExchange, HomeLink, Intervac,
Nightswapping and GuestToGuest.
Figure 1 documents the incredible growth of the main sharing platforms as well as
highlights some of their main evolutions in terms of, especially, mechanisms to enhance
trust, security and reduce information asymmetries. These figures, moreover, seem to
suggest that scale is crucial for non-reciprocal hospitality networks such as CouchSurfing
on the one hand and for monetary peer-to-peer accommodation services like Airbnb on the
other. The subdomain of home swapping, besides being smaller in numbers, is more
fragmented and diversified.
Within the increasing array of sharing economy sub-markets, the accommodation and
hospitality domain is highly peculiar: situations of shared use are in fact very frequent and
imply a somehow intimate and prolonged encounter between sharers; the shared asset is
particularly valuable; the forms of compensation cover the full range from negative
reciprocity to generalised reciprocity mechanisms. A comparison with the mobility sector is
useful in this regard. In both cases, asset goods are exchanged and sharing implies bearing
the costs of depreciation as well as liability and risk of damage. For car sharing, however,
the owner of these goods is a third party, whilst in the accommodation domain sharing is
almost exclusively peer-to-peer. Ride sharing is peer-to-peer as well but rides or lifts are
often monetarily compensated, whilst, in the case of accommodation, other forms of
compensation prevail and the distinction with a gift exchange is sometimes blurred.
These considerations raise crucial questions about what motivates people to host perfect
strangers with small direct benefits, implying a stronger and sometimes even intimate
social interaction and, consequently, relevant risks from them and substantial problems of
trust. Those problems, however, apply not only to the accommodation domain but to any
sharing platform or practice relying on similar mechanisms of exchange or fruition. In the
next section, we inquire further into the extent to which sociality and community are in fact
crucial in dealing with these problems.
The function (and decline) of community in accommodation

sharing platforms
When discussing the communitarian dimension of the sharing economy, it first needs to be
highlighted that the social opportunities hospitality implies are important motivations for
joining sharing platforms (Schor, 2015; Parigi et al., 2013), both per se and as a means to
having a better, more authentic, alternative, culturally rich travel experience. This is
consistent across a wide range of platforms, despite their differences.
Even in the case of Airbnb users, although saving money is their main driver (77%), 36%
said their motivations were “philosophical” and not financial, as reported by the website in
2013. Similarly, saving money is the top motivation for joining HomeExchange (33%), but
18% of users are driven to participate in order to “meet new people”, to experience an
“adventurous” and “authentic cultural experience” and stay “off the beaten path” (Forno
and Garibaldi, 2013, 7). A study on Italian HomeLink members’ motivations shows that
“saving money is only of secondary importance for people that opt for this kind of
vacation”, the most important reason for swapping home being “the possibility to go on a
truly different holiday” (Forno and Garibaldi, 2010, 7). In the case of CouchSurfing, saving
money ties for last place in terms of importance, the two most important reasons being
meeting new people and learning about other cultures (Ronzhyn, 2013). Couchsurfers, even
if they don’t know each other, share a sense of belonging to a network of potential friends
and to a community of alternative travellers (Rosen et al., 2011). This evidence (see also
Hamari et al., 2015; Vision Critical, 2014; Stokes et al., 2014; Nielsen, 2014) confirms both
the importance of social drivers and the embeddedness of sharing practices in a wider set of
values such as fairness, an ethic of care, the idea to “do good” for others.
A sense of belonging, reciprocity and sociality is predominant in the language participants

use to describe themselves in their online profile, often with guidelines and suggestions
from the platforms themselves. In setting up a new CouchSurfing account, for example, the
website provides a number of open-ended questions to prompt users to “share something
deeper about themselves … a ‘personal philosophy’ so to speak” (Botsman, 2010).
“Openness” in particular is the key term in self-defining CouchSurfing members and also
the most widely spread attribute used in member’s references (Ronzhyn, 2013).
Sharing platforms do not only favour the strengthening of social ties among users but also
favour the building of a specific identity and sense of belonging (O’Regan, 2013). They
deploy a wide array of means to reinforce the idea of being a “community marketplace” and
to elicit a prosocial orientation from users. This is also crucial for inducing users to become
active members in the community, that is, to spend their time writing reviews and commit
themselves to the self-regulation mechanisms to which those platforms so heavily rely, also
based on the expectation that everyone else will do the same (Hamari et al., 2015).
Again, the case of Airbnb is telling in this regard: originally meant as more of a practical tool
to extend the offer of accommodation and match this offer with demand, the platform has
increasingly been emphasising its alterity as well as its ethical and communitarian nature.
In 2009, the website portrayed Airbnb as different from a standard accommodation service,
as it allows users to create “real connections” and “meet new people” who are “nice folks,
folks like you”. In 2010, the website introduced a new feature called “groups” that “enables
you to stay with and/or host other Airbnb users that share your same interests or have a
similar background”. Starting from 2011, Airbnb directs users to link their social
connections through an Alma mater, social club, employers, social networking sites and—in
partnership with Facebook—introduced the “social connections” tool. This tool allows
users to integrate their social networks into the platform for extra verification and in order
to create an enhance feeling of trust and familiarity as well as to favour friendship among
users. The tool allows users to find mutual friends who have stayed with a potential host or
are friends with them or to search for “like-minded” hosts based on their personal
characteristics. Previously called recommendations, references, as separate from reviews,
can be elicited from anyone in your social networks as long as they have an Airbnb profile
created. The easiness, comfort, affordability and access to insider expertise which Airbnb
promises to its users are all somehow consequences of the social intensity of the
accommodation solution it offers.
This is far more evident in the cases of non-monetary hospitality platforms like Be
Welcome, The Hospitality Club and Couch Surfing. An extensive literature exists about how
CouchSurfing succeeded in offering both a practical and cheap solution to accommodation
and a venue for building ties between members (Molz, 2013; Parigi et al., 2013; Rosen et al.,
2011). For instance, although not compulsory, 12–18% of stays were found to be directly
reciprocated (Lautherbach et al., 2009), probably due to hosts and guests becoming friends.
The CouchSurfing search algorithm, originally meant to give higher rankings to more
frequent and older users, is now also based on “compatibility” between potential guests and
hosts (Molz, 2013, 220), in line with how many other sharing platforms, including Airbnb,
attempt to enhance “relatedness” among users (Hamari et al., 2015). The platform allows
participants to tag others as “friends”, to constitute or join “groups” of members with
similar lifestyles (for example cyclists, vegans or vegetarians) and favours the organisation
of the more than 500,000 offline events/meetings to date. Prior to changing from its non-
profit status, CouchSurfing’s mission was also to “create educational exchanges, raise
collective consciousness, spread tolerance, and facilitate cultural understanding” (Shnei-
derman, 2000). Whilst initially such perception was somehow spontaneous, CouchSurfers
are in fact increasingly induced to feel part of a proper community and even of some sort of
social movement, which is itself part of the even wider movement the sharing economy has
been said to embody (Harman, 2014). Similarly, in January 2015, Airbnb launched their
“movement … not just a campaign” and began encouraging users to acknowledge and
express publicly their belonging to an Airbnb “community” committed to “make the world
a more connected and better place, one less stranger at a time”, based on shared values of
kindness, social and environmental consciousness, responsibility, collaboration and
cohesion (Oates, 2015).
Looking at how the website evolved through the years, in 2009, Airbnb was an “online
marketplace for peer-to-peer travelling” that “enable[s] people to earn money by renting
out extra space”; in 2010, it quickly evolved into a “community marketplace”. More
recently, the platform has been even more evidently reinterpreted as a tool to regain a sense
of belonging that has been lost due to “mechanisation and industrial revolution”, which
prompted “mass-produced and impersonal travel experiences”, as explained by the CEO:
“that’s why Airbnb is returning us to a place where everyone can feel they belong” (Chesky,
2014). Although the economic incentive remained predominant through the years in the
marketing of the platform, users have been increasingly induced to feel part of a “highly
engaged community” that values travel as a vehicle for “transformation, education,
tolerance, inclusivity, and self-actualization” (Oates, 2015). The company’s mission is
today no less than to “promote positive human values” and “creating a better world”, as
stressed by its chief marketing officer (Oates, 2015).
These narratives of sociality and community are key for the marketing of sharing platforms
as radical, solidaristic and “meaningful” alternatives to the standard market. As argued
above, this is also crucial for tackling the problem of trust which the sharing economy
implies. This is explicit, for example, in the above-mentioned intervention from the Airbnb
CEO in 2014 lamenting that due to the loss of communitarian values “we also stopped
trusting each other”.
These platforms, in other words, promise social connections and sense of belonging not
only as a by-product of convenient accommodation solutions, in order to motivate people to
join them or to increase the intensity, authenticity and depth of their consumption
experience. This social and communitarian dimension is indeed crucial for extending the
scope of sharing beyond the limit of pre-existing social ties and to perfect strangers, to
reassure users about the reliability of a peer-to-peer exchange model and for
complementing the explicit and formal mechanisms for increasing trust among users with
implicit and informal controls and sanctions. The space for incorrect, opportunistic or free-
riding behaviours, for example, whilst potentially huge, is somehow minimized, quite rare
in practice and not even perceived as a problem by participants anyway (Tan, 2010), because
of an expectation that such behaviours would be censored by the community and are
incompatible with its ethos.
This perception is enhanced by the fact that, especially when emerging, sharing networks
attract a very specific category of people which have been found to be disproportionally
young, technophile (often “digitally primed”) and ideologically committed to the ethos of
sharing and collaborative consumption, which facilitates users’ perception of being part of a
open-minded community that shares the same motivations and orientations. “Such
consumers are electing to share, rather than sharing out of necessity” (Schor and Fitzmau-
rice, 2014, 417). Such a social dimension and communitarian values are not explicit in
home-swapping platforms like HomeExchange and Love Home Swap, which, probably due
to their smaller scale, do not perceive this as a problem or as something to be actively
promoted. Also in the case of CouchSurfing, in its first years, “simply being part of the
CouchSurfing community was a sign that correlated with trustworthiness, and community
members voluntarily undertook the additional risk that came with the program” (Slee, 2013,
10).
As these networks grow, sharing platforms increasingly encourage new users to align
themselves with certain values, shared beliefs and cultural norms that are expressed by the
language the platforms use. The recent adoption of search algorithms that maximise
compatibility or relatedness between users, to give another example, on the one hand
enhances the probability of “making new friends” and, on the other hand, is a form of
“selective exclusion” (Benkler, 2004), aimed at increasing homophily and cohesiveness
among sub-communities of users.
But what happens when these networks expand even further? Parigi and State (2014), for
example, have documented a substantial “disenchantment” from many CouchSurfing users
with respect to the possibility of creating meaningful social connections, which, according
to earlier users, has been declining through the years. The extension of digitally enabled
peer-to-peer exchange platforms, according to the authors, “increases the ease with which
we form friendships around common cultural interests and, at the same time, diminishes
the bonding power of these experiences” (Parigi and State, 2014, 166). Improving the
efficiency and information richness of rating systems, in this frame, may be even
counterproductive, as it gives users the impression that the social interaction is not direct,
but mediated and monitored by the platform and consequently, more predictable,
normalised and calculative (Parigi and Cook, 2015). Such disenchantment is evident also
among the Airbnb “community” lamenting, for example, the fact that hosts are ever more
often absent and increasingly make use of emerging intermediary services to which they
externalise entirely the management of apartments and relationships with guests. Pioneers
and early users, in some of those cases, may even decide to exit existing platforms and
create new ones. This is the case of BeWelcome which, as mentioned above, was created by
members of the Hospitality Club lamenting their volunteer contribution had been
manipulated and that the transparency and democracy that originally characterised the
platform had been lost. One of the most acute observers (and critics) of the sharing economy
went even further in warning that a system which is largely based on self-regulation by
users themselves risks collapsing when the network becomes too large for self-regulation to
be efficient and effective (Slee, 2013). According to the author, “community membership as
a sign of trustworthiness does not survive large scale growth” (Slee, 2013, 10), because, for
example, of the entry of opportunists.
The analysis presented above documents how sharing platforms seem well aware of this
evolutionary problem and how they have attempted dealing with it. It is both premature and
beyond the scope of this article to inquiry whether these attempts will be successful or not
and how the sharing economy will evolve in a future that may be however quite different
from what we have seen so far.
Conclusions
When looking at how the sharing economy evolved in these years, clearly some of the most
important improvements have been in managing the “trust issue”. Most accommodation
sharing platforms, for example, initially lacked insurance or refund systems. Their policing
mechanisms were almost entirely reliant on the self-regulation of a community of highly
engaged pioneers and early users. Still today, requiring users to disclose their identity,
personal profiles, link their social networks and to rate or reference each other through
digital reputation systems is fundamental, also thanks to the introduction of identity
verification systems, two-way evaluations, reporting services and other improvements in
the quality and quantity of information provided to and by the platform.
As these platforms grow and diffuse, the amount of information feeding digital reputation
systems increases, but their effectiveness in providing complete, reliable and undistorted
information is increasingly questionable, whilst the degree of homophily and the social
investment from members in the network decreases. As the entry of free riders or less
engaged members becomes easier and more likely, participants’ sense of belonging to a
community of highly motivated and like-minded individuals weakens. The incentives for
behaving correctly and proactively both online—for example by leaving honest reviews—
and offline, risk becoming insufficient as long as those incentives are mainly implicit and
enforced horizontally rather than hierarchically.
Whilst initially spontaneous, this sense of belonging, community and sociality has been
increasingly elicited rather than taken for granted by sharing platforms, through a variety of
means. Initiatives such as, for example, the super-host programme introduced by Airbnb
are, from this perspective, aimed to prescribe and reward the most caring, responsive and
present hosts through the codification of what being a good host means and how it should
be performed. The introduction of members’ subgroups or matching algorithms to
maximise their compatibility is not only aimed at increasing the social intensity of the
sharing experience but also an acknowledgement that trust is correlated with relatedness,
as well as an attempt to enhance those affinities between users which may otherwise
weaken along with the growth of the network and the entry of late and less motivated users.
In this article, we document the variety of means by which sharing platforms increasingly
emphasise the idea of being a “community marketplace” and even part of some sort of
social movement based on an ethos of sharing, solidarity and alterity with respect to
traditional, impersonal and standardized markets. This is not only aimed at responding to
increasing criticism towards such a disruptive and highly profitable business model but also
to enforce implicit sanctions and informal control mechanisms to motivate users’ active
participation in the self-regulation of peer-to-peer exchanges and to enhance their sense of
belonging and affinities.
The problem is that such efforts may not only be insufficient but even counterproductive
(Parigi and Cook, 2015). In striving for a larger share within an increasingly competitive
market, sharing platforms are forced to introduce more managerial, impersonal control and
intermediation mechanisms and standards. Whilst this increases the reliability of exchanges
and users’ relationships, at the same time, it undermines the distinguishing features of the
sharing economy with respect to “business as usual”. These platforms, to conclude,
somehow risk becoming victims of their own success. The same technologies and
dispositives that enable them to extend and to diffuse are making them vulnerable to losing
the ethical stance, social infrastructure and communitarian dimensions, which play such a
crucial role in motivating users to bear the direct and the indirect costs of sharing.
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Endnotes
1 An example is HotelSwaps. Created in 2013, this is the world’s first hotel room exchange
programme, “which allows hotel owners and operators” (managers, employees, suppliers,
friends and family members) “to barter their unused hotel rooms among one another based
on a digital points currency” (www.hotelswaps.com).
Author notes
Department of Methods and Models for Economics, Territory and Finance (MEMOTEF), University
of Rome La Sapienza (Italy), via del Castro Laurenziano 9, 00161 Rome, Italy,
filippo.celata@uniroma1.it
© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy
Society. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com
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Workspace for 'Cheng et al (2018) A mixed method investigation of sharing econom

Page 1 (row 1, column 1)

Service quality is an important aspect in m-

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The sharing economy as community marketplace?

PDF Split View Cite Permissions Share

Keywords: sharing economy, hospitality, reciprocity, trust, community

Sharing practices are historically deeply embedded in interpersonal relationships, are

Connectivity, value, trust and belonging in the sharing

Internet-based intermediaries can provide what self-organised networks or socially

A third type of reciprocity is that of those sharing practices rooted in a system of

View large Download slide

Source: compiled from various sources.

To summarise, sharing platforms substantially increase the opportunities for connecting

View large Download slide

The function (and decline) of community in accommodation

A sense of belonging, reciprocity and sociality is predominant in the language participants

Belk R . (2010) Sharing, Journal of Consumer Research , 36: 715–734.

Bialski P . (2011). Technologies of hospitality: how planned encounters develop between

Bolton G. Greiner B. Ockenfels A . (2013) Engineering trust: reciprocity in the production of

Botsman R . (2010) Future Travel, Shareable.net. Available online at: http://www.share-

Lee C. W . (2015) The sharers’ gently-used clothes. Contexts , 14: 17–18.

Martin C. J. Upham P. Budd L . (2015) Commercial orientation in grassroots social innovation:

Oates G . (2015, 17 November) Airbnb’s ambition to be a superbrand that defines a generation.

O’Regan M . (2015) Cross-border collaborative consumption and negative reciprocity in

Rosen D. Lafontaine P. R. Hendrickson B . (2011) CouchSurfing: belonging and trust in a globally

Schor J . (2015) Getting sharing right, Contexts , 14: 14–15.

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Devolution, disinvestment and uneven

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