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Is it time to share? : a qualitative study of consumers’ attitudes and engagement on platforms in the sharing economy

The sharing economy is a fast-growing movement where consumers share and exchange underutilised goods and services on digital platforms. Today, these sharing platforms are being dominated by millennials due to their inherent digital mindset and awareness of global issues. As a result of this movement, consumer attitudes and engagement are important to study as it helps us understand, influence and respond to the needs of consumers. To this end, the purpose of this paper is to further explore this concept of the sharing economy and to examine consumer attitudes and engagement towards sharing platforms. The research conducted in this study was exploratory and an abductive approach was used. Qualitative data was collected through five focus groups to understand different attitudes and perspectives in relation to sharing platforms. Results indicated that attitudes are generated differently among millennials due to various demographic and cultural differences. The study contributes with a revised attitude model and provides insights for businesses and entrepreneurs who seek to engage on sharing platforms. This research study provides new insights to the field of the sharing economy as no previous research, to the best of our knowledge, has been conducted on millennials’ attitudes and engagement. For future studies on the topic, we emphasise the importance to choose one or similar platforms and to distinguish the types of millennials so that a more targeted analysis can be conducted.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hkr-18260
Date January 2018
CreatorsCzarnotta Westerlund, Sophie, Vörén, Isabelle
PublisherHögskolan Kristianstad, Fakulteten för ekonomi, Högskolan Kristianstad, Fakulteten för ekonomi
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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