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Power versus trust - what matters more in collaborative consumption?

Purpose -

Collaborative consumption, such as car sharing, speci
fi
cally implicates customer-to-customer interaction, which must be regulated by
service providers (companies, peers and self-regulating communities), comprising different challenges for business organizations. While in
conventional business relations, consumers are protected from undesirable customer behavior by laws, regulations (power) in the context of
collaborative consumption are rare, so that trust becomes more relevant. It is the purpose of the study to investigate possible mechanisms to
prevent undesirable customers in collaborative consumption.
Design/methodology/Approach -
In between subject designs, samples of 186 and 328 consumers
fi
lled in experimental online questionnaires
with vignettes. Analyses were made of differences among car sharing companies, private persons and car sharing communities in terms of the
power of providers, trust in providers and trust in other users of the shared goods, undesirable customer behavior and consumer -
provider relations.
Findings -
Companies, private persons and self-regulating communities differ in terms of perceived power and trust. Participants speci
fi
cally
perceive mainly coercive power with the car sharing company, but with the private person and the community, reason-based trust in other users is
perceived as prevalent. Nevertheless, undesirable customer behavior varies only marginally over the models.
Originality/value -

The present study is the first to investigate measures to prevent undesirable customer behavior over different collaborative
consumption models. This enables appropriate identification of market segments and tailoring of services. The study identifies opportunities for
companies in contrast to private persons and self-regulating communities and, in doing so, provides important stimulation for marketing strategy
and theory development.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:VIENNA/oai:epub.wu-wien.ac.at:6352
Date January 2017
CreatorsHofmann, Eva, Hartl, Barbara, Penz, Elfriede
PublisherEmerald Publishing Limited
Source SetsWirtschaftsuniversität Wien
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle, PeerReviewed
Formatapplication/pdf
RightsCreative Commons: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Relationhttps://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1108/JSM-09-2015-0279, https://www.emeraldinsight.com/, http://epub.wu.ac.at/6352/

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