Research On Consumer Trust-building Mechanism In The Sharing Economy

Recently,the sharing economy has developed rapidey and remarkably around the world.Although the breakthroughs in the technological,economical,social and other factors enable the sharing economy to meet the conditions of sharing platform,idle resourses,mass participation and value creation,people find it hard to share idle resourses among strangers facing with huge resistance and risks,which leads to the crisis in consumer trust in the development of the sharing economy.The existing research about trust issue is abundant,but seldom researchers have studied the trust-building mechanism in the sharing economy.Since the trust objects in the sharing economy are complex,and the processes of consumers' trust-building on different objects are mixed,and consumers play the role of prosumer in the sharing economy,the study on the trust-building mechanism in the sharing economy greatly differentiates from the past study on the same issue in other contexts.For consumers,the concepts of Access rather Than Owning or Value Unused Is Waste in the sharing economy have sketched out a wonderful blueprint with incentive and restrictive factors.Products and services on the sharing platform provide incentives while the institutional management within and without the sharing platform provides institutional guarantees,which makes the participation in the sharing economy is appealing and guaranteed.Hence,literature review in this research focus on the existing study on the sharing economy,trust-building mechanism,consumers perceived value,institutional management and consumer identity.Based on the existing theories,research model and related hypothesis are raised.Firstly,this research investigates the trust-building mechanism based on the characters,including consumer perceived value from the product characters in the sharing economy and the consumers' sharing consumption identity.Secondly,in the trust-building mechanism based on the institution,it investigates the impact from institutional management in the sharing platform on consumers' trust building on the platform,including feedback system,credit management system and privacy protection.Thirdly,considering most consumers are in lack of enough interaction and familiarity with sharers on the sharing platform,it investigates whether consumers with trust on the platform would prefer to transfer the trust from the platform to sharers on the platform.The final analysis results indicate that:(1)consumer perceived value from theproduct characters in the sharing economy and the consumers' sharing consumption identity have significant positive influence on consumers' trust-building on the sharing platform.(2)consumers' perceived effectiveness of feedback system and perceived effectiveness of privacy protection have significant positive influence on consumers ‘trust-building on the sharing platform,while the negative moderating effect from consumers' negative perception of credit management system of the sharing platform on the relationship between the perceived effectiveness of feedback system and consumers ‘trust on the sharing platform is proved to be significant.(3)The trust transition from consumers' trust on the sharing platform to sharers is proved to be significant.(4)Consumers' trust on the sharing platform and sharers has significant positive influence on their behavioral intention.Based on the research results,this research puts forward with related management suggestions for the sharing platforms on improving feedback mechanism,privacy protection,credit management,consumers' sharing consumption identity and consumer perceived value.