Trust in the sharing economy: the AirBnB case
| Date | 21 October 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-04-2019-0207 |
| Published date | 21 October 2019 |
| Pages | 1947-1968 |
| Author | Efpraxia D. Zamani,Jyoti Choudrie,George Katechos,Yaping Yin |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Trust in the sharing economy:
the AirBnB case
Efpraxia D. Zamani
Information School, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK, and
Jyoti Choudrie, George Katechos and Yaping Yin
Faculty of Business, University of Herfordshire, Hatfield, UK
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to examine sharing economy online marketplaces with the aim of
understanding how trust perceptions form and get communicated through sharing economy platforms.
Design/methodology/approach –The authors build on online user comments and reviews as aggregated
by independent third-party websites, and apply a qualitative analysis.
Findings –The findings show that the quantity of information and communication are important drivers
towards building trust perceptions, while an overall lack of interaction between users and the marketplace
provider intensifies perceived risks.
Originality/value –The authors validated the importance of trust and the authors have illustrated that the
critical conditions that hinder trust formation are information asymmetry as well as the lack of interaction.
What is also an interesting implication is that the impact of both of these can be exacerbated when there is a
perceived lack of support among users and between them and the marketplace operator.
Keywords Trust, Information asymmetry, Sharing economy, AirBnB, Feedback mechanisms
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The global economy is witnessing the emergence of the “sharing economy”, a form
of electronic marketplaces where under-utilised resources and assets are re-utilised or
re-combined to create value. Platforms such as AirBnB and Uber have changed the way
people travel and find a place to live. What these business models have in common is the
collaborative basis operations, where peers transact with unknown others. For example,
in the case of AirBnB, individuals rent out part, or their entire home for short stays. In this
example, engaging with the platform entails an individual placing their trust in unknown
and therefore untrusted others. Furthermore, the unknown others are private individuals,
rather than familiar service providers who could be potentially perceived as trustworthy
due to their reputations (Lai and Tong, 2013).
Trust perceptions are critical for the success of such platforms, and their highly dynamic,
self-regulating and fragile nature necessitates fresh examination of such issues. The
greatest difference between sharing economy platforms and more conventional ones is that
transactions are initiated online but concluded with an element of physical interaction when
the online parties meet offline and face-to-face. This suggests that within this context there
is a risk for a seller in terms of, for instance, the sharing of personal assets, or their personal
residence location being identified, which is less intense in other contexts, and less
researched by the existing literature (ter Huurne et al., 2017).
This study considers the issues of perceived trust emerging from the use of sharing
economy marketplaces, with a particular focus on how these are communicated through the
available online review systems. Due to the emergent and salient features of the online
ecosystems, research into such e-marketplaces faces new challenges. For example, the peer
review system on the backbone of a distributed network of peers of any background and
from anywhere is unprecedented in any business sector. Text feedback is becoming ever
more popular and contains rich qualitative information about perception, preferences and
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 119 No. 9, 2019
pp. 1947-1968
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/IMDS-04-2019-0207
Received 1 April 2019
Accepted 5 September 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm
1947
Trust in the
sharing
economy
behaviour with research showing that online reviews exert significant influence on other
users’buying choices (Matzat and Snijders, 2012).
Our aim is to understand how trust perceptions form within the context of the online
review system of a sharing economy marketplace. This allows us to understand the factors
around which exusting users tend to focus their reviews, as well as identify how these get
communicated to prospective users. To achieve this aim, we formed the research question:
RQ. What are the factors that drive trust perceptions and are communicated through the
online review system of a sharing economy marketplace?
To address this, we draw on user reviews published in AirBnB’s own online platform and an
independent review site that publishes user feedback for different online and offline
businesses. In this paper, we consider both the technology used, as well as the wider context
within which the outcomes of communication take place, and present an interpretive case
study in order to offer a rich description of how trust and risk emerge within these
marketplaces (Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991).
The paper is structured as follows. First, the existing literature is reviewed to discuss
core concepts pertaining to trust. Then we present our approach for analysing our case
study that leads to offering details concerning our methods. This is followed by a discussion
of our findings and our concluding remarks.
2. Background literature
2.1 Antecedents of trust
Trust typically denotes a person’s beliefs that others will behave as expected, socially
appropriately and that they will fulfil their obligations (Fan et al., 2018). In addition, trust
can be seen as one’s willingness to be vulnerable to another’s actions based on expectations
and previous behaviour (Cheng et al., 2019). In our study, we consider trust as a guest’s
belief that the other party (specifically the AirBnB host), will behave appropriately and in a
benevolent manner, with the aim to provide them with a good guest experience, based on the
experiences of other guests with the same host.
Within online environments, and when compared to face-to-face environments, it is more
difficult to gain one’s trust and further maintain it (Chen and Cheung, 2019). Within an
e-commerce environment specifically, Ratnasingam (2005) argues that trust has two
different forms: trust in the technology and trust in the partner. The former relates to
assurances, certifications and beliefs that the technological infrastructure and the policies
can minimise the risks, whereas the latter relates to one’s dispositional trust, and an
evaluation of one’s competence, among other things (Mayer et al., 1995). As far as the
antecedents of trust are concerned, McKnight et al. (1998) suggest that these are the
institutional mechanisms (institution-based trust), dispositional trust (personality-based
trust), familiarity and one’s first impression of the other party (knowledge- and cognition-
based trust) and a cost-benefits analysis (calculative-based trust).
Considering these one by one, “institution-based trust”may take the form of clear and
binding rules and regulations (e.g. escrow) pertaining to the mode of transaction (Pavlou and
Gefen, 2004). Indeed, when rules and regulations areinplace,usersaremoreconfidentthatthe
other party will behave as expected, and experience a greater level of trust, assuming risks away
(Gefen, 2002). “Cognition-based trust”is often addressed through the concepts of privacy and
security protection, and information quality (Kim et al., 2008). Privacy and security protection
pertain to user’s perceptions that the necessary security measures exist and that sensitive
information will remain protected. Information quality, on the other hand, relates to the accuracy
and the completeness of the available information, but also to the ease of locating and using it
(Miranda and Saunders, 2003). Next, “knowledge-based trust”is seen as the combination of one’s
perceived competence, benevolence and integrity (Lin, 2011) and highlights the importance of
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