Assessing Trust and Risk Perceptions in the Sharing Economy: An Empirical Study

The sharing economy requires intensive interactions among multiple stakeholders, such as consumers, service providers, communities, and third-party platforms. Undoubtedly, trust and risk perceptions could become the key for the success and sustainable development of this collaborative business. This study addresses the critical issue of the customers' trust and risk perceptions in the sharing economy. With a sample size of 1,336 respondents, the study adopted a structural equation modelling technique to test a proposed structural model of this issue. The moderating role of social identity threats was included in the proposed model to further examine the relationships among sharing economy security factors and risk and trust perceptions. The findings identified four factors - rapport among stakeholders (customers, providers, communities), reliability of the transaction platform, facility quality, and share of value - that significantly influence the customers' trust and risk perceptions and partially confirmed a moderating effect of social identity threats in the relationships. The study also provided empirical support for the link between trust and risk perceptions and positive outcomes (customer satisfaction, revisits, and positive word-of-mouth). Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.