The Influence of Demographics, Attitudinal and Behavioural Characteristics on Motives to Participate in the Sharing Economy and Expected Benefits of Participation

Abstract

The sharing economy is a relevant economic phenomenon of recent times and important for sustainable economic growth. This chapter considers the motivational factors that drive and hinder participation in the sharing economy. It investigates the impact of both economic or non-economic drivers and what role demographics, attitudinal and behavioural characteristics play as antecedents of those drivers. We rely on rich data from a 12-country survey to conduct our analysis, and we distinguish between three categories of respondents: providers, consumers and aware non-users. Trust, innovativeness and materialism are considered as important attitudinal antecedents, while volunteering is used as the key behavioural antecedent. We find that economic motives outperform noneconomic motives overall. However, compared with providers and aware non-users, consumers are more strongly driven by economic motives, especially those who are more educated and trusting. Additionally, younger, more educated, more innovative, materialistic and volunteering respondents are driven more than others by non-economic motives. Finally, providers with lower household income, who are more educated and innovative are more likely to be driven by economic motives, while providers that have more trust in people and volunteer more frequently are more likely to be driven by non-economic motives. Overall, the chapter contributes to a more differentiated understanding of participation in the sharing economy in terms of motives and their antecedents. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of the findings.