| Sharing economy platforms are increasingly getting momentum in developed as well as emerging economies.Despite this growth,there is a disconnect between practice and theory of sharing economy with theory lagging the practice.We build on the work by Perren and Kozinets(2018)in which they identified platform design characteristics or attributes—consociality and platform intermediation—and suggest that institutionalization of pertinent trust mechanisms can manage these characteristics.This dissertation shows that the success of the platforms is contingent on the effective management of these characteristics.Ensuring this success is a challenge as these characteristics have a paradoxical nature.These platform design characteristics can elicit both positive as well as negative outcomes.Our research unveils the underlying mechanisms operating between platform design characteristics and consumer decision making.It also shows how trust mechanisms institutionalized by the platforms can manage the bright and dark side of sharing economy.Using the stimulus-organism-response model as a theoretical lens and practices of sharing economy platforms,we build the overarching research framework of this dissertation.We then integrate stimulus-organism-response and heuristic-systematic models to explicate how institutionalized trust mechanisms interact with platform design characteristics to manage the bright and dark side of the later.The central premise of this dissertation,therefore,is how the sharing economy platforms can increase their performance.We propose three categories of trust inducing mechanisms.Using these mechanisms,platforms can increase their performance by decreasing risk and increasing trust towards the platform and peers.We argue that it is crucial to investigate platform design characteristics—consociality and platform intermediation—and their effects independently of each other.This research empirically investigates the influence of consociality and platform intermediation on consumer decision making and provides useful insights into their effective management.In the case of consociality,platforms can employ trust mechanisms to manage their dark side.This research shows that platform intermediation poses a perplexing paradox that can be managed by employing trust mechanisms.This dissertation comprises of three essays—the first conceptual and the other two empirical using experimental design.Essay 1 proposes a conceptual framework of trust mechanisms employed across sharing economy platforms.This essay contributes to the sharing economy literature by categorizing trust mechanisms into three broad categories of platform,interpersonal,and third-party trust mechanisms.This categorization enhances our understanding of the phenomenon.Using the stimulus-organism-response model,we theorize that trust mechanisms act as stimuli that regulate positive and negative perceptions of the organism.The positive perceptions elicit approach behavior while negative perceptions,due to inadequate trust mechanisms in place,exhibit avoidance behavior.Essay 2 is a research conducted among non-users but potential customers context.In line with the stimulus-organism-response model and heuristic-systematic processing model,we find consociality to be a significant hindrance to the adoption of sharing economy.Due to potential opportunism inherent in transactions among strangers,consociality acts as a negative stimulus and exhibit avoidance behavior owing to the consumers using systematic processing.This systematic processing elicits negative perceptions in the cognition of consumers and,consequently,the avoidance behavior.To manage the negative consequences of consociality,we propose that relevant trust mechanisms are necessary to bias systematic processing,caused by consociality,using a theoretical lens of the heuristic-systematic processing model.Specifically,the results show that platforms can manage the detrimental effects of consociality by strengthening consumer confidence and reducing risk.This essay also finds that each additional trust mechanism better manages the detrimental effect of consociality.Essay 3 identifies a paradox of platform intermediation,the other platform design characteristic,using the stimulus-organism-response model.Due to the paradoxical nature of platform intermediation,it can act both as a positive or negative stimulus.We posit that platforms characterized by high intermediation can be associated with a low perception of personal security risk because of platform intermediation acting as a positive stimulus due to the structural assurances of the focal platform.Similarly,due to the reason that platform intermediation makes the platform responsible for any untoward incident,it can act as a positive stimulus,and consumers consider the focal platform legitimate(legitimacy).In contrast,consumers' data can be susceptible to vulnerability at the hand of the platforms or others in case of potential events of the data breach(data access vulnerability)due to high platform intermediation.Using the heuristic-systematic processing model,this essay then establishes how platforms can resolve this paradox through the institutionalization of different trust mechanisms to strengthen the positive outcomes,legitimacy and reduced risk perception,and mitigate the negative outcome,data access vulnerability,of platform intermediation.The embedded trust mechanisms bias the systematic processing,caused by negative aspects of platform intermediation,and reinforce the heuristic processing when its positive aspects are at play.Our research has significant implications for practice and research.This research guides the platforms on how they can increase their user base by employing pertinent trust mechanisms.It directs them how they can manage the negative perceptions of sharing economy by institutionalizing different trust mechanisms while reinforcing positive perceptions.Moreover,this dissertation suggests that researchers can use existing theoretical lenses of stimulus-organism-response and heuristic-systematic models to understand the sharing economy phenomenon.Specifically,this research elucidates the effect of trust mechanisms in managing the bright and dark side of platform design characteristics.The application of these theoretical lenses also suggests that existing lenses can be employed to understand new phenomena.Due to the limitation of the research design,we could not test all the proposed trust mechanisms.Future research,therefore,should investigate the effectiveness of other trust mechanisms. |
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