Technology-Mediated Sharing Economy: Understanding User Participation in Collaborative Consumption through the Benefitcost Perspective

Fueled by the widespread deployment of information communication technologies, the notion of collaborative consumption has become popular in recent years. Traditionally, individuals have viewed ownership as the most desirable way to access products. In recent years, individuals have shown a robust appetite for collaborative consumption. While the prevalence of collaborative consumption activities has significantly affected the industry and the individual, scientific understanding of this emerging phenomenon remains scant. A review of the extant literature suggested that little is known about the motivating and inhibiting factors for participation in collaborative consumption. Building on the benefit-cost framework, this research-in-progress paper proposes an integrated model to explain the influence of perceived benefits (enjoyment and economic reward), perceived costs (privacy risk and security risk), and perceived platform quality on collaborative consumption. The research model will be tested with 300 active users who have participated in car-sharing activity with Uber. This study is expected to contribute to the research on, and practice of, the sharing economy by revealing the factors affecting participation in collaborative consumption.