The sharing economy: Why people participate in collaborative consumption

Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2015, DOI: 10.1002/asi.23552

28 Pages Posted: 31 May 2013 Last revised: 3 May 2016

See all articles by Juho Hamari

Juho Hamari

School of Information Science, University of Tampere

Mimmi Sjöklint

Copenhagen Business School

Antti Ukkonen

Helsinki Institute for Information Technology

Date Written: 2015

Abstract

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) have enabled the rise of so-called “Collaborative Consumption” (CC): the peer-to-peer-based activity of obtaining, giving, or sharing the access to goods and services, coordinated through community-based online services. CC has been expected to alleviate societal problems such as hyper-consumption, pollution, and poverty by lowering the cost of economic coordination within communities. However, beyond anecdotal evidence, there is a dearth of understanding why people participate in CC. Therefore, in this article we investigate people’s motivations to participate in CC. The study employs survey data (N = 168) gathered from people registered onto a CC site. The results show that participation in CC is motivated by many factors such as its sustainability, enjoyment of the activity as well as economic gains. An interesting detail in the result is that sustainability is not directly associated with participation unless it is at the same time also associated with positive attitudes towards CC. This suggests that sustainability might only be an important factor for those people for whom ecological consumption is important. Furthermore, the results suggest that in CC an attitudebehavior gap might exist; people perceive the activity positively and say good things about it, but this good attitude does not necessary translate into action.

Suggested Citation

Hamari, Juho and Sjöklint, Mimmi and Ukkonen, Antti, The sharing economy: Why people participate in collaborative consumption (2015). Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2015, DOI: 10.1002/asi.23552, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2271971 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2271971

Juho Hamari (Contact Author)

School of Information Science, University of Tampere ( email )

Tampere, FIN-33101
Finland

Mimmi Sjöklint

Copenhagen Business School ( email )

Solbjerg Plads 3
Frederiksberg C, DK - 2000
Denmark

Antti Ukkonen

Helsinki Institute for Information Technology ( email )

Helsinki 00180
Finland

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