Why Do People Consume and Provide Sharing Economy Accommodation?—A Sustainability Perspective

• Main Authors: Eunsuk Sung, Hongbum Kim, Daeho Lee
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2018-06-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: sharing economy; sustainability; consumption; production; virtuous circulation
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/6/2072

In the platform-based sharing economy service, the consumer using the service and the service provider providing the service form a two-sided market around the platform. In the two-sided market, service users and service providers interact across the platform, and the value of the platform increases with the size of the network. This study aims to study the virtuous circulation of consumption and production for sustainability of sharing economy. For this purpose, several hypotheses were established based on the literature and are tested with survey data of both consumer and service provider of Airbnb. Structural equation modeling is used to analyze whether the consumer acceptance intention model and the supplier acceptance intention model can be linked through the concept of network effect, which is a major characteristic of the sharing economy service platform. The research results are expected to contribute to development of a sustainable sharing economy model.