Collaborative Consumption: what drives consumers’ Intention to Share?

Objectives. The paper sheds light on the new phenomenon of collaborative consumption, highlighting aspects that influence consumers’ intention to share goods they own in surplus with other consumers. Methodology. A survey was conducted on a Qualtrics panel in October 2016. A total of 357 completed and valid questionnaires were finally gathered. A Partial Least Squares Consistent Structural Equation Model (PLSc-SEM) was used to estimate parameters and structural paths. Findings. Results show that environmental sustainability (SUS) and innovativeness (INN) have a positive effect on consumers’ sharing intention (SI). Moreover, results evidence a moderating effect of gender. Research limits. Further research exploring the growing phenomenon of collaborative consumption is required. Moreover, although the sample is homogeneous in terms of gender and age of respondents and composed by actual users of the investigated service (Blablacar), it is not possible to generalize results. Practical implications. Results provide important insights for the travel and tourism sector (pretty much influenced by the collaborative consumption phenomenon), as well as for providers of collaborative consumption services that, above all in recent years due to advances in technologies, are connecting consumers that share their surplus with those that intend to buy it. Originality of the study. The field of the study is new and although recently many researchers are investigating the phenomenon of sharing between consumers, more studies are needed to understand aspects that are supporting the spread of Consumer to Consumer (C2C) services.