Trust in sharing accommodation sector: an institution-based trust perspective
ISSN: 1066-2243
Article publication date: 9 September 2022
Issue publication date: 17 July 2023
Abstract
Purpose
The hosts' third-party certifications in the sharing accommodation platforms have largely overlooked how the provision of such certification information could facilitate the trust-building process and subsequently influence consumers' purchase intention. Adopting an institution-based trust perspective, the authors differentiate various types of hosts' certification information (i.e. financial certification and social certification) and examine their role in the trust-building process between the hosts and the customers on sharing accommodation platforms.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses the property-month level data of Airbnb Beijing from January 2019 to June 2020. Econometric analyses are adopted to evaluate the impact of institution-based trust on consumers' purchase intention. Specifically, the ordinary least square is used to testify the relationship between institution-based trust and purchase intention.
Findings
The empirical results show that the information on institution-based trust increases the likelihood that customers would reach purchase decisions. More importantly, results show that both financial certification and social certification affect consumers' purchase intention. The results further show that listings' attributes moderate the relationship between institution-based trust and customer purchase intention. Moreover, the authors find that “Superhost” and “Experience” positively moderate such relationships.
Originality/value
This paper confirms that the host certification fosters institution-based trust and reveals the impact of hosts' certification on consumers' purchase intentions. This study is among one of the first studies to incorporate institution-based trust into the trust formation on the sharing economy platform, which can improve the understanding of trust in the sharing economy context. The authors emphasize the importance of trust types on sharing economy platforms.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study is developed upon a conference paper published in Proceedings of Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems titled “Trust in Sharing Accommodation and Performance: Evidence from Airbnb” (Zhao et al., 2020a, b). Moreover, this paper is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under the number of (71771177, 72072062). This research is also funded by the Innovation Fund for University Production, Education, and Research from China's Ministry of Education under the number of 2019J01012. Finally, this research is sponsored by the China Scholarship Council as well, with the number 202106260245.
Citation
Zhao, J., Wang, H., Zhang, Y. and Huang, Y. (2023), "Trust in sharing accommodation sector: an institution-based trust perspective", Internet Research, Vol. 33 No. 4, pp. 1399-1421. https://doi.org/10.1108/INTR-04-2021-0261
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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