Gratitude expression in the sharing economy: a perspective of interactive marketing communication between peer service providers and consumers

Abstract

Purpose

The motivation of value co-creation among the multi-actor in sharing economy was an important topic in interactive marketing communication research. This study investigated how customer gratitude expression leads to value co-creation of PSPs in the sharing economy, and also investigates the moderating effect of platform benevolent climate.

Design/methodology/approach

A three-wave field survey (Study 1) and two experiments (Studies 2 and 3) were given to respondents with sharing economy practitioners.

Findings

First, customer gratitude expression positively influenced PSP's perceived meaningful work, which in turn enhanced their value co-creation intention. Second, PSP's perceived platform benevolent climate moderated the relationship between customer gratitude expression and PSP's perceived meaningful work.

Originality/value

Prior research discussed PSPs' value co-creation intention mainly from the perspective of platforms and PSPs, but few considered customer-PSP interaction perspective. This study revealed how customer gratitude expression influences PSP's value co-creation intention in highly interactive digital business context, examined the boundary condition of gratitude expression, and extended the application scenarios of social information processing theory.

Citation

Jia, Y., Gao, S., Gao, L., Gao, J. and Wang, T. (2024), "Gratitude expression in the sharing economy: a perspective of interactive marketing communication between peer service providers and consumers", Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JRIM-12-2023-0433