Collaborative Consumption: Power, Trust, and Cooperation

The current project aims to explain cooperative behavior in collaborative consumption. With collaborative consumption, consumers no longer own a good, but temporarily have access to this good (e.g., using car sharing or engaging in community gardens). When these consumers use resources provided by others, they are individually better off when they make use of the shared resources without contributing in return, harming the community (e.g., harvesting fruits in a community garden without taking care of the plants). Collaborative consumption can, therefore, be presented as a real-life social dilemma in which individual interests contradict the communitys interests. Engaging in collaborative consumption is increasing in popularity, stimulating new business models. These new business models comprises new challenges for the market place, as collaborative consumption businesses are blamed of not offering a standardized level of service and price and of lacking safeguards for customers. We differentiate three core collaborative consumption business models: (a) business-to-consumer models, (b) peer-to-peer exchange via one responsible individual, and (c) self- regulating communities without a distinct authority. We assume and have evidence that the different models are characterized by different kinds of power (coercive power and legitimate power) to prevent uncooperative behaviour by consumers and by different kinds of trust (implicit and reason-based trust) in providers as well as other users of the collaborative good. To investigate differences between models, we apply the slippery slope framework, which highlights the dynamic between power and trust and thereby offers a theoretical framework. We will use a multi-method approach (focus groups, online questionnaire, laboratory experiments, field experiment), investigating how power of authorities providing collaborative goods impact trust, and cooperation. The results of the project will be original for three reasons: First, we examine a current form of consumer behavior, i.e., collaborative consumption by comparing the collaborative consumption models, business-to- consumer, peer-to-peer, and self-regulating community in their approach to power wielding, trust, and cooperation. Second, the project will encourage more collaborative consumption what will be of advantage for businesses, consumers and the environment. Third, they will extend the validity of the slippery slope framework by innovatively distinguishing between trust in fellow users (horizontal trust) and trust in the provider of the good (vertical trust). Specifically, we investigate (1) what kind of power and trust consumers perceive in collaborative consumption business models; (2) how the introduction of power affects trust, cooperation, and consumers decision to engage in collaborative consumption actions; and (3) the impact of power in a real-life environment of collaborative consumption. This comprehensive research project will provide deeper insights for researchers as well as for needed recommendations for legislators.

The project was supposed to investigate measures to foster cooperative behavior in the sharing economy. As in the sharing economy consumers don't own a good anymore but have access to it, the sharing economy differs significantly from the conventional economy. In the project we investigate three different kinds of organizations in the sharing economy: (a) sharing-companies, e.g. carsharing companies such as Zipcar and Drive Now, (b) sharing-platforms, e.g. room sharing-platforms such as Airbnb and 9flats, and (c) sharing-communities, e.g. community gardens or carsharing-communities. In such sharing-organizations consumers do not only interact a with companies as in the conventional economy they also depend on other consumers. For this reason, cooperation in the sharing economy is key. The project applied the extended slippery slope framework, a model from governance research examining how two different forms of regulation, i.e., harsh and soft regulation, have an impact on consumers' cooperative behavior in the sharing economy. While harsh regulation comprises punishment for uncooperative behavior and reward for cooperative behavior, soft regulation is subtler. Soft regulation bases on the sharing-organizations' legitimacy, expertise, function as a role model and transfer of information. Appling several different methods (focus groups, surveys, lab experiments, field experiment) it was investigated how harsh and soft regulation impact consumers' cooperation. Starting with focus groups of consumers, who so far have been and have not been involved in the sharing economy, were asked about their experiences and sentiments towards different forms of sharing-organizations and how they perceive regulation in these organizations. Afterwards, consumers were questioned via a questionnaire, what they perceive as part of the sharing economy and what they think of its regulation. Finally, two lab and one field experiment were undertaken. While in the lab experiments the impact of the two forms of regulations were examined with precision, in a field experiment in community gardens the two forms of regulations were tested in the field. Very generally and over all methods, it can be said that soft regulation has a stronger effect on consumers' cooperation than harsh regulation. Nevertheless, these results depend on the kind of sharing-organizations and the method which was applied. While in sharing-companies also punishment is acceptable besides soft regulation, in sharing-communities soft regulation is the only effective way. Similarly, this effect was strongly replicated in the lab experiments, but could not be found in the field experiment, where other aspects of the community gardens seem to have been the decisive factor for cooperative behavior. In practice this mean that sharing-organizations would be more successful in using, e.g., codes of conduct explaining how to interact in the sharing-organization (soft regulation) than simply applying punishments, in case consumers misbehave (harsh regulation).