ABSTRACT

Media capabilities influence consumers’ trust in online exchanges. However, in the sharing economy, where consumers interact with service providers through a platform, conventional models of trust must be revisited. Our research identifies how media synchronicity and anonymity influence the relative importance of institution-based trust in sharing economy exchanges. We collected data from 248 ride-hailing customers and 288 cryptocurrency users to test a moderated mediation model of trust. We find that in the sharing economy media synchronicity and anonymity lead customers to develop trust toward service providers directly and undermine the impact of institutional trust mechanisms. This indicates that in sharing economy exchanges, trust can be built directly with the service provider, or alternatively, indirectly through the platform. Consequently, organizations in the sharing economy can strategically design their systems to engender trust by choosing between (1) emphasizing the platform’s reputation or (2) encouraging direct communication between the consumer and service providers.

摘要

媒体能力影响消费者对在线交流的信任。然而，在共享经济中，消费者通过平台与服务提供商互动，传统的信任模式必须重新审视。我们的研究确定了媒体同步性和匿名性如何影响共享经济交流中基于机构的信任的相对重要性。我们收集了 248 名网约车客户和 288 名加密货币用户的数据，以测试有调节的信任中介模型。我们发现，在共享经济中，媒体的同步性和匿名性导致客户直接对服务提供商产生信任，并削弱了机构信任机制的影响。这表明，在共享经济交往中，可以直接与服务提供者建立信任，也可以通过平台间接建立信任。最后，