Sharing on platforms: Reducing perceived risk for peer-to-peer platform consumers through trust-building and regulation.

Sharing a flat with strangers is no longer hypothetical but well accepted by many consumers who participate in peer-to-peer (P2P) services. Online P2P sharing platforms act as intermediaries between providers and consumers who do not know each other personally. Sharing via platforms entails a certain amount of risk for consumers. Thus, in order to attract consumers, platforms need to apply mechanisms to reduce the perceived risk of potential consumers. In a prestudy and two experimental online surveys, the current research investigates whether trust-building measures and regulation mechanisms presented on a website can reduce the potential consumers' level of perceived risk and increase their willingness to participate in a platform's sharing offer. First, an analysis of existing P2P accommodation platforms showed a lack of regulation mechanisms. Second, the manipulation of information on P2P accommodation platforms' websites in two online experiments revealed that regulation mechanisms led to lower perceived risk and a higher intention to engage in sharing. However, commonly used trust-building measures on P2P accommodation platforms show no significant effect on risk perception and the intention to engage in sharing in the present study. We point out relevant managerial possibilities to minimise the perceived risk of potential consumers of P2P platforms.

The Influence of Regulation on Trust and Risk Preference in Sharing Communities.

Sharing within communities has gained popularity in recent years. However, taking part in a community also comes with a certain amount of risk. This perceived amount of risk can be contained by regulations within a community as well as by potential participants' trust in the community and the other members. We argue for a relation between regulation and the willingness to take the risk of joining a sharing community with trust as a mediator. Thereby, we distinguish between two kinds of regulation (soft and harsh regulation) and two kinds of trust (implicit and reason-based trust) on two different levels (vertical and horizontal trust). In one laboratory and one online experiment with 432 participants overall, we found that the compound of high soft and low harsh regulation increases participants' willingness to take the risk of participation and that the effect of soft regulation is mediated mainly by vertical and horizontal reason-based trust. Based on our results, we encourage sharing communities to count on soft regulation in order to increase potential members' trust in the community and therefore take the risk to participate.