The Generation and Development of Trust in the Sharing Economy : From the seller's perspective

Abstract: The sharing economy (SE) is a new business model that can optimize allocation of resources by enabling people share the idling assets through the online platform without the transformation of ownership. One of the important characteristics of SE is to build up interpersonal trust, which is the foundation of SE. However, trust is also the concern in SE. To know about trust in SE, this thesis attempts to explore the generation and development process of trust by understanding the origin of trust and the evaluation of the trustworthiness of the buyer from the seller’s perspective. Based on the existing trust-related theories and the qualitative research method, the sources of initial trust and the judging approaches of trust was investigated. The study found that sellers’ trust towards buyers derives from inner disposition to trust. In addition, the assurance from SE platform and external regulation, and the familiarity of the transaction environment can also increase trust. In the development process of trust, first, information is gathered through different ways, and then sellers make judgment according to the evidence. By seeking signals of trust through the profile, the reputation system and the communication with the buyers, sellers tend to trust those who present the reliability in the interaction and those who have some similarity to them. As more and more information about the buyer gathered, trust will be weakened, strengthened, or interrupted depending on the trustworthiness perceived by the seller. Furthermore, this study conceptualized initial trust based on the interdisciplinary model and then developed a trust-building model by revising the model in e-commerce.  The results of this study make contributions to both managerial fields and academic fields by investigate trust in SE from the seller’s perspective, which has not been paid attention in previous researches. The importance for the seller to be reliable and the platforms to improve the assurance system has been highlighted in the past. This study provides the cognition of trust from a new perspective, aiming to emphasize that the efforts to increase trust in SE is not the responsibility of the sellers or the platforms. Instead, all the three parties, sellers, buyers and platforms should work together to build up trust in SE.