Sleeping in a stranger's home : a trust formation model for Airbnb

Abstract

Given the growing momentum of the sharing economy and the importance of trust in its peer-to-peer sector, this study theoretically develops and empirically investigates trust constructs, their antecedents, and perceived risk related to repurchase intention in the home-sharing economy. Our results reveal that antecedents of trust-in-hosts encompass experience-, calculative-, cognition-, and personality-based trust, whereas perceived security, perceived privacy, perceived website quality, and social presence are antecedents of trust-in-platform. Trust-in-hosts and trust-in-platform are distinct trust constructs that independently and positively affect travelers’ repurchase intentions. In addition, perceived risk positively moderates the effects of these two trust constructs on repurchase intention. The platform and vendor must foster consumer trust to promote a trustworthy home-sharing business.