Revisiting the service evaluation process in the sharing economy

Abstract

Disrupting many businesses, the sharing economy radically changes the way we consume services on the premise of horizontal peer-to-peer transactions. By privileging the temporary use of goods or services, collaborative consumption is seen as a mode of consumption based on access rather than on ownership. Although the sharing economy redefines most service attributes and despite the massive use of online platforms, some attributes remain at the heart of the service landscape. Sometimes, those ones are even reinforced (e.g., social interactions). However, these triadic exchanges induce a certain complexity and blur roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder (the user, the peer provider and the platform). Moreover, peer-to-peer exchanges can be a source of uncertainty with respect to the outcome quality and delivery. This doctoral dissertation aims at investigating how this mode of consumption affects consumers’ habits and behaviors. By the use of different and complementary approaches (i.e., qualitative and quantitative), we highlight how peculiarities of collaborative experiences raise new issues with respect to the service evaluation process. Our findings reveal a higher tolerance of users towards service failures. To explain such a tolerance, we confront our findings with different theories such as relationship congruencies, empathetic reasoning and attribution theory.

Date of Award	7 Dec 2020
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Namur
Sponsors	University of Namur
Supervisor	Pietro Zidda (Supervisor), Alain DECROP (Supervisor), Jean-Yves Gnabo (President), Wafa Hammedi (Jury), Béatrice Parguel (Jury) & Giana M. Eckhardt (Jury)