Ethical judgments in the sharing economy : when consumers misbehave, providers complain

Culiberg, Barbara (author), Čater, Barbara (author), Abosag, Ibrahim (author), Gidaković, Petar (author)

The complex triadic relationships among consumers, providers, and platforms in the sharing economy have led to increasing conflicts in the interactions between the actors involved, especially when it comes to unethical behavior, such as rule breaking by consumers. This paper examines consumer misbehavior from the perspective of their peers, i.e., service providers. In two studies (an experiment and a survey, combined N = 452), we observe a significant positive effect of ethical climate and a significant negative effect of trust in consumers on providers' strictness of ethical judgments of consumer misbehavior and through this on negative word of mouth. Further, the survey results show that the relationship between the strictness of ethical judgments and negative word of mouth is only significant for providers with low or medium levels of trust in the platform. The results highlight the importance of regulating consumer misbehavior in the sharing economy.

• Language: English
• Keywords: marketing, sharing economy, ethics, consumer behaviour, consumer misbehavior, ethical judgment, negative word of mouth, trust
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: EF - School of Economics and Business
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2023
• Number of pages: Str. 517-531
• Numbering: Vol. 32, iss. 2
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-147367
• UDC: 339.138
• ISSN on article: 2694-6416
• DOI: 10.1111/beer.12520
• COBISS.SI-ID: 141459971
• Publication date in RUL: 03.07.2023

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Business ethics, the environment & responsibility
• Publisher: Wiley
• ISSN: 2694-6416
• COBISS.SI-ID: 121254915

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: trženje, delitvena ekonomija, etika, vedenje potrošnikov

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: J5-1782
• Name: Vpogled v temne plati tristranskega razmerja v delitveni ekonomiji