KOREASCHOLAR

Multisided platforms (e.g. eBay, Airbnb, Facebook, Apple’s iOS etc.) are marketplaces to facilitate direct interactions between two or more customer or participant groups and enable the value to customers on one side of a platform typically to increase with the number of participating customers on another side (Hagiu, 2014). Platform is a business model to have the more knowledge of its customers and become more networked (Weill & Woerner, 2015). Collaborative consumption platforms (CCPs) are marketplaces to facilitate sharing activities such as the form of renting, lending, trading, bartering and swapping of goods or services based on Möhlmann’s (2015) definition. The rise of information and communications technology (ICT) such as the internet or mobile apps enables an easy access on CCP, which facilitates peers to trade and decrease transaction costs (Möhlmann, 2015). Although CCPs can create better customer experience than traditional business model, there is asymmetric information among peers, which results in lemons. Boudreau and Hagiu (2008) suggested that platforms owners should reduce lemons problems by establishing technical standards and interfaces, rules and procedures, defining the division of tasks, providing support and documentation and sharing information as non-priced instruments. Some attempts have been made in order to demonstrate online service failure or lemons on the web (Holloway & Beatty, 2003). In the Holloway and Beatty’s study (2003), the typology of online service failures has been provided and demonstrated how online retailers could manage their online service failures effectively. The solution to reduce information problems is signaling of trust about quality such as price, adverting, and warranties (Boulding & Kirmani, 1993). Trust in CCPS is to trust in other peers within the platform to share (Möhlmann, 2015). If a CCP cannot control opportunistic behaviors of peers, the peers participating in the CCP can be harmed as well as the CCP will fail to encourage more peers to participate and thus the social value of the CCP may decrease. It is important to understand decision making process of peers in CCPs and consider the motivations to use CCPs and the contexts at the same time. Enjoyment and economic benefits have a direct impact on behavioral intention to participate in CC in the motivation model by Hamari and his colleagues (2015). We suggest the motivatio ns such as enjoyment or economic benefits can be fit by the specific signals of peers in CCPs. The consumers with different motivations to use CCPs can perceive signals for trust differen tly. The more people pursue hedonic value for CCP, the more they tend to make a decision de pending on heuristics rather than elaborate cognitive process. The more people pursue utilitar ian value for CCP, the more they tend to make a decision depending on elaborate cognitive pr ocessing. We conduct two experiments to examine the fit between motivations and signals of CCPs. The interaction effect between motivations to use CCPs and types of signals is investigated through ANOVA test. People to use CCPs for enjoyment have more usage intention when they are exposed by more reviews rather and CCP with low governance power. On the other hand, People to use CCPs for convenience have more usage intention when they are exposed by high review quality and CCP with strong governance power rather than low governance. Social marketers and public policy makers seek to spread CC for the sake of fostering sustainable consumption behavior and promoting public sharing events (Möhlmann, 2015). Sharing and collaborative consumption can be solutions against global warming, rising fuel and raw material prices, growing pollution, and other anticipatable trends (Belk, 2014). CCPs strive to make people participate to create value of their CCPs based external crosseffect by providing various signals for peers with different motivations. Thus public policy makers should foster CCPs rather than encourage people directly to participate. In addition, public policy makers should give CCPs self-regulation that can decide the types of governance and policies to reduce lemons market problems. Our research contributes to the literature on market failures in CCPs by highlighting the importance of the fit between the motivations to use CCPs and signals. Although people have motivation to participate in CC, they are not willing to participate in CCPs without trust of other peers or goods and services. Thus CCPs need to provide peers with proper signals.

• Joonheui Bae(Kyungpook National University, Republic of Korea)
• Dong-Mo Koo(Kyungpook National University, Republic of Korea)
• Kyung Hoon Kim(Changwon National University, Republic of Korea)