Introduction
Recent years have witnessed a rapid growth in peer to peer (P2P) sharing-service businesses such as Uber and Airbnb. In P2P sharing-service businesses, goods or services are provided by customers (peers) rather than by service firms, who act simply as an intermediary between customers. One customer acts as a service-providing customer (SPC), and the other as a service-receiving customer (SRC). P2P sharing-service firms have no direct control over an SPC’s quality of service provided to an SRC. Further, both SPCs and SRCs are customers to the firm, and therefore firms are concerned with the quality of service provided not only to SRCs but also to SPCs. In the P2P sharing-service context, particularly in the case of services serving the needs of diverse travelers (e.g., Uber or Airbnb), SPCs and SRCs can be people of different genders and races, which can cause them to feel socially distant from each other. Since SPCs are not professional service employees, they may not know how to cope with the social distance, which can result in uncomfortable service experience for both SPCs and SRCs. The more similar to the SPC an SRC feels, the more comfortable the SRC is likely to feel, which can lead to higher service satisfaction. Yet, few studies examined how such social distance can be reduced. This study is intended to fill this gap in the research. Specifically, we propose that an SPC’s form of address for SRC can moderate the effect of the incongruence in gender and race on an SRC’s perceived social distance.
Theoretical Development
Social distance refers to the level of acceptance people have of others outside of their own social group or class (Bogardus, 1928). It is a measure of perceived difference (or distance) between groups. In the context of the P2P sharing service, SRCs and SPCs can be from diverse social groups. When an SRC encounters an SPC from a social group that is different from theirs, the SRC can feel socially distant from the SPC. Immediate differences an SRC can identify upon meeting an SPC is demographic such as gender, age and race. In this study, we first propose that the difference (incongruence) in gender, age and race makes an SRC feel socially distant from an SPC. Social distance is closely related with similarity (Osbeck & Moghaddam, 1997; Liviatan, Trope & Liberman, 2009). In the context of mentoring, the higher the perceived and actual similarity a portage feels with a mentor, the higher the level of the portage liking and satisfaction for the mentor and with the mentoring service (Ensher, 1997). Matching gender and race between a mentor and a portage positively influenced self-reported grade point average, efficacy and confidence of a portage (Blake-Beard et al. 2011). Race was well demonstrated to influence social distance (Triandis & Triandis, 1960). Taken together, we conjecture that the effect of the difference in gender and race on social distance will apply to the P2P sharing service context and propose the following hypothesis:
H1: The incongruence in gender and race between an SRC and an SPC will make SRCs feel more socially distant from SPCs compared to the case of congruence. We propose in this study that the form of address for SRCs by SPCs can influence the level of social distance SRCs feel because of the incongruence in gender and race. The relationship between forms of address and social distance has been proposed (Brown, 1965). Intimate terms of address is associated with intimate relationship. Intimate terms of address is inversely proportional to social distance (Keshavarz, 2001). Calling someone by the first name is related with friendliness (Brown, 1961). The use of first name is positively associated with closeness in relationship (Brown, 1965). An empirical study in the healthcare context showed that most patients preferred to be addressed by the first name (as opposed to last name) (Gillette, Filak & Thorne, 1984). Taken together, we propose the following:
H2: Intimate forms of address by the SPC for the SRC will reduce the level of social distance caused by the incongruence in gender and race. We propose that the level of perceived social distance influences the level of comfort SRCs feel with the SPC during the service delivery. The negative effect of social distance on the level of interaction comfort has been shown (Paswan & Ganesh, 2005). In the context of service encounters where customers feel cultural differences, psychological distance was shown to influence comfort negatively (Weiermair, 2000). Since social distance is a dimension of psychological distance (Trope & Liberman, 2011), we propose the effect of social distance on comfort as following:
H3: Reduced social distance will lead to a higher level of comfort. The effect of social distance on comfort can vary by customers. In this study, we propose that the effect is moderated by the customer’s motive for the purchase of the P2P sharing service. There are largely four movies for customers who participate in collective consumptions (i.e., sharing service): economic motive, social motive, hedonic motive, and the motive to reduce risks and responsibilities (Benoit, Baker, Bolton, Gruner & Kandampully, 2017). Economic motives are associated with reducing expenses, and social motives are with meeting other people (e.g. more authentic travel) (Benoit et al., 2017). Hedonic motives are related with “accessing products that are exciting or normally out of reach” while motives to reduce risks and responsibilities are related with “no burdens of ownership, option to preview a product for potential purchase” (Benoit et al., 2017). According to a research in the context of P2P accommodations, cost saving, familiarity, trust, and utility are determinants of satisfaction with a sharing option. Thus, we propose that customer motives moderate the effect of social distance on comfort (Möhlmann, 2015).
H4: The effect of social distance on comfort vary by customer motives for purchase.
When feeling comfortable, people are more likely to trust, feel satisfied, and commit themselves, which can help improve relationship (Spake, Beatty, Brockman & Crutchfield. 2003). Comfort positively influences perceived service quality and satisfaction (Dabholkar, Shepherd & Thorpe, 2000). Comfort influences satisfaction positively (Paswan & Ganesh, 2005). In the P2P sharing-service context, SRCs’ evaluation of SPCs are carried out by reviews. Customer reviews of SPCs’ services are vitally important for both SRCs and SPCs. Reviews help other SRCs to identify desirable SPCs (Ert, Fleischer & Magen, 2016) and SPCs to receive feedback for their service quality improvement. Therefore, we propose the following:
H5: Comfort leads to SRC’s intention to write good reviews.
Data Collection
Data will be collected from American consumers who have used Uber at least once in the past one year through an online scenario-based survey using a 2 (genders: male vs. female) x 3 (races: white vs. yellow vs. black) x 3 (forms of address: no address vs. first name vs. last name) between-subject experimental design. Hypotheses will be tested by an analysis of variance and a structural equation modeling analysis. In the analyses, the potential effects of trust, familiarity, community belonging, utility (Möhlmann, 2015) and age will be controlled.
Implications
Findings of this study will reveal the importance of reducing social distance that SRCs feel during encounters with SPCs. Of many possible ways to reduce social distance between SRCs and SPCs, the result of this study will show that SPCs’ use of appropriate form of address to SRCs is effective. Further, it will show that the effect of social distance on customer comfort can vary by the purpose of the use of the sharing service. These findings will offer P2P service firms insights on how to help SPCs offer more comfortable services to SRCs and as a result receive positive reviews from SRCs.

• Juyoung Kang(Yonsei University, Republic of Korea)
• Sooyun Kim(Yonsei University, Republic of Korea)
• Sunmee Choi(Yonsei University, Republic of Korea)
• Heejin Kim(Yonsei University, Republic of Korea)