Sources of influences on customers' trust in ride-sharing: why use experience matters?
Industrial Management & Data Systems
ISSN: 0263-5577
Article publication date: 27 June 2020
Issue publication date: 11 August 2020
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the growing popularity of ride-sharing in China, our understanding regarding users' trust and behavioral intention toward this new type of hailing service is still limited. This study aims to examine the joint influences of institution-based, process-based and characteristic-based antecedents on customers' trust and continuance intention toward ride-sharing. Furthermore, the study aims to investigate if the relative influences of institution-based and process-based antecedents on trust are contingent upon customers' prior experience.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing upon trust-building literature and the elaboration-likelihood model, we developed a research model and conducted an online survey to users of Didi, the largest ride-sharing platform in China. We used the structural equation modeling technique to analyze the collected data and examine the proposed research model.
Findings
Ther major research findings of the study suggest that structural assurance, government support, platform reputation and disposition to trust exhibit significant and different degrees of influences on customers' trust beliefs and continuance intention toward ride-sharing. A multi-group analysis further suggests that customers with less use experience focus more on government support and platform reputation, while customers with more use experience are more likely influenced by structural assurance.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the extant literature by identifying the joint influences of institutional-based, process-based and characteristic-based antecedents on users' continuance intention of ride-sharing service and uncovers the mediation mechanism of trust and perceived risk. Moreover, the study refines the boundary condition of the proposed research model by revealing the moderating effect of use experience.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71771064, 71872061, 71702045), the Ministry of Education of Humanities and Social Science Project (17YJC630118), and the Postdoctoral Scientific Research Development Fund (LBH-Q17055). We thank the respondents for their participation in the investigations. We also thank the associate editor and the reviewers for their constructive suggestions.
Citation
Shao, Z., Guo, Y., Li, X. and Barnes, S. (2020), "Sources of influences on customers' trust in ride-sharing: why use experience matters?", Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 120 No. 8, pp. 1459-1482. https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-12-2019-0651
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited