Understanding Consumers’ Post-Adoption Behavior in Sharing Economy Services

Sharing economy services such as bicycle-sharing have become quite popular. In these services, companies maintain systems which allow consumers to conduct sharing activities. Based upon expectation-confirmation theory, we develop a model investigating the antecedents of consumer confirmation and its consequences in the sharing economy context. Specially, we identify two antecedents including perceived performance and perceived risk. Using an empirical study, our results show that perceived performance has a positive impact on confirmation while perceived risk has a negative effect. Confirmation positively affects service satisfaction, which in turn increases continuance intention and recommendation intention. Further, confirmation is negatively related to dissatisfaction, which in turn increases switch intention. Our study clarifies the process of consumers’ decision-making about using sharing economy, and thus making contribution to the sharing economy literature. Practically, it delivers insights for companies into how to retain customers through increasing the value and reducing the risk associated with sharing economy.