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The effect of social platform positioning and mutual Facebook friends on the intention to participate in P2P car sharing, in specific of SnappCar - a platform based on the

sharing economy. Roxanne Anker Studentnumber:11421770 Date of submission: 26-01-2018 Version: Final version

MSc in Business Administration – Marketing Track University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Business School

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Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Nicole Stofberg. Her guidance and dedication throughout the whole thesis process was extraordinary. This gave me the confidence in my ability to write the thesis and helped me to create a thesis to be proud of. Second, I would like to thank the Amsterdam Business School for the challenging me intellectually in this master’s program with interesting and creative courses. Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents for their support throughout all my years of studying and for motivating me to achieve this end result.

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Statement of originality

This document is written by Student Roxanne Anker who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

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Table of content

Chapter 1: Introduction 8

Chapter 2: Literature Review 13

2.1 SnappCar 13

2.2 The sharing economy 14

2.2.1 The development of the sharing economy 15

2.2.2 Diversity in sharing platforms 17

2.2.3 The motivation behind the sharing economy 19

2.3 Relational theory model 22

2.3.1 Communal Sharing (CS) and car sharing intentions 23 2.3.2 Equality Matching (EM) and car sharing intentions 24

2.3.3 Market Pricing (MP) and car sharing intention 25

2.4 Platform positioning for sharing platforms 26

2.5 Relational closeness 28

2.6 Need to belong 32

2.7 Conceptual Framework and hypotheses 35

Chapter 3: Methodology 37

3.1 Car sharing platform choice: SnappCar 37

3.2 Research design 37

3.3 Data collection procedure & Sample 39

3.4 Stimuli development (pre-test) 40

3.4.1 Pre-test 1 41 3.4.2 Pre-test 2 43 3.5 Measurement development 47 3.5.1 Relational Closeness 47 3.5.2 Need to belong 48 3.5.3 Intention to Participate 48 3.5.4 Control Variables 48 Chapter 4: Results 50 4.1 Respondents 50 4.2 Data preparation 51

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4.3 Reliability analysis 52

4.4 Normality, Skewness and Kurtosis 53

4.5 Correlations and Descriptive Statistics 54

4.6 Exploratory analysis of the variables and relations 56

4.6.1 Manipulation check Platform Positioning and FB (IV) 57 4.6.2 Credibility and Believability Platform Positioning 58

4.7 Hypothesis testing 58

4.7.1 Hypotheses of the effect of Platform Positioning on the Intention to

Participate 59

4.7.2 Hypotheses of the mediating effect of Relational Closeness 60 4.7.3 Hypotheses of the moderating effect of the Need to Belong 62

4.7.4 Overview of statistical model and analysis 64

Chapter 5: Discussion 66

5.1 General conclusion and discussion of the results 66

5.1.1 Platform Positioning 67

5.1.2 Mutual Facebook Friends 68

5.1.3 Relational Closeness 69

5.1.4 The need to belong 70

5.2 Theoretical implications 71

5.3 Managerial implication 73

5.4 Limitations and future research 74

Chapter 6: Conclusion 77

Reference list 79

Appendix 87

Appendix A: Copy of the Survey questions 87

Appendix B: Pretest Vignettes 1 92

Appendix C: Copy of the pretest questions 94

Appendix D1: Comparing means and Pearson correlation pretest 1 97

Appendix D2: Comparing means and Pearson correlation pretest 2 98

Appendix E: Factor analysis 99

Appendix F: Skewness and Kurtosis per condition 100

Appendix G: One-way ANOVA manipulation check 101

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List of tables

Table 1: Overview of hypotheses 36

Table 2: Sampling distribution 38

Table 3: Cronbach’s Alpha all scales 49

Table 4: Abbreviations of the variables 49

Table 5: Sample distribution with mean and sd on Intention to participate 51

Table 6: Dummy variables 51

Table 7: Normality test of the independent variables 53

Table 8: Pearson Correlation Matrix 56

Table 9: Direct and indirect effect 61

Table 10: Moderating effect of NTB 63

Table 11: Overview of results hypotheses 65

List of Figures

Figure 1: The sharing economy and related platform economy 14

Figure 2: Conceptual model 27

Figure 3: Vignette CSHIGH 45

Figure 4: Vignette CSLOW 45

Figure 5: Vignette MPHIGH 46

Figure 6: Vignette MPLOW 46

Figure 7: Statistical Model of hypotheses 59

Figure 8: Direct effect of PP on INT 60

Figure 9: Statistical mediation figure 62

Figure 10: Statistical moderation figure 63

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Abstract

The past decade there has been a growing interest among scholars to investigate the reasoning behind the rapid growth of the sharing economy, a phenomenon disrupting many traditional industries. This thesis aims to enrich the sharing economy literature, by researching how to motivate car owners to share their car on a peer-2-peer (P2P) car sharing platform, a phenomenon which to date has only been studied in pseudo-car sharing (B2C) platforms such as Zipcar. This thesis builds on the Relational Model Theory by applying relational structures to the platform positioning of a P2P car sharing platform. Moreover, this thesis argues that strategies that work to attract potential users to sign up in B2C context, namely one centered on convenience and price, will not work in a P2P setting because of the interpersonal nature of sharing. Specifically, this study suggests that a social platform positioning (CS), compared to an economic platform positioning (MP), creates a closer relationship, resulting in a higher intention to participate. Next, this thesis suggests that adding mutual Facebook friends to the platform positioning will contribute to a closer relationship, thus resulting in a higher intention to participate. Lastly, this thesis suggests that the ‘need to belong’ of a person moderates the relationship between platform positioning and intention to participate. In collaboration with the Dutch P2P car sharing platform SnappCar, a 2x2 vignette study and an online survey was conducted among Dutch consumers (N=351). The results confirm that social platform positioning has a positive effect on the relational closeness, which in turn has a positive effect on the intention to participate. However, there is no direct significant effect of platform positioning on intention to participate. Lastly, the need to belong does not moderate the relationship between platform positioning and the intention to participate.

Keywords: Sharing economy, P2P car sharing, Relational Model Theory, Platform

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Introduction

The sharing economy has become a widely discussed social trend, while disrupting many traditional industries such as the hotel and transportation sector (Frenken & Schor, 2017). Scholars see the sharing economy as inescapable and therefore an important factor in the current economy (Frenken & Schor, 2017; Fraiberger & Sandarajan, 2015). Sharing offers continue to grow at an amazing pace: ‘‘In the summer of 2014, Airbnb indicated their hosts were accommodating over 375,000 guests per night, making them comparable in inventory and transaction volume to the world’s largest hotel brands’’ (Fraiberger & Sundararajan,

2015,3). Besides Airbnb, also the smaller platforms such as Helpling and Peerby are earning their place in the sharing economy. According to research from Newcom, twelve percent of the Dutch population is already using one or more sharing platforms (Newcom, 2017). Predictions, made by PwC, show that the sharing economy will continue to grow with a total revenue of 335 million dollar worldwide in 2025, which will make the revenue of the sharing economy equal to the revenue of the traditional rental sector (PwC, 2014).

However, unlike the sharing of accommodations or products, the sharing of personal belongings such as our cars is still a niche activity. That, whilst the benefits of car sharing from a social, economic and sustainable perspective are especially large (Frenken & Schor, 2017). For example, through car sharing there will be less cars on the road, which means more parking spaces in urbanized areas and a reduction of CO2 emissions. Finally, through sharing our car, associated costs can be reduced by a factor two. Whilst the benefits are obvious, only 25.000 cars are being shared in the Netherlands to date (autodelen.info, 2017). This begs the question: how can we create a positive development in car sharing? And what drives a consumer to participate in car sharing?

Research that looked into car sharing concluded that consumers are first and foremost driven by functional motivations, such as the financial benefits (Bardhi and Eckhardt, 2012).

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In response to this insight, many car sharing platforms are remarketing their platforms to utilize the financial benefits of car sharing. The perfect example of a car sharing platform following the insights of Bardhi and Eckhardt (2012), and therefore used in this research is SnappCar. SnappCar is a Peer-2-Peer (P2P) car sharing platform. Similar to other sharing platforms, they remarketed their platform build upon the functional benefits of car sharing with the following slogan: ‘Earning back your car expenses and waste less’ (SnappCar.nl,

2017). However, this thesis assumes that the assumption of Bardhi and Eckhardt (2012) might be too short sighted since academic studies who have made this claim operate in a Business to Consumer (B2C) context. Hereby, the company is the ultimate owner of the cars, which Frenken and Schor (2017) rightfully claim is not part of the sharing economy but rather a smart new rental context. For instance, with B2C car sharing the users of the sharing platform do not interact with each other, making it a private and not interpersonal sharing relationship in which the platform carries the responsibilities and risks. For example Green wheels, a company where consumers share cars spread throughout the city, which are owned by Green wheels instead of the consumers themselves. Moreover, existing research has not made a clear distinction between users of a car sharing platform and providers (or owners of cars) who make their cars available for rent. This distinction is necessary in order to decide what attracts people to join a sharing platform.

In practice, many P2P car sharing platforms are having a difficult time attracting owners to share their goods, which is also the case for SnappCar. This is no surprise as sharing comes with considerable risks, specifically the fear that people don’t treat one’s

property with the same level of care as they would with their own property (Belk, 2010; Hamari, Sjöklint and Ukkonen 2015; Bardhi and Eckhardt, 2012). Substantially, trust in others taking good care of one’s property is fundamental to get consumers enthusiastic to

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This thesis asserts that highlighting functional benefits is not the way forward to get consumers to participate in the sharing economy, since it neglects the central concept within the sharing economy: social relationships. Rather, an emphasis on social exchange and the building of community feelings is crucial to get consumers to participate (Habibi, Davidson & Laroche, 2017). More research is needed into the core concept of the sharing economy, namely the relationship between the seeker and owner and the resulting feelings from that relationship. Especially for a sharing platform as SnappCar, focused on interpersonal and social relationships between the car owner and renter, requiring a close sharing relationship with a high level of trust.

Based on the relational model theory of Fiske (1992) this thesis asserts that a positioning that focuses more on the social aspects of sharing rather than the financial benefits, will be more successful in creating interpersonal bonds, which in turn reassures people that unknown users would treat their car as they would a friends’ and this reduces

barriers to participation. According to Fiske (1992) the way individuals interact with each other and define relationships can be classified in four structures, namely communal sharing (CS), equality matching (EM), market pricing (MP) and authority ranking (AR). Based on these four structures, people classify their relationship with one another and define the primary standard of social justice. MP can be seen as an economic exchange where people use monetary payments invoking marketplace frames and norms, whereas the other three relationships can be perceived as social exchange with a high level of cooperation and we-ness (Heyman & Ariely, 2004). In the case of SnappCar it would be interesting to look into the effect of the relational structures on P2P car sharing, since the relationship that people experience can be determining for their sharing behavior.

When researching a person’s perceived relationship structure within car sharing, the

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closeness refers to the extent of personal familiarity and trust in a relationship (Moran, 2005). In turn, Relational closeness shapes the willingness of either party to actually provide and share their resources, since he or she is more likely to provide and share with others who are close than with others who are distant (Moran, 2005). Relational closeness can be seen as a result from structural embeddedness, which is defined as the extent to which two individuals relate to the same others (Feld, 1996). In other words, the mutual friends two parties share, which can be showed online by the amount of mutual Facebook friends. Structural embeddedness is a function of how many participants interact with one another and how likely future interactions are among participants, based on the effect of the third party (Jones, Hesterly & Borgati, 1997). Based on these theories, relational closeness can play a significant mediating role in determining a person’s intention to participate in car sharing.

In addition, the influence of the perceived relational structure also depends on how much a person is in need to belong to a community or group. This feeling of belonging to a group, or also described as the ‘need to belong’, plays a consistently important part in people's lives since people are fundamentally social (Fiske, 1992). Whenever people feel that they belong to a certain group, a group-based trust is created based on the fact that all members of the group are equal and therefore treat each other and their properties equally (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). By depicting mutual Facebook friends of the car user an owner on the website of SnappCar, an including feeling will be created to satisfy a persons’ ‘need to belong’ and to create a community feeling.

Therefore, looking at SnappCar, the general need to belong of a person can play an important role whether someone will be interested in participating and building relationships in a community of sharing. Thus, based on the gap in knowledge about the social aspect in positioning a P2P sharing platform and the importance of the general need to belong and relational closeness, the research question in this thesis is;

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‘What is the influence of a social platform positioning and mutual Facebook friends

on the intention of car owners to participate in car sharing? I this relation mediated by perceived relational closeness of consumers and moderated by the personality characteristic ‘need to belong’?

As mentioned before, the past few years the sharing economy and car-sharing in specific has gained popularity in the research field. Still, there is a gap in knowledge regarding the social aspect and what initiates people to participate. This study builds on the sharing economy and car sharing literature and adds on the relational model theory, relational closeness and the ‘need to belong’. More specifically, this research brings new insights about the positioning of

P2P car sharing platforms to recruit potential car owners based on the perception of the relation between car owner and seeker. A better understanding of this initiation regarding car sharing will help sharing platforms with designing and positioning their website to recruit more participants.

The remainder of this research is structured as follows: First, the relevant literature relating to the sharing economy, car sharing, relational structures, relational closeness and the ‘need to belong’ will be reviewed. Subsequently, the research design and method will be

discussed, followed by the analysis of the results. Next, a discussion of the results is provided, consisting of conclusions, implications and suggestions for future research. Finally an overall conclusion of the research is drawn.

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2. Literature review

This chapter provides an extensive overview of the relevant literature regarding the car sharing economy, social platform positioning, relational closeness and the need to belong. Since this thesis is in cooperation with SnappCar, there will first be a short introduction of the company and an explanation how such a P2P car sharing platform differs from a B2C sharing platforms on which most academic car sharing research is currently based. Subsequently, the concept of the sharing economy will be explained in combination with car-sharing. Thereafter, the Relational Model Theory will be explained in relation to platform positioning and car sharing. Finally, the importance of relational closeness, mutual Facebook Friends and the need to belong within a sharing community is discussed leading to a conceptual model.

2.1 SnappCar

SnappCar was founded in the Netherlands in 2011 by Pascal Ontijd and Victor van Tol, and is the biggest Dutch online platform where individuals can share their cars with each other. SnappCar is a P2P car sharing platform based on the idea that in general every car stands idle for 23 hours a day, and by sharing a car both the owner and renter can redress the idleness and contribute to a better environment (SnappCar.nl, 2017). The goal of SnappCar is to have 5 million fewer cars in 2022 and thereby decrease the gas pollution of Europe by 8 to 13 percent (blog.snappCar.nl, 2017). In 2014 approximately 1.3 million people in the Netherlands were aware of the existence of SnappCar, and 66.000 people were using the platform (Oosterveer, 2014). At the moment, SnappCar has approximately 150.000 users who together share 20.000 cars. Consequently, there are almost eight times as much car seekers as there are car owners (Deeleconomieinnederland.nl, 2017). Based on the above mentioned facts and the research of Hamari et al. (2015), it can be concluded that in the context of P2P car sharing an attitude-behavior gap exists among car owners. This means that there is a

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positive attitude about car sharing but no actual participation especially from car owners, leaving car sharing platforms in the dark about how to attract new car owners joining car sharing platforms. The current marketing approach of SnappCar is to highlight the financial benefits, using monetary terms such as ‘saving costs’ and ‘earning money’. As mentioned before, SnappCar applies the sharing economy insights based on Bardhi and Eckhardt (2012), who mention that consumers are only after savvy purchases and temporary access, instead of the social sharing experience. Despite the fact that these insights are correct, they belong to B2C sharing who according to Frenken and Schor (2017) can’t be considered as real sharing

and is different from the actual P2P sharing of SnappCar. In B2C car sharing, the platform can be seen as a third party mediator between members who never come into contact with each other and where the sharing experience is private with non-existing interactions between members (Habibi et al, 2017). On the contrary, with P2P sharing the members meet face-to-face and develop a relationship. In result, the informal aspects of car sharing can guide cooperative behavior and an experience consisting of communal bonding among members (Habibi et al., 2017). Therefore, this thesis asserts that the conclusions that apply to this B2C context may not be effective in P2P context as the nature of the sharing interaction is fundamentally different (Habibi et al., 2017)

2.2 The sharing economy

As mentioned before, the sharing economy is a widely discussed social trend which affects the current economy (Hamari et al., 2015). For this reason, the development of the phenomenon of the sharing economy needs to be looked into, followed by the diversity of the phenomenon and the reasoning behind it. All in all, this will lead to understanding the main scope of this research; P2P car sharing.

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2.2.1 The development of the (car) sharing economy

Several scholars say it is because of the trend regarding living a more sustainable life, others say it is because of the recent financial crisis and the growing technological possibilities, which makes it much easier for people to create or reach out to a sharing platform (Hamari et al., 2015). Although not everyone agrees on the reason of the exponential growth of the sharing economy, everyone does agree on the existence and rapid growth. Overall, the growing technological possibilities are seen as the most prominent growth reason of the last decade. The internet allows people to bypass the traditional commercial channels and to share and trade resources with one another effectively at a reasonably low cost (Andersson, Avital & Hjalmarsson, 2013). Nevertheless, sharing is not a new concept. According to Hochschild (2012) the sharing economy has already existed for decades since sharing reproduces social relations and solidifies cultural practices. This can be supported by several authors for example Stack (1974), stating that sharing used to be central to individuals who wanted to survive in society and by Price (1975) mentioning that sharing has been the most universal and basic form of human economic behavior in societies for several hundred thousand years (Belk, 2009). In conclusion, it seems to be that sharing is making its come-back into society, but with a modern twist. The modern twist being the inclusion of money transactions and an online platform resulting in sharing with strangers instead of sharing with friends and acquaintances. Moreover, it has to be taken into account that the reasoning behind sharing now is probably different than a few decades ago. Attitudes towards consumption have shifted in recent years and brought increasing concern over ecological, social and developmental impact (Hamari et al, 2015). There are several definitions for the concept of the sharing economy. In this research the following will be used: ‘‘Sharing economy, also called collaborative consumption, is the peer-to-peer-based activity obtaining, giving, or

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sharing the temporary access to goods and services, coordinated through community based online services’’ (Hamari et al., 2015, p:1).

As mentioned above, the sharing economy is on the rise and more and more sharing platforms are created every day. Besides the high popularity of accommodation sharing platforms such as Airbnb, car sharing has also begun to gain popularity. Car-sharing has become a worldwide phenomenon in the past decade with an extensive news coverage and a growing consumer usage (Shaheen & Cohen, 2011). More than 65 years ago, car sharing began appearing in Europe and has expanded to approximately 1,100 cities worldwide, in 26 nations (Shaheen & Cohen, 2011). Car sharing can be considered an innovation in consumption technology, and can be seen as a new organizational form most evidently changing the shares of private vehicle and public transport mobility (Prettenthaler & Steininger, 1999, p:450). According to Frenken (2015) the best definition of car sharing is; ‘‘A system that allows people to rent locally available cars at any time and for any duration’’.

Despite the fact that P2P and B2C car sharing both meet the criteria of this definition, it has to be noted that nature of the transaction, between peers and consumers, differ in the degree of sharing that takes place which results in confusion in car sharing research (Habibi et al, 2017). Habibi et al. (2017) confirm this by arguing that car sharing platform Zipcar, who acts as the ‘poster child’ of car sharing and markets itself as ‘true sharing’, has actually little to do

with sharing and is macerating as sharing while it actually is smart rental. This is supported by Belk (2014) who concludes that Zipcar can be seen as a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’. All in all, the definition of Frenken (2015) results in a lot of ambiguity among car sharing platforms and their diversity.

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2.2.2 Diversity in car sharing platforms

The sharing economy can be seen as an umbrella term for a wide range of non-ownership forms of consumption activities such as swapping, trading, renting, sharing and exchanging (Habibi et al., 2016). Based on the model from Frenken, Meelen, Arest and Van de Glind (2015) there are three components which come close to the sharing economy but do not fit in the definition for the full hundred percent. These components are the on-demand economy, the product-service economy and the second-hand economy, see Figure 1 (Frenken & Schor, 2017). The on-demand economy applies when a consumer creates a new capacity, for example by ordering an Uber on request to go from A to B. Without the order, the trip would not have been made, making it an on demand consumption.

Figure 1 Sharing Economy and related forms of Platform Economy

The second component which has similarities with the sharing economy is second-hand economy. Second-hand economy does not fall under the sharing economy, since one person grants to other person permanent access to the good instead of temporary access, for example on EBay or Marktplaats. At last, there is the component where consumers rent goods from a company instead of another consumer which is called the product service economy, or B2C sharing. An example of this form of sharing is the earlier mentioned Green wheels (Frenken and Schor, 2017). All in all, these components, also called pseudo-sharing, distinguishing

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themselves from sharing because of their profit seeking motives and the lack of community and reciprocity (Belk, 2013). As mentioned before, scholars often use the same term when they are referring to car sharing in the product service economy (B2C) and P2P car sharing, despite the fact that their diversity results in different relationships and levels of trust (Barhdi & Eckhardt, 2012). Therefore, this research will compare them in detail and make them distinctive from each other.

With B2C car sharing, also seen as the general term of car sharing, consumers rent cars owned by a company, for example with ZipCar or Green wheels.The main difference of this segment of car sharing compared to others is that consumers expect a regulatory role from the company offering the cars, leaving the consumers with no responsibility towards each other and the cars, which in turn has socialized them into a system of negative reciprocity, self-destructive to any collaborative efforts (Bardhi & Eckhardt, 2012). Thus, consumers in B2C car sharing are not in need of a high level of community feeling, resulting in a relationship based on norms of economic exchange (Heyman & Ariely, 2004).

On the contrary, there is P2P car sharing, defined as the real form of car sharing according to Frencken and Schor (2017). P2P car sharing is based on a relationship in need of a high level of trust. In this segment, individuals rent their own car to other individuals without interference of a company who owns the cars. In this case, trust is a central concept in the relationship of the seeker and owner, because the owner of the car trusts the seeker to treat the car responsible. Since a high amount of trust is needed, consumers participating in P2P sharing will be more focused on creating a relationship that is based on norms of social exchange, instead of economic exchange (Heyman & Ariely, 2004).

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2.2.3. The motivation behind the (car) sharing economy

The past few years, several scholars researched the sharing economy, trying to find the engine behind the massive growth of participation. Based on several of these studies, three main motivations to participate in the sharing economy stand out; environmental, economic and social factors (Schor, 2016). The early enthusiasm about the sharing economy was largely driven by its environmental impacts. Renting or lending a product meant that consumers became less dependent on ownership resulting in a decline of the total number of products that had to be made (Botsman & Rogers, 2010). The same applies to car sharing, since car sharing builds upon the reduction of environmental pollution related to reducing car production. The research of Nijland, Meerkerk and Hoen (2015) regarding the effects of car sharing showed that car sharers drive 15 to 20 percent less kilometers than before they shared a car and that the CO2-emission with the car use and possession of car sharers decreased with 8 to 13 percent.

In addition, the economic aspect is undeniable since the direct financial effects of sharing are immediately noticeable. Steininger, Vogl and Zettl (1996) state that financial considerations were the main reason why people joined a car sharing platform, with the environmental reason ranked second. In most cases, the offer of the sharing platform is less expensive than the offer of the regular platform. SnappCar and Blablacar for example are cheaper than renting a car with Hertz. Especially with P2P sharing platforms, when the value of an offer can be transported from the owner to the lender without interference and costs of the so called ‘middleman’. This economic effect is reinforced by the internet making the

costs of a transaction with a stranger extremely low. ‘‘Millions of transactions now take place that did not happen in the past, because the transaction costs for sharing with a stranger were simply too high’’ (Benkler, 2004; Frenken & Schor 2017, p:4). Besides the fact that the

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sharing fees are lower, sharing is cheaper in most cases in the first place, compared to owning.

Lastly, the third reason for participation in the sharing economy is the desire to increase social connections. As mentioned above, the presence of the internet makes sharing with strangers more accessible, thereby providing the opportunity to meet new people and expand one's social network. The internet creates a unique opportunity for people to meet strangers face-to-face after they spoke to them online (Frenken & Schor, 2017). This creation of new social contact is emphasized by Blablacar and Turo, they focus on the social side of car sharing and the experience of making a drive more fun by meeting new people. They do so by mentioning that consumers rent from ‘friendly locals’ and can drive ‘unique models’ (Blablacar.nl, 2017; Turo.com, 2017).

Reflecting on the three motivations mentioned in previous literature, the economic aspect is most often used on car sharing platforms, based on the direct benefits people experience. Although many sharing platforms follow this logic, they neglect the fact that all these articles are based on pseudo-sharing platforms, B2C, with different business models compared to P2P sharing (Belk, 2004). With B2C car sharing such as Green wheels, Zipcar and Car2Go – as mentioned prior - the company itself is responsible for the properties making it a smart way of rental. The sharing experience is private (or independent) and users never interact, resulting in little need from community and trust in other users. In short, like any other market transaction such as booking a hotel room, deciding factors are price and convenience, not community. Not surprisingly, these motivations also decisively drive user motivations and behavior; offering a perfect opportunity to focus on the economic benefits of the exchange relationship (Frenken & Schor, 2017). On the contrary, the relationship and thus the motivations differs with P2P car sharing, since this relationship is characterized with social bonds, a feeling of joint ownership and social reproduction (Habibi et al., 2017).

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Moreover, there is no company which carries responsibility of the properties making it a more social exchange in which economic benefits will have the opposite effect of creating social bonds (Heyman & Ariely, 2004). With P2P sharing, the relationship is between two consumers who are strangers to each other. Stranger sharing consequently entails a higher degree of risk, especially with a quite intimate situation when sharing one’s car (Frenken & Schor, 2017; Stofberg, 2017).

Logically, in the case of SnappCar, trust in other users is fundamental in order to close the attitude-behavior gap existing in car sharing. An example of a P2P sharing platform where they successfully designed a social relationship based on trust is Airbnb. Airbnb sees themselves as the ‘mutual friend’ of the host and guest who makes sure both parties are

introduced to each other and know what to expect from each other, making the guest feel welcome and at home: ‘‘Similar to the mutual friend, we set the stage, help make the introduction, then get out of the way. And like a good friend, we’re there for you when you

need us ’’ (Airbnb.design.com, 2017). Consequently, the ‘mutual friend function’ gives the host and guest a feeling of resemblance towards each other making them feel that they are both part of the same Airbnb community where members respect each other and take care of someone else's belongings (Airbnb.design.com, 2017). The business model of Airbnb, P2P sharing, can be compared to the business model of SnappCar. Both platforms try to achieve a social relationship between two strangers with a high level of trust in order to share a belonging where people in general attach a great amount of value to (Bardhi & Eckhardt, 2012). Reflecting on the case of Airbnb successfully taking the social route in order the design trust, it can be rightfully claimed that this could also be the route to success for SnappCar. This view of focusing on the social aspect is supported by Benkler (2004) who described sharing as ‘nonreciprocal pro-social behavior’ and by Belk (2009) who described sharing as a powerful connection that creates feeling of solidarity and bonding making it a

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communal act that links us to other people. This being said, P2P car sharing can be classified as a relationship between two individuals, based on solidarity, trust and reciprocity. Derived from these insights, this research suggests that a P2P sharing platform is in need of a social relationship structure, compared to the economic relationship structure for B2C platforms.

2.3 Relational Model Theory

As mentioned above, the act of sharing is based on a specific relationship. Based on the interpretation of this relationship, one can create and build a certain level of trust, solidarity and reciprocity. Fiske (1992) explains that social life is a process of seeking, making, sustaining, judging and construing relationships. Fiske (1992) argues that people are fundamentally social and that people interact with others in order to construct and participate in one or another of the four basic relationships. Fiske (1992) explains these relationship structures with the Relational Model Theory. This theory is based on the idea that people always instantly put a label on every relationship they establish in life, making it possible for them to know their place and to know how to interact with each other. When people define their relationship structure with one another, they will act upon this label. Any action that is not in line within the label will thereby be experienced as immoral leading to a feeling of shame or disgust (Bridoux & Stoelhorst, 2016). When labeling these relationship, there are four options to choose from; Communal Sharing, Authority Ranking, Equality Matching and Market Pricing. The first three relationships can be seen as social exchange, and the latter as

economic exchange (Heyman & Ariely, 2004). In order to understand and exploit the

Relational Model Theory between car owner and car seeker in a sharing relationship, these relationships structures need to be explained. The Authority Ranking (AR) structure, a relationship of hierarchical differences, where decision making is based on relative status, in not applicable in the sharing economy context and will therefore not be used in this research.

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Previous research concluded that AR interactions are not relevant for customer interactions with service firms at all (Kaltchevka, Patino, Laric, Pitta & Imparato, 2014).

2.3.1 Communal sharing (CS) and car sharing intention

The first relational model is communal sharing (CS), social exchange, where the relationship between people is built upon an altruistic motivation. CS relationships are based on a concept of a bounded group of people, also called a community, who are all equal and undifferentiated and is characterized by high commitment (Blois & Ryan, 2012). People who are in this community treat material objects as things that they have in common, making this relationship reflexive, symmetric and transitive (Fiske, 1992). An example of a CS relationship can be the relationship people share with their family members or close friends. This relationship is often based on generalized reciprocity, meaning that people are willing to do a lot for their family members and close friends, without expecting them to do something in return. The generalized reciprocity within a group having CS relationships makes a single membership in the group sufficient to entitle one to use all the resources the group possess, despite the possibility of imbalance (Fiske, 1992). This CS relationship is created because people in general have the need to belong to a certain group. This need plays a consistently important role in people’s life looking at Maslow's pyramid (1968). After people fulfil their

basic needs in life such as food, sleep, health and safety, they move on the need to accomplish a feeling of belonging. Besides the feeling of belonging, trust also plays a large role in CS. People assume that members of the community will only take the amount of resources they actually need, trusting that no one will apply the concept of freeriding. Freeriding appears when a group member benefits from the shared resources, without adding resources themselves (Fiske, 1992).

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When potential participants of SnappCar experience a CS relationship with other participants of the platform, they expect others to place the interest of the community above their own and contribute selflessly, since the collective is more important than the individual needs (Fiske, 1992). Moreover, CS relationships are high in terms of commitment since members of a communal group typically demonstrate mutual altruism to each other (Blois & Ryan, 2012). This feeling makes members of a sharing community more willing to share as the group is dependent on its members caring for each other. Moreover, Altruism results in a level of performance that is high, constant, and insensitive to payment level, therefore motivating participants to create a positive sharing experience for the other party (Heyman & Ariely, 2015). Therefore, potential participants experiencing a CS relationship depicted on SnappCars’ website will view participation with SnappCar as being included in a community with a chance to help other members of the community based on generalized reciprocity.

2.3.2 Equality Matching (EM) and car sharing intentions

Equality Matching (EM) relationships, also social exchange, are based on a balanced and one-for-one correspondence with each person having the same rights and duties. With EM people are primarily concerned whether the relationship is in balance based on shared resources and services, and will constantly keep track of this level of balance (Fiske, 1992). Examples where this model can be observed are babysitting circles or balanced in-kind favors such as invitations to dinner (Blois & Ryan, 2012). Sahlins (1965) pointed out that people mostly use EM when establishing a relationship with a stranger.

When potential participants of SnappCar frame a car sharing relationship in terms of EM, they seek for a balanced relationship where both parties can believe in each other’s good faith, good intentions and integrity (Blois & Ryan, 2012). Thus, there is still a need for trust but much lower than in the case of CS where participants do not seek for balance.

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Subsequently leading to less generosity between members of the community since the others well-being is important as long as the other is perceived to be cooperative in the relationship (Bridoux & Stoelhorst, 2016). By sharing resources with a stranger but still keeping track of the balance of this share of resources, trust will build up during the relationship possibly leading to a CS structure. EM can therefore be seen as a common blueprint for connecting people and can be seen as a tit-for-tat relationship. Therefore, both EM and CS are seen as social exchange during this research (Heyman & Ariely, 2012)

2.3.3 Market Pricing (MP) and car sharing intention

Market pricing (MP), or economic exchange, is probably one of the most applied relational structures in the western world. Many theories have argued that all of the human social behavior is based on relational calculations of cost-benefit ratios in self-interest exchange, going against the idea that human are social beings (Fiske, 1992) and is described as: ‘‘Relations who are based on prices, wages and rents in terms of rational calculations of efficiency or expected utility’’ (Fiske, 1992, 692). MP can be seen as the most distant

relational model where the overriding driver is to maximize individual value creation by adopting a competitive rather than a collaborative posture (Blois & Ryan, 2012). Based on Heyman and Ariely (2012) the relationship between payment and effort will depend on the type of exchange, either transactional or social market exchange. In this case, MP can be seen as a transactional, or economic, exchange where effort will be exerted according to reciprocity, and the amount of compensation directly influences individual's’ level of effort.

When potential participants of SnappCar frame their sharing relationship based on the MP structure, there will be a low commitment and sense of trust to the other party since they expect the other to be driven to maximize their self-interest (Blois & Ryan, 2012). This relationship can be spotted on a lot of sharing platforms, also in the case of SnappCar. They

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promote the sharing of a car as a win-win situation for both parties where the owner can collect money and the seeker can benefit convenience and a more beneficial fee than traditional car rentals. In return, this feeling of maximizing efficiency for both parties works as a self-fulfilling prophecy. When platforms express a feeling of self-interest and economic exchange, free-riding behavior can be stimulated since people feel less responsible for the possessions of others (Bardhi & Eckhardt, 2012). When potential participants of SnappCar experience a MP relationship, they are driven to share or borrow a car based on self-interested motivation expecting the other party to do the same, leading to participants feeling distrustful towards each other and less intended to participate.

2.4 Platform positioning of sharing platforms

Based on the Relational Model theory of Fiske (1991), it can be stated that the way people perceive a relationship has a significant influence on how they act within this relationship. In combination with the concept of P2P sharing, the perceived relationship structure from the platform has an influence on people’s willingness to share. Therefore, the way a platform positions itself and frames the relationships people are perceiving is of great importance. Framing effects occur when often small changes in the presentation of an issue or an event produce sometimes larges changes of opinion (Chong & Druckman, 2001). Consequently framing changes the attitude and behavior of the audience. In addition, the framing effect can be used to emphasize certain relationship specifics when positioning a platform.

Positioning can be seen as selecting which product feature to emphasize, in order to create the right product image (Aaker & Shansby, 1982). Moreover, positioning is establishing key brand associations in the minds of the consumers (Keller & Lehman, 2006). Thus the positioning decisions and strategy will determine how people perceive the service of SnappCar, hence the act of sharing their car. For this reason, this research will apply the

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Relational Model Theory of Fiske (1991) to the platform positioning strategy of SnappCar in order to explore the effect of framing a platform based on a specific relationship structure.

There are several authors who already explored the effect of the relational model theory in combination with framing, for example Bridoux and Stoelhorst (2016) who theorize about how mental representations of relationships affect contributions to joint value creation. Their theory proposes that managers can increase social welfare by avoiding the appeal to stakeholders’ personal identity and self-interest that are salient in MP and, instead, triggering

the collective identity salient in CS (Bridoux & Stoelhorst, 2016, p:245). Symbolic management can be used to make a common identity salient. For example, emphasizing a community feeling, common interest and common identity, and using words like ‘we’ and ‘us’ or phrases like ‘We are a family’ will characterize a CS relationship (Bridoux &

Stoelhorst, 2016).

As a result, Habibi et al. (2016) state that managers in the sharing economy should largely focus their effort on strengthening the bond among members, hence creating a CS structure on their platform. This structure can be created by emphasizing socialization, for example when a platform has positive social experiences (reviews). These reviews would further motivate consumers to engage in additional experiences as they seek to further consume this ‘conceptual commodity’ (Habibi et al, 2016, 118). On the contrary, they

mention that P2P sharing platforms should not positioning themselves with an MP relational structure since this will change the nature of P2P sharing. MP positioning would be positioning strategies that distinctly monetize their services and focus on calculations and references to money (Habibi et al, 2016). They state that when a sharing platform is positioned to monetize their services it could damage the legitimacy of a nonreciprocal relationship, which in turn weakens the sense of community.

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In conclusion, this research will apply the Relational Model Theory to the platform positioning for SnappCar by framing the relational structure on the platform to be either social exchange or economic exchange. By framing the relationship to elicit a social or economic structure, it can be explored if experiencing a social exchange relationship creates a higher intention to participate than an economic exchange relationship. This results in the following hypothesis;

H1: A high level of Platform Positioning (Social Exchange) will lead to a higher car owners’ intention to participate, compared to a low level of Platform Positioning (Economic Exchange).

2.5 Relational Closeness

In addition to the perceived relational structure (Fiske, 1992) on a car-sharing platform, the perceived relational closeness between car owner and seeker is also of importance when researching people’s intention to participate. Suggesting that the closer a potential participant

will perceive the sharing relationship, the more familiarity and trust is experienced resulting in a higher intention to participate (Moran, 2005). Relational closeness involves the strength of the emotional bond between people, the degree of idiosyncratic knowledge of the other person or both (Dibble, Levin & Park, 2011). In line with Kelley et al. (1983), the level of relational closeness is formally defined here as; ‘‘the degree of affective, cognitive, and behavioral mutual dependence between two people, including the frequency of their impact on one another and the strength of impact per occurrence.’’ (Dibble, Levin & Park, 2011, p:1). When people are behaving close and are feeling close, this can be seen as distinct indicators of a common closeness dimension (Aron, Aron & Smollan, 1992). ‘‘Moreover,

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closeness indicates interdependence occurring between two people suggests that closeness transcends relationship types ’’ (Dibble, Levin & Park, 2011, p:1).

Relational closeness is a result from structural embeddedness, which is defined as the extent to which two individuals relate to the same others, and reflects the extent of shared activity that bring these individuals together with the same others (Feld, 1996). Structural embeddedness is a function of how many participants interact with one another and how likely future interactions are among participants, based on the effect of the third party (Jones, Hesterly & Borgati, 1997). ‘‘This means that participants do not just have relationships only with each other but also with the same third parties; thus, many parties are linked indirectly by third parties.’’ (Jones et al, 1997, p:924) Subsequently, the third party can function as a tool to bring the other two parties closer to each other. This phenomenon can also be recognized in the earlier mentioned business model from Airbnb, where Airbnb functions as the third party who connects the seeker and owner resulting in a high relational closeness and successful participation (Airbnb.design.com, 2017).

Moreover, relational closeness can be seen as a variable of interest in a wide range of relationships types. Based on Ledbetter et al. (2011) it can be acknowledged that; ‘‘close

relationships are important sources of social support and that ongoing closeness promotes relational longevity’’ (Ledbetter et al., 2011, p:33). Moreover Fiske (1992) and Blois and

Ryan (2012) argue that a CS relational structure leads to a community feeling characterized by high commitment, trust, familiarity and interdependence. This cohesiveness of the communal group results in members caring for each other, thus feeling relationally close (Fiske, 1992). On the contrary, when people experience a platform with a high economic feeling and self-interest, they will experience low relational closeness since there is no creation of trust and familiarity (Moran, 2005). Therefore, relational closeness on a platform is not only reached by showing mutual friends, but can also result from the relational

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structure people experience from the platform (Fiske, 1992). Thus, when the potential participants of SnappCar experience a sharing relationship based social exchange, they will experience a higher level of relational closeness and feel as they are part of a sharing community with ‘friends of friends’ instead of strangers. In turn, this feeling of relational

closeness contributes to a social exchange feeling where communal orientation is primed, resulting in higher intention to participate (Fiske, 1992). This results in the following hypothesis:

H2: The positive relationship between Platform Positioning and car owners’ intention to participate is mediated by Perceived Relational Closeness, so that this relationship is stronger for higher values of Perceived Relational Closeness

Besides platform positioning, another way of showing on an online platform how many friends people have in common, can be by using their mutual Facebook friends. Social networking sites such as Facebook are receiving a lot of attention from interpersonal communication researchers since the central reason for using Facebook is the maintenance of interpersonal relationships (Ledbetter, Mazer, De Groot, Meyer, Mao & Swafford, 2011). In many cases, Facebook provides the primary basis for impressions (Walther, Van Der Heide, Kim, Westerman & Tong, 2008). According to Ellison et al. (2007), ‘‘Even when previously unacquainted individuals meet offline at college, they check the other’s Facebook profile to

learn more about that person and whether there are any common friends or experiences’’ (Walther et al., 2008, p:31). When there is a high structural embeddedness between two parties because of mutual friends, the two parties feel connected and start building on the quality of their relationship, this is consistent with the fact that relationships develop more often and faster between people with mutual friends (Adamic and Adar, 2003). When the

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amount of mutual Facebook friends is depicted on the landing page of SnappCar, potential participants immediately get an impression of how connected they are and therefore giving them a high feeling of structural embeddedness and thus relational closeness. This higher level of relational closeness is likely to increase the amount of familiarity and trust within the relationship (Moran, 2005). Uzzi (1996) notes that all the accounts of closeness in exchange relationships can be classified at one of two ends of a single closeness continuum; ‘arm’s length’ relationships (MP) or ‘close’ relationships (CS). In result, relational closeness shapes

the willingness of either party to actually provide resources, since he or she is more likely to share with others who are close than to those more distant (Moran, 2005). This results in the following hypotheses:

H3: A high level of Mutual Facebook Friends will lead to a higher car owners’ intention to participate, compared to a low level of Mutual Facebook Friends.

H4: The positive relationship between Mutual Facebook Friends and car owners’ intention to participate is mediated by Perceived Relational Closeness, so that this relationship is stronger for higher values of Perceived Relational Closeness

Concluding, in order to create relational closeness within a sharing relationship, sharing participants use structural embeddedness, mutual friends, to serve as a bridging effect of weak ties leading to greater relational closeness between the two. Moreover, the relational structure of a platform can also influence the relational closeness between car owner and seeker, with a CS relational structure to result in higher feelings of closeness. Thus, when potential participants of SnappCar see they have mutual friends with the other party and

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experience a CS relational structure, they will have a high relational closeness with the other party mediating their intention to participate. This results in the following hypothesis;

H5: There will be an interaction between Platform Positioning and Mutual Facebook Friends, such that when the Platform Positioning is high, Mutual Facebook Friends will have a stronger effect on intention to participate than when Platform Positioning is low.

H6: There will be an interaction effect between Platform Positioning and Mutual Facebook friends, such that when the Platform Positioning is high, Mutual Facebook friends will have a stronger effect on the values of perceived Relational Closeness, resulting in a higher intention to participate

2.6 The Need to belong

When researching people’s intention to participate not only the direct effect of the platform

positioning and mutual friends will be of an influence, but also the indirect effect of personality traits are important. Lampe, Wash, Velasquez and Ozkaya (2010) discovered in their research regarding motivations to participate in online communities, that the feeling of belonging to a platform also has an effect on participation. It appeared that; ‘‘personal messages had a strong influence on the feeling of belonging to the community and therefore creating emotional attachment’’ (Lampe et al, 2010, p:1934).

By creating a feeling of belonging, online platforms respond to the general need to belong of people. ‘‘The need to belong is an intrinsic motivation and can be seen as a need to form and maintain at least a minimum quantity of interpersonal relationships’’ (Baumeister & Leary, 1995, p: 497). Baumeister and Leary (1995) propose that the need to belong is innately prepared and therefore nearly universal among human beings. In addition, Baumeister and

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Leary (1995) state that: ‘‘The need to belong can be found in all cultures, but with differences in strength and intensity and plays a central role in several social phenomenon’s such as self-presentation and social comparison’’ (Baumeister & leary, 1995, p:499). Analysis shows that people often want to be like others, to conform and above all not the be set apart from the group by a difference of opinion (Fiske, 1992) Historically, the need to belong has an evolutionary basis since forming and maintaining social bonds has both survival and reproductive benefits (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). In other words, in order to survive in a society or tribe people would instantly try to find people with similar needs to support each other in these needs. After finding these people and forming a community, a single membership in a group can be seen as sufficient to entitle a member to use of whatever resources the group controls (Fiske, 1992). Besides the fact that the need to belong is a universal pattern in human behavior, people also tend to think a lot about their need to belong. ‘‘They devote a disproportionate amount of cognitive processing to actual or possible

relationship partners, and they reserve particular, more extensive, and more favorable patterns of information processing for people with whom they share social bonds’’ (Baumeister &

Leary, 1995, p:520). Thus, people are always, consciously and unconsciously, thinking about with whom they want to make a connection and build up a social bond.

Besides Maslow (1968), who placed the importance of the need to belong third after safety and physical need, a growing amount of authors doing research within social psychology demonstrate the importance of humans need to belong. Subsequently, there are many negative consequences of a lack of belonging for example anxiety (Baumeister and Tice, 1990; Leary, 1990), loneliness (e.g., Peplau and Perlman, 1982) and anger (e.g., Williams, Shore, and Grahe, 1998). Eventually, the need to belong to a certain group can lead to changes in behaviors, beliefs and attitudes as people strive to conform to the stands and norms of the group (Brown, Silvia, Myin-Germeys, Kwapil, 2007). Based on these findings,

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the need to belong can be seen as a central aspect when establishing a relationship on a sharing platform, therefore will moderate the effect of the platform positioning and the intention to participate with SnappCar.

Combining the need to belong with the relational model theory of Fiske (1992) it could be stated that people’s preference for a platform positioning is dependent on their propensity to belong to a group. Research has shown that individuals vary in the degree to which they have a need to belong to a specific group (Pickett, Gardner & Knowles, 1095). People who score low on their need to belong, do not care for social interactions with others and therefore will focus on cues about convenience within a car sharing relationship, for example economic benefits. On the other hand, people who score high on their need to belong, do care for social interactions and seek for new social bonds, therefore will be more likely to look for cues about social interaction within the sharing relationship. All in all, potential participants with a low need to belong will have a higher intention to participate with an economic exchange positioning (MP) of SnappCar and potential participants with a high need to belong have a higher intention to participate with a social exchange positioning (CS). This results in the following hypothesis:

H7: The positive relationship between Platform Positioning and car owners’ Intention to participate is moderated by a person's Need to belong, such that potential participants with a low need to belong will have a higher intention to participate with an economic exchange positioning (MP) of SnappCar and potential participants with a high need to belong have a higher intention to participate with a social exchange positioning (CS).

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2.7 Conceptual framework and hypotheses

This paper examines if a social platform positioning based on CS and showing mutual Facebook friends, has a positive influence on to intention to participate. Based on the

literature, both the social platform positioning and the mutual Facebook friends should results in a higher relational closeness. In turn, this relational closeness mediates the relationship between platform positioning and intention to participate, and between Mutual Facebook friends and the intention to participate. Next, the moderating role of the need to belong on the relationship between the platform positioning and the intention to participate with car sharing is researched. An illustration of the hypothesized relationships is presented in the conceptual model in figure 2, followed by on overview of the hypotheses this research will address in table 1.

Figure 2 Conceptual Model

H2, H4, H6 H7 Independent Variables Platform Positioning (PP) Low=Market Pricing (MP) High=Communal Sharing (CS)

Mutual Facebook Friends

Low=not shown High= 4 mutual friends

Mediator Relational Closeness Dependent Variable Intention to participate Moderator Need to Belong H1, H3, H5

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Table 1: Overview of hypotheses

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Chapter 3: Methodology

This chapter provides an extensive overview of the research method used to test the hypotheses and proposed research question of this study. First the platform choice, research design and the data collection procedure are discussed in detail. Next the stimuli development process is discussed and the measurement contracts are given along with their reliability scores.

3.1 Car Sharing Platform Choice: SnappCar

Since the founders of SnappCar were searching for ways to attract more car owners to their platform, it was the perfect opportunity to combine their search for car owners with this research into P2P car sharing. As mentioned before in the literature, SnappCar is a P2P car sharing platform which makes them distinctive from other car sharing platforms such as Car2go and Green wheels, who can be seen as B2C car sharing platforms. Based on the unique social aspect of SnappCar, it will be interesting to research if a social positioning increases willingness to participate compared to their current market based positioning and what role relational closeness and the ‘need to belong’ plays herein.

3.2 Research design

In order to test the hypotheses and answer the proposed research question, a combination of a 2x2 vignette experiment and a survey questionnaire with closed questions is conducted (see appendix A: Copy of the Survey questions). ‘‘A vignette is a short, carefully constructed description of a person, object, or situation, representing a systematic combination of characteristics’’ (Atzmüller & Steiner, 2010, p:128). Vignette studies combine ideas from classical experiments and survey methodology to counterbalance each approaches’ weakness,

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purpose of this study because: ‘‘vignette experiments consist of presenting participants with carefully constructed and realistic scenarios to assess dependent variables including intentions, attitudes, and behaviors, thereby enhancing experimental realism and also allowing researchers to manipulate and control independent variable’’ (Aguinis & Bradley,

2014, p:352). Moreover, this research uses a visual vignette instead of a text vignette, which makes the hypothetical situation even more realistic for respondents (Caro, Ho, Mcfadden, Gottlieb, Yee, Chan, & Winter, 2012).

Within the different vignettes the independent variables (Platform Positioning and Mutual Facebook Friends) are manipulated and the dependent variable (Intention to Participate) is asked for in the survey. Because the features in the different vignettes are systematically manipulated, the factors that influence Intention to Participate are uncovered. Since the vignettes presented in this study are based on two independent variables namely Platform Positioning and Mutual Facebook Friends, which can both be high or low, this research is a 2x2 factorial design with therefore four vignettes. All respondents were asked to evaluate the landing page of SnappCar from the perspective of a car owner, if the respondents were not in possession of a car they were asked to imagine they have a car. Since every respondent is randomly allocated to one out of four landing pages in which the Platform Positioning and Mutual Facebook Friends of SnappCar was manipulated (see Appendix B and figure 3,4,5,6), this research is a between-subjects design with four groups. In total this research collected 351 fully filled in responses. In table 2 below, the distribution of the participants is shown.

Table 2: Sampling distribution

Condition N Percentage MPLOW 89 25,3% MPHIGH 88 25,1% CSLOW 86 24,5% CSHIGH 88 25,1% Total 351 100%

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After respondents had seen one out of four vignettes, an online survey is conducted to measure the effect of the IV’s ‘Platform Positioning’ and ‘Mutual Facebook Friends’ on the Intention to Participate with SnappCar. The online survey1 also facilitates in measuring the influence of the moderating variable ‘need to belong’ and the mediating variable Relational Closeness. Moreover, several demographics were controlled for as research has shown that age, gender, income level and urban living impact intention to participate with sharing platforms (Huwer, 2004).

3.3 Data collection procedure & Sample

The research population of this study consisted of adult Dutch consumers. As such, the sampling procedure included age as sampling criterion, therefore only those participants aged 18 and older were included in the analyses. In order to get a high amount of respondents the survey was conducted using a non-probability convenience sampling, such as snowball sampling, by communicating the survey on Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook was chosen to spread the survey hence it is the largest social-networking website and represents a potentially fast and affordable method of recruiting study participants for survey research (Ramo & Prochaska, 2012). Subsequently, respondents were reached by approaching people in public places such as universities and shopping malls, but also parking garages in order to find car owners. People were then asked if they were willing to participate in the research by leaving their email address, followed by personally sending them the survey. Thereafter, a reminder email was sent since Sheehan and Hoy (1997) found that a reminder message in an email survey increased response by 25%.

Before starting the survey, participants were presented a cover letter by which they were informed they would be partaking in a study related to car sharing and they should

1Whilst in the past researcher have commented that using internet tools can result in a sampling bias due to limited internet

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