Realizing the Economic and Circular Potential of Sharing Business Models by Engaging

Consumers

Abstract

Purpose – Today’s sharing economy covers a variety of business models. This research aims to

(1) identify dimensions along which sharing business models may vary and (2) investigate their

influence on consumer engagement while considering consumers’ sustainability orientation.

Design/methodology/approach – This research relies upon a systematic literature review (n = 67

articles) to identify five sharing business dimensions: (1) ownership transfer, (2) professional

involvement, (3) compensation, (4) digitalization and (5) community scope. A discrete choice

conjoint experiment in the fashion industry is employed to investigate how these business

dimensions affect consumer engagement with sharing businesses (n = 383 participants).

Findings – The results suggest that ownership of tangible resources elicits more engagement

compared to access to tangible resources for both consumers with a low sustainability orientation

and consumers with a high sustainability orientation. Community scope also affects consumer

engagement as reflected in more engagement towards sharing businesses with a local rather than

a global scope. The presence of professional service providers, monetary compensation and a

digital platform, in turn, only induces engagement among consumers with a low sustainability

orientation.

Originality – Our research generates a better understanding of how sharing businesses can draw

on business dimensions to engage consumers with different levels of sustainability orientation and,

in turn, realize their economic and/or circular potential.

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Keywords – Sharing Economy, Collaborative Consumption, Circular Business Models, Consumer

Engagement, Sustainability Orientation, Conjoint Analysis

Paper type – Research paper

1. Introduction

In a society where several goods, such as clothes and cars, are most of the time left unused (Frenken

and Schor, 2017; Parente et al., 2018), sharing businesses have the potential to generate business

value and economic worth (Kathan et al., 2016; Kumar et al., 2018) while also increasing the

utilization rate of tangible resources like the aforementioned goods (Cohen and Kietzmann, 2014;

Grinevich et al., 2017). Therefore, researchers, practitioners and policymakers embrace sharing

business models in light of the transition to a more sustainable circular economy – i.e. an

socioeconomic system oriented towards slowing down and even closing resource loops (Fehrer

and Wieland, 2021; Geissdoerfer et al., 2020). Yet, only few businesses oriented towards sharing

tangible resources, such as Vinted and BlaBlaCar, were found to attract sufficient consumers to

survive (Clauss et al., 2019; Möhlmann, 2015). As this issue may restrain not only the economic

potential (i.e. the capacity to create business value and economic worth) but also the circular

potential of sharing businesses (i.e. the capacity to slow down resource loops and contribute to a

circular economy), it is important to gain more insight into the determinants of consumer

engagement with sharing businesses (i.e. the psychological or motivational disposition of

consumers in relation to businesses facilitating the sharing of tangible resources) (Brodie et al.,

2011; Clauss et al., 2019; Hollebeek et al., 2014).

To date, numerous studies have explored drivers and barriers of consumer engagement

with sharing businesses, such as ease of use, enjoyment and familiarity (Benoit et al., 2017; Hamari

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et al., 2016; Hazée et al., 2020b). However, extant research remains silent about how consumer

engagement is shaped by the business dimensions along which sharing businesses facilitate the

sharing of tangible resources. This is surprising given the existence of a wide variety of sharing

business models such as those focused on renting (e.g. Vélib’), redistributing (e.g. Warp-it) and

gift-giving (e.g. Freecyle) (Botsman and Rogers, 2010; Cocquyt et al., 2020; Curtis and Lehner,

2019). In fact, the sharing economy literature recognizes that sharing businesses vary between and

within sectors (Eckhardt et al., 2019; Hamari et al., 2016), but an overview of the sharing business

dimensions along with their potential to engage consumers is lacking (Cocquyt et al., 2020; Hazée

et al., 2020a). Additionally, research suggests that consumer engagement is not only related to

business characteristics but also to consumer characteristics (van Doorn et al., 2010; Kadic-

Maglajlic et al., 2019). As sharing businesses have economic as well as circular potential,

consumers’ sustainability orientation – that is, the extent to which consumers value environmental

benefits – might act as a sound indicator for consumer engagement (Agag, 2019; Haws et al.,

2014). Extant research suggests that a lower sustainability orientation of consumers can lead to

increased consumption and hence decreased utilization rates of tangible resources (Lim, 2017)

while the opposite holds for consumers who care a lot about sustainability (Palacios-González and

Chamorro-Mera, 2021). Therefore, the present research takes consumers’ sustainability orientation

– a consumer characteristic which is becoming more and more institutionalized (Fehrer and

Wieland, 2021) – into consideration when studying consumer engagement with sharing businesses.

Against this background, the present research aims to (1) identify sharing business

dimensions by means of a systematic literature review and (2) examine their influence on

engagement with sharing businesses among consumers with varying levels of sustainability

orientation by means of a discrete choice conjoint experiment. By doing so, this paper contributes

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to research, practice and policymaking in multiple ways. First, this research enriches the sharing

economy literature (Benoit et al., 2017; Hamari et al., 2016) by proposing a literature-based set of

dimensions along which sharing business models may vary, resulting from a systematic review of

the sharing economy literature with a consumer-centric focus. Indeed, business model

characteristics and design choices get some attention in the sharing economy literature but rarely

from a consumer perspective (Curtis and Mont, 2020; Pies et al., 2020). Second, this research

contributes to the sharing economy literature by empirically demonstrating how these dimensions

affect consumer engagement with sharing businesses, thereby responding to calls for research on

business model characteristics and design choices in the sharing economy along with their

implications for consumer engagement (Cocquyt et al., 2020; Hazée et al., 2020a). Third, the

empirical research also advances the engagement literature by integrating business characteristics

(here, sharing business dimensions) with consumer characteristics (here, sustainability orientation)

when explaining consumer engagement with sharing businesses. Researchers have long

recognized that the interplay between consumer and business characteristics shapes engagement

(van Doorn et al., 2010). Yet, few studies investigate this interplay in light of consumer

engagement with business models that have not only economic but also circular potential, which

turns this type of research into a key priority among researchers, practitioners and policymakers

(European Commission, 2019; Fehrer and Wieland, 2021; Khitous et al., 2020). This paper

concludes with detailing the way in which the findings of this research can help practitioners and

policymakers to realize the economic and/or circular potential of sharing businesses.

2. Conceptual Background

2.1. Business models in the sharing economy

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Belk (2007, p. 127) defines sharing as “the act and process of distributing what is ours to others

for their use as well as the act and process of receiving something from others for our use”. Sharing

thus denotes non-reciprocal pro-social activities (e.g. Belk 2010), which are governed by social

norms as opposed to economic norms (e.g. Benoit et al., 2017). The sharing or collaborative

economy, in turn, refers for most authors to a socioeconomic system in which two or more entities

share tangible resources, which entail under-utilized or redundant goods (e.g. Cohen and

Kietzmann, 2014; Xu et al., 2021). Although the sharing or collaborative economy has also been

labeled as “collaborative consumption”, Belk (2014, p. 1597) argues that the term “collaborative

consumption” centers on “people coordinating the acquisition and distribution of a resource for a

fee or other compensation” rather than the socioeconomic system. Other scholars – like Benoit et

al. (2017), Hazée et al. (2020a) and Minami et al. (2021) – point out that collaborative

consumption is unique because it focuses on triadic exchanges among platform providers, service

providers, and consumers, by which platform providers – who do not own resources – enable

consumers to gain access to tangible resources owned by service providers. Moreover, some

scholars argue that collaborative consumption occurs when tangible resources are provided by

peers acting as service providers (Becker-Leifhold, 2018; Benoit et al., 2017) whereas others

contend that peer-to-peer sharing is a specific facet of the sharing economy (Kumar et al., 2018;

Schaefers et al., 2021).

The sharing economy as a socioeconomic system that enables sharing and/or collaborative

consumption encompasses a variety of business models (Curtis and Lehner, 2019; Dabbous and

Tarhini, 2019). Here, a business model refers to a set of decision variables that describes how

businesses use and coordinate their resources to create and deliver value to consumers and other

stakeholders (Fehrer and Wieland, 2021). Business models in the sharing economy – such as those

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focused on renting, swapping, bartering, and gifting – represent sets of decision variables linked

to sharing tangible resources (Belk, 2014; Böcker and Meelen, 2017; Botsman and Rogers, 2010;

Curtis and Mont, 2020). Despite the variety in sharing business models, an overview of the

decision variables linked to sharing business models together with their potential to engage

consumers is lacking (Cocquyt et al., 2020; Hazée et al., 2020a). To derive a distinct set of decision

variables related to sharing business models (hereafter, sharing business dimensions), we have

engaged in a systematic review of the literature. In accordance with the approach of De Keyser et

al. (2020) and Mustak et al. (2016), the literature review involved a search and selection of articles,

followed by a synthesis and analysis of the selected articles to identify sharing business dimensions

(see Web Appendix A). The analysis of these articles resulted in the identification of five sharing

business dimensions, which are detailed in the next section.

2.2. Sharing business dimensions

Based upon the analysis of the selected articles, we have identified (1) ownership transfer, (2)

professional involvement, (3) compensation, (4) digitalization and (5) community scope as key

dimensions along which sharing businesses may differ. Hereafter, we detail these sharing business

dimensions, which are summarized in Table 1 (see Web Appendix A for a more detailed

overview).

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Insert Table 1 about here

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The first sharing business dimension, ownership transfer, represents the extent to which

service providers who own tangible resources transfer property rights to consumers when sharing.

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For Kumar et al. (2018), the sharing economy relies upon short-term rental of under-utilized

tangible resources without ownership transfer. Other scholars – such as Böcker and Meelen (2017)

and Gupta et al. (2019) – confirm that the sharing economy is about giving and obtaining

temporary access to tangible resources, as a result of which the sharing economy is sometimes

referred to as an access economy (Barnes and Mattsson, 2016; Davidson et al., 2018; Weng et al.,

2020). By making their tangible resources temporarily accessible for consumers, it has been argued

that resource owners act as providers of access-based services (Wirtz et al., 2019) or sharing-based

product-service systems (Hazée et al., 2020a). In contrast with the idea of access to tangible

resources of service providers, some scholars indicate that sharing also encompasses reselling

(Christodoulides et al., 2021; Parguel et al., 2017), which involves a complete transfer of

ownership (Harvey et al., 2017). Hamari et al. (2016), in turn, contend that ownership transfers

can also occur in a sharing economy when service providers give or donate redundant tangible

resources to consumers. Based upon the aforementioned evidence, our dimension ownership

transfer distinguishes between giving access to tangible resources (e.g. Rent the Runway, Zipcar)

and transferring ownership of tangible resources (e.g. eBay, Vinted).

The second sharing business dimension, professional involvement, concerns the extent to

which the providers of tangible resources for sharing are professional service providers. Several

scholars in the literature set focus on sharing businesses without professional service providers,

so-called peer-to-peer sharing (Böcker and Meelen, 2017; Say et al., 2021). Peer-to-peer sharing

entails individuals engaging in collaborative activities by offering personal or privately-owned

assets to other individuals (Frechette et al., 2020; Hamari et al., 2016; Hazée et al., 2020a;

Kuswanto et al., 2019). Stevens et al. (2021) argue that the relationships among these individuals

are lateral because they are at equivalent levels. Other scholars like Benoit et al. (2017) and

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Scaraboto and Figueiredo (2021) describe individuals who offer their personal or privately-owned

assets to consumers as peer service providers, even though some of these peer service providers

may act as semi-professionals by offering tangible resources on a frequent basis (Teubner et al.,

2017). However, not only peer service providers can share tangible resources in the sharing

economy as businesses can share company-owned tangible resources (Hofmann et al., 2017; Wirtz

et al., 2019). Against this background, Frechette et al. (2020) and Möhlmann (2015) distinguish

between peer-to-peer and business-to-consumer sharing businesses. Moreover, businesses are not

the sole professional service providers in the sharing economy, in that governments and non-

governmental organizations can also act as providers in the sharing economy, as pointed out by

Mazzucchelli et al. (2021). Against this background, we distinguish between sharing businesses

that involve non-professional service providers (peers – e.g. Vinted, BlaBlaCar, Peerby) and those

with professional service providers (businesses or non-profit and public organizations – e.g. Rent

the Runway, Zipcar, public libraries).

The extent to which consumers reward service providers for sharing their tangible

resources represents the third sharing business dimension, termed compensation. In the set of

sharing economy articles, some scholars argue that the sharing of tangible resources always entails

a monetary compensation, for instance when stating that service providers make tangible resources

available to consumers in exchange for a fee (Hazée et al., 2020a; Parente et al., 2018). Similarly,

other scholars contend that sharing involves monetary exchanges (Christodoulides et al., 2021) or

the monetization of underutilized tangible resources (Kumar et al., 2018). Other authors argue that

exchanges in the sharing economy can involve monetary as well as non-monetary compensations,

thereby referring to service providers that make tangible resources available to consumers in

exchange for a fee or other compensation (Belk, 2014) or in exchange for something of value

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(Frechette et al., 2020). Sharing businesses relying on non-monetary compensations are oriented

towards bartering or swapping tangible resources. Moreover, exchanges in the sharing economy

may exist without any type of compensation, as illustrated by the sharing of tangible resources that

occurs for free (Davidson et al., 2018; Stofberg and Bridoux, 2019). Indeed, some scholars

consider donating and gift-giving as part of the sharing economy (Barbosa and Fonseca, 2019;

Hamari et al., 2016). Our compensation dimension embraces all three types of compensation by

distinguishing between no compensation (e.g. give-away shops, Freecycle), non-monetary

compensation (e.g. swap markets, Love Home Swap) and monetary compensation (e.g. second-

hand stores, eBay).

The fourth sharing business dimension, digitalization, refers to the extent to which service

provider-consumer interaction for sharing is enabled by digital platform technologies. Many

authors consider digital platform technologies a necessity for sharing businesses (Benoit et al.,

2017; Boateng et al., 2019; Hamari et al., 2016) as many sharing businesses employ a digital

platform (often offered by a third-party platform provider) to match service providers and

consumers of tangible resources. Some sharing businesses embrace digital platform technologies

to substitute physical interactions among service providers and consumers whereas others rely on

digital platforms to complement physical interactions among service providers and consumers

(Gerwe and Silva, 2020; Lee et al., 2021). Stofberg and Bridoux (2019), for example, compare

renting without in-person interactions to renting with in-person interactions. However, sharing

businesses that are independent of digital platform technologies also exist (Albinsson and Yasanthi

Perera, 2012; Hallem et al., 2021; Küper and Edinger-Schons, 2020; McNeill and Venter, 2019).

Lim (2020), for example, differentiates between brick-and-mortar or physical marketplaces and

digital marketplaces. Moreover, whereas their research article focuses on collaborative

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consumption through online marketplaces, Barnes and Mattsson (2016) confirm that sharing

businesses can occur online and offline. Considering the abovementioned evidence, we make a

distinction between sharing businesses without a digital platform enabling human interaction

between service providers and consumers (e.g. swap meets, brick-and-mortar second-hand stores)

and sharing businesses with a digital platform complementing human interaction between service

providers and consumers (e.g. Peerby, Too Good To Go) or substituting human interaction

between service providers and consumers (e.g. Vinted, Zipcar).

The final sharing business dimension, labeled community scope, represents the extent to

which service providers and consumers – who are sharing tangible resources – are geographically

spread. The “circle of sharing” ranges from a circle of family and friends to an extended circle

involving strangers from around the world (Albinsson and Yasanthi Perera, 2012; Barbosa and

Fonseca, 2019). Minami et al. (2021) argue that sharing can occur locally (i.e. in the community

or neighborhood where the service providers and consumers live or work) but also globally. Gerwe

and Silva (2020), in turn, state that sharing businesses range from local cooperatives to businesses

that operate at a global level. Carbone et al. (2018) note that some sharing businesses present

themselves as businesses operating at the national level while having cross-border spin-offs.

Sharing businesses like Peerby and Too Good To Go, for instance, allow local communities to

share tangible resources with one another but they are present in different regions. If service

providers and consumers are in the same community or neighborhood, we refer to local sharing

businesses (e.g. Partago, Peerby, Too Good To Go) whereas global sharing businesses connect

service providers and consumers from around the world (e.g. eBay, Vinted).

On a final note, the five dimensions constitute sharing businesses in a dynamic manner. In

fact, business model diversification may occur in the sharing economy (Guyader and Piscicelli,

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2019). For instance, service providers and consumers on eBay are free to choose whether the

platform complements or substitutes human interaction (cf. digitalization). In a similar vein,

Vinted employs one platform to facilitate second-hand clothes selling as well as clothes swapping

(cf. compensation). Additionally, how a specific sharing business embraces the five dimensions

can vary over time. For example, eBay originally positioned itself as a sharing platform for non-

professional service providers but nowadays professional service providers are increasingly

present on the platform (cf. professional involvement). Likewise, Vinted expanded from Lithuania

to multiple countries (cf. community scope) (Jegelevicius, 2016).

2.3. Sharing business dimensions and their influence on consumer engagement

After systematically identifying the sharing business dimensions, a key question revolves around

the influence of these dimensions on consumer engagement with sharing businesses. Scholars

stress the importance of consumer engagement for the success of sharing business models (Baker

et al., 2021; Camacho‐Otero et al., 2020). Indeed, despite the notable emergence of sharing

businesses (Chasin et al., 2018; Clauss et al., 2019; Huang and Kuo, 2020), a considerable number

of sharing businesses fails to exist due to – among others – a lack of consumers who choose for

these businesses (Huang and Kuo, 2020; Kumar et al., 2018; Wirtz et al., 2019).

A lack of consumers choosing for sharing businesses reflects a lack of consumer

engagement, defined as a psychological or motivational state with cognitive, affective and

behavioral manifestations towards sharing businesses (Brodie et al., 2011; van Doorn et al., 2010;

Hollebeek et al., 2014). Drawing upon Social Exchange Theory, the engagement literature points

out that consumer engagement with business offerings is – in line with Utility Theory used to

explain consumers’ choices and preferences – driven by the expected and/or perceived benefits

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(Jung et al., 2020; Verleye, 2015). Sharing business dimensions may – as suggested by the sharing

economy literature – elicit different types of benefits.

First, a number of studies demonstrate that consumers associate sharing businesses focused

on access to tangible resources with social, environmental and (most importantly) financial

benefits (Barnes and Mattsson, 2017; Böcker and Meelen, 2017; Hamari et al., 2016; Hawlitschek

et al., 2018). Meanwhile, research also suggests that consumers may perceive risks rather than

benefits when offerings are access-based (Hawlitschek et al., 2018; Hazée et al., 2017; Hüttel et

al., 2018). This evidence suggests that the extent to which ownership is transferred, which

corresponds with the ownership transfer dimension, may affect consumer engagement with sharing

businesses in a positive or negative way.

Next, extant research suggests that consumer engagement with sharing businesses is also

affected by the extent to which the sharing business involves professional service providers.

Research shows that peer-to-peer sharing may generate financial and environmental benefits for

consumers, as well as social benefits as they can connect with one another (Barnes and Mattsson,

2017; Hawlitschek et al., 2018). Oppositely, Hawlitschek et al. (2018) indicate that consumers

might be reluctant to peer-to-peer sharing because of perceived “stranger danger”. In other words,

the impact of professional involvement on consumer engagement with sharing businesses remains

unclear, as this sharing business dimension can elicit both benefits and risks.

Third, non-monetary compensation is a longstanding phenomenon that offers a variety of

benefits for consumers, among others economic and hedonic benefits (Henninger et al., 2019;

Philip et al., 2019). However, exchanges including non-monetary compensation can be

burdensome and time-consuming compared to exchanges involving monetary compensation

(Levenson and Randall, 1966). Moreover, consumers might be reluctant to engage in exchanges

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encompassing non-monetary compensation because of (perceived) risks (Whalen et al., 2019).

Whereas exchanges in kind involve risks as both parties have to agree to barter goods and/or

services (i.e. the “double coincidence of wants”, Philip et al., 2019), exchanges involving

alternative currencies (e.g. vouchers or digital currencies) also entail risks as these currencies are

not regulated by banks or governments (Ertz and Boily, 2019; Gawron and Strzelecki, 2021;

Mendoza-Tello et al., 2019).

Furthermore, consumers might favor sharing businesses that make use of a digital platform

because digital technologies reduce transaction costs (Frenken and Schor, 2017; Parente et al.,

2018; Pies et al., 2020). Indeed, “online shopping allows consumers to save money, effort, and

time” (Al-Debei et al., 2015, p. 708), which represents benefits with the potential to boost

consumer engagement (Verleye, 2015). Next to utilitarian benefits, hedonic benefits are

considered key drivers for online transactions (Forsythe et al., 2006; Sarkar, 2011). Meanwhile,

studies show that consumers appreciate social benefits when engaging with sharing businesses

(Barnes and Mattsson, 2017; Hawlitschek et al., 2018; Möhlmann, 2015) which might offset

utilitarian and/or hedonic benefits related to digital sharing platforms.

Finally, the extent to which service providers and consumers are geographically spread,

and hence the dimension community scope, may also effectuate consumer engagement. As a

matter of fact, consumers may favor local sharing businesses because they want to build strong

ties with service providers (Albinsson and Yasanthi Perera, 2012) and/or support the local

economy (Özsomer, 2012; Winit et al., 2014). In contrast, global sharing businesses such as

Airbnb, eBay and Vinted are gaining popularity (Basselier et al., 2018).

The aforementioned evidence suggests that each sharing business dimension is associated

with not only benefits but also risks. Consequently, it remains unclear how these dimensions

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ultimately affect consumer engagement with sharing businesses. More particularly, two research

questions (RQs) emerge:

RQ 1: What levels/types of (1) ownership transfer, (2) professional involvement, (3)

compensation, (4) digitalization and (5) community scope elicit consumer engagement

with sharing businesses?

RQ 2: What is the relative importance of (1) ownership transfer, (2) professional

involvement, (3) compensation, (4) digitalization and (5) community scope for consumer

engagement with sharing businesses?

2.4. Consumer engagement and consumers’ sustainability orientation

Consumer engagement with sharing businesses, and by extension the success of sharing

businesses, depends not only on business characteristics but also on consumer characteristics

(Dabbous and Tarhini, 2019; van Doorn et al., 2010). Extant research suggests that economic,

environmental and social benefits stemming from sharing are not equally important for all

consumers (Akbar and Hoffmann, 2018; Böcker and Meelen, 2017). As a matter of fact, not all

consumers seem to care about the environmental benefits that may arise from (engaging with)

sustainable consumption alternatives (Maniatis, 2016; Mohd Suki, 2016), even though the

importance of generating environmental benefits is becoming increasingly institutionalized

(Fehrer and Wieland, 2021).

In this respect, engagement with sustainable consumption alternatives is likely to depend

on consumers’ sustainability orientation, defined as the extent to which they value environmental

benefits in consumption situations (Haws et al., 2014). A number of studies have shown that

consumers’ sustainability orientation may affect consumer engagement with sustainable

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consumption alternatives like those stemming from sharing business models that have the potential

to slow down resource loops (De Morais et al., 2021; Hartl et al., 2020; Haws et al., 2014; Jacobs

et al., 2018). As these alternatives often appeal to niche markets (Tunn et al., 2021), a key question

revolves around how the sharing business dimensions may contribute to engaging consumers with

different levels of sustainability orientation. Building upon this observation, a third research

question emerges:

RQ 3: How does the sustainability orientation of consumers affect (a) what levels/types of

the sharing business dimensions elicit consumer engagement with sharing businesses and

(b) the relative importance of these sharing business dimensions for consumer engagement

with sharing businesses?

3. Methodology

3.1. Research design

This research relies upon a discrete choice conjoint experiment with a stated preference approach

(Hauser et al., 2019). This quantitative research design allows to assess what levels/types of the

sharing business dimensions elicit consumer engagement with sharing businesses and to gauge the

relative importance of these sharing business dimensions for consumer engagement (Prell et al.,

2020), whilst minimizing the social desirability of the answers given by the participants

(Noltemeyer et al., 2021). In a discrete choice conjoint experiment, participants are presented a

series of choice sets and are invited to indicate their preferred alternative to engage with. In this

research, each choice set consists of two distinct alternatives (here, two distinct sharing businesses

that may vary along the five sharing business dimensions) in the fashion industry. We focus on the

fashion industry because clothing is massively underutilized while a wide variety of sharing

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businesses like those with a focus on swapping (e.g. Swap Society), renting (e.g. Dressr, Rent the

Runway) or re-selling (e.g. Vestiaire Collective, Vinted) are popping-up and/or gaining popularity

(Cocquyt et al., 2020; Pal and Gander, 2018).

The sharing business alternatives constructed for the discrete choice conjoint experiment

are combinations of attributes (here, sharing business dimensions) and attribute levels (here,

levels/types of the sharing business dimensions). In other words, the attributes and attribute levels

of the sharing business alternatives immediately stem from the derived sharing business

dimensions and their levels/types identified in the systematic literature review (see Table 1). With

regard to digitalization, extant sharing economy literature refers to digital platforms that

complement or substitute human interaction between service providers and consumers. Yet, the

experimental design only considers digital platforms that substitute human interaction because this

allows for a more pronounced difference in the conjoint design and limits the cognitive burden for

participants by reducing the number of choice sets presented.

An overview of the attributes and attribute levels included in the sharing business

alternatives is given in Table 2. In total, 48 sharing business alternatives originate from a full

factorial design (= 2*2*3*2*2 alternatives). To limit participant fatigue while still obtaining

accurate estimates, the number of sharing business alternatives that each participant has to evaluate

according to the full factorial design is reduced by using an orthogonal design (i.e. a sample based

upon the full factorial design). This orthogonal design is created according to the mix-and-match

method. Using the mix-and-match method, the number of choice sets each participant has to

evaluate is equal to 12, which is in line with the recommendation of Bridges et al. (2011).

Applying the formula for aggregate-level full-profile choice-based conjoint analysis of

Orme (1998), the minimum number of participants in this experimental setting is equal to 63. For

16
very large populations – which is the case in this study – the rule of thumb states that a minimum

of 200 to 300 completed surveys is needed to perform conjoint analyses at an aggregate level

(Orme, 2010). Even more, these recommended minima have to be met per subgroup of the

segmentation analysis. As this study will segment the sample in two distinct subgroups according

to sustainability orientation (low versus high), the minimum number of participants doubles.

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Insert Table 2 about here

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3.2. Data collection

Data was collected in Flanders (Belgium) from the 8 th of April 2020 until the 22nd of April, using

an online Qualtrics survey (in Dutch). Participants were approached online via direct messages, e-

mails and posts on social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

The first part of the questionnaire aimed at familiarizing the participant with the topic of

sharing in the fashion industry. Here, we asked “which of the following transactions have you ever

performed? You can select multiple options”, listing the options “Buying new clothes”, “Buying

second-hand clothes”, “Renting/lending clothes”, “Swapping clothes” and “Other – please

specify…”. Additionally, this part described the sharing business dimensions and dimension

levels/types. To avoid biasing participants, we did not mention particular sharing businesses (e.g.

eBay, Vinted, Rent the Runway) as examples of the dimensions and dimension levels/types. The

second part of the questionnaire presented the twelve choice sets, each consisting of two distinct

sharing business alternatives. For each choice set, participants were asked to indicate their

preferred sharing business which reflects their engagement with the sharing businesses. To

17
improve the readability of the choice sets, the differences between the pairwise presented options

were highlighted in bold (see an example of a choice set in Table 3). In the third part of the

questionnaire, participants were asked to fill out questions regarding their sustainability

orientation, thereby relying on the validated six-item scale by Haws et al. (2014) (α = 0.91). These

questions related to the overall consumer behavior of the participant. The six items were each

measured on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from “Strongly disagree” (= 1) to “Strongly agree”

(= 7) and back translation was used to correctly convert them from English to Dutch. The

questionnaire ended with sociodemographic questions.

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Insert Table 3 about here

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During the two-week period of data collection, responses were obtained from 605

participants. Almost 40% of the participants stopped filling in the questionnaire, which is not

uncommon due to the cognitive difficulties typical for conjoint experiments (Bridges et al., 2011).

The answers of these participants were removed from the dataset, resulting in a set of 383

participants who fully completed the questionnaire. Table 4 summarizes the composition of the

final sample.

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Insert Table 4 about here

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3.3. Data analysis

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To analyze the data stemming from the discrete choice conjoint experiment, logistic regression is

applied. The statistical analyses of the questionnaire results (n = 383) are conducted using the

statistical programming language R.

In line with the engagement literature, consumers attach benefits and risks to sharing

business alternatives (Hauber et al., 2016). Hence, utility models – relating the benefits and risks

of a specific offering to its attributes and attribute levels – can be set up for each sharing business

alternative (Rao, 2014).

𝑈𝑖 = 𝛽𝑖,0 + 𝛽1 𝑋𝑖,1 + 𝛽2 𝑋𝑖,2 + ⋯ + 𝛽𝑘 𝑋𝑖,𝑘 + 𝜖𝑖

with Ui the utility of sharing business alternative i,

βi,0 the intercept of the utility model for sharing business alternative i,

βk the model coefficients of the k attribute levels,

Xi,k the k attribute levels of sharing business alternative i,

єi the random error term

The absolute value of the utility attached to a sharing business alternative is not relevant.

The difference in utility on the basis of which participants engage with a sharing business

alternative is of importance (Rao, 2014). Therefore, a differenced utility model (without intercept)

is estimated.

In this conjoint experiment, utilities are latent because consumer engagement instead of

utilities is observed through choices between sharing business alternatives. Consequently, the

19
binary response variable of the model is the choice made by the participants whereas the predictors

of the model are the (differenced) attribute levels of the sharing business alternatives. Given the

categorical nature of the predictor variables, dummy coding is used to construct the predictors (for

each attribute, the first attribute level included in the design functions as reference category).

Part-worth utilities represent the contribution of an attribute level to the total utility,

compared to the reference level of that attribute (RQ 1). The total utility of a sharing business

alternative is considered to be equal to the sum of the part-worth utilities of the attribute levels that

result in that sharing business alternative. Part-worth utilities directly stem from the coefficient

estimates of the logistic regression model and should be interpreted relatively to the reference level

of the attribute (i.e. access to tangible resources, non-professional service providers, no

compensation, no digital platform or local scope) (Hauber et al., 2016). A positive (negative)

coefficient estimate means that the attribute level elicits more (less) engagement than the reference

level of that attribute. In other words, part-worth utilities are calculated to know which attribute

levels drive consumer engagement with sharing businesses.

Also based on the estimated logistic regression model, the relative importance of the

attributes can be assessed (RQ 2). For each attribute, the relative importance is calculated over all

levels of this attribute in the experiment (Hauber et al., 2016). To calculate the importance of an

attribute, first the range of part-worth utilities of this attribute is determined. Next, this range is

divided by the sum of the ranges of all attributes in the conjoint experiment. Finally, the obtained

decimal value is multiplied by 100 to obtain a percentage value. The larger the range of part-worth

utilities of an attribute, the more sensitive participants are to this attribute when engaging with

sharing business alternatives. In other words, attribute importance measures how much each

sharing business dimension influences consumer engagement with sharing businesses.

20
 Next to the logistic regression model at aggregate level (using data from all participants),

separate logistic regression models for each subgroup of the variable sustainability orientation are

also estimated (De Meulenaer et al., 2015). Using a median split (median = 5.17), participants are

divided into two distinct groups: low sustainability orientation (a value lower than the median

value) and high sustainability orientation (a value higher than or equal to the median value).

4. Results

Table 5 summarizes participants’ fashion consumption behavior. A minority of the participants

(40%) has never engaged with sharing businesses to obtain clothing (neither second-hand nor

rental nor swap nor gift). In the sample, second-hand is the most popular sharing activity to obtain

clothing (45%), followed by renting (16%) and swapping (13%). The category “Other – please

specify…” mainly refers to clothing that was gifted for free by others (e.g. family or friends).

-------------------------------------

Insert Table 5 about here

-------------------------------------

For the sharing business dimension levels/types (RQ 1), we find that transferring ownership

of tangible resources, monetary compensation, substitution of human interaction by a digital

platform and a local scope elicit more engagement than respectively access to tangible resources,

no compensation, no digital platform and a global scope (see Table 6).

Regarding the influence of consumers’ sustainability orientation (RQ 3a), we also find that

sharing businesses involving professional service providers elicit more engagement but only for

consumers with a low sustainability orientation. For consumers with a high sustainability

21
orientation, however, the preference to engage with sharing businesses involving monetary

compensation and a digital platform is not detectable (see Table 6).

-------------------------------------

Insert Table 6 about here

-------------------------------------

For the sharing business dimensions (RQ 2), we uncover that professional involvement has

the least influence on consumer engagement while community scope has the most influence on

consumer engagement. As shown in Table 7, consumers’ sustainability orientation does not affect

the relative importance of these sharing business dimensions for consumer engagement with

sharing businesses (RQ 3b).

-------------------------------------

Insert Table 7 about here

-------------------------------------

5. Discussion and Conclusion

5.1. Theoretical implications

The present research enriches the sharing economy literature (Eckhardt et al., 2019; Hamari et al.,

2016) by systematically identifying sharing business dimensions and levels/types through an

integration of evidence from previous studies with a consumer-centric focus. By doing so, this

research does not only acknowledge business model variation in the sharing economy but also

makes this variation concrete with the proposed set of sharing business dimensions (see Table 1).

In future sharing economy research, the sharing business dimensions and corresponding

levels/types may serve as a scale. Moreover, the literature-based set of dimensions is empirically

22
substantiated by means of a discrete choice conjoint experiment that investigates how the sharing

business dimensions affect consumer engagement. By doing so, this research also advances the

sharing economy literature with its call for research on business model characteristics and design

choices (Gerwe and Silva, 2020; Hazée et al., 2020a) and its call for research on consumer

engagement (Baker et al., 2021; Khitous et al., 2020).

Next, this research also advances the sharing economy and engagement literature by

linking business characteristics (here, sharing business dimensions) to consumer characteristics

(here, sustainability orientation) when explaining consumer engagement with sharing businesses

(Akbar and Hoffmann, 2018; Kadic-Maglajlic et al., 2019; Verhoef et al., 2010). The findings

show that some sharing business dimensions matter for consumers with a low and high

sustainability orientation (i.e. ownership transfer and community scope) and that the influence of

other sharing business dimensions on consumer engagement is dependent on consumers’

sustainability orientation (i.e. professional involvement, compensation and digitalization).

When it relates to ownership transfer, the results display that transfer of ownership

significantly boosts consumer engagement with sharing businesses, for consumers with a low

sustainability orientation as well as for consumers with a high sustainability orientation. This

finding resonates with lack of ownership being a key barrier for access-based services (Akbar and

Hoffmann, 2018; Tunn et al., 2021), not in the least when resources are being used in proximity

to consumers’ bodies (such as clothes) (Hazée and Van Vaerenbergh, 2020).

With regard to the community scope, this research suggests that consumers prefer to

engage with sharing businesses with a local scope over sharing businesses with a global scope,

again regardless of their sustainability orientation. Though consistent with the lasting importance

of local consumption (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2018), these findings are noteworthy because of

23
two reasons. First, only a limited set of sharing economy typologies (Carbone et al., 2018; Minami

et al., 2021) categorizes sharing businesses based on their geographical spread, thereby implicitly

overlooking the importance of this sharing business dimension. Second, empirical sharing

economy research on the influence of community scope on consumer engagement with sharing

businesses is limited (Cocquyt et al., 2020).

For professional involvement, compensation and digitalization, the low sustainability

orientation group of participants exhibits more engagement towards sharing businesses involving

professional service providers, monetary compensation and a digital platform substituting human

interaction. According to Haws et al. (2014), consumers with a low sustainability orientation are

expected to show a higher preference for “traditional” products and services, which might offer an

explanation for these results. Yet, it is remarkable that consumers with a low sustainability

orientation prefer sharing businesses with a local scope that make use of a digital platform

substituting human interaction with service providers. These findings suggest that not the social

aspect but the idea of supporting local businesses may lead to favoring sharing businesses with a

local scope.

For consumers with a high sustainability orientation who are indifferent when it relates to

professional involvement and digitalization in sharing businesses, Slee (2017, p. 108) explains that

“we trust strangers on sharing economy platforms for the same reason we trust hotel employees

and restaurant waiters: because they are in precarious jobs where consumer complaints can lead to

disciplinary action”. As disciplinary actions hold for both peer and professional service providers,

we contend that these mechanisms to mitigate “stranger danger” may explain why consumers with

a high sustainability orientation are indifferent with respect to professional involvement and

digitalization (Ert et al., 2016; Kas et al., 2021). The indifference linked to compensation

24
demonstrated by consumers having a high sustainability orientation, in turn, might be explained

by a higher tendency to protect their financial resources compared to consumers with a low

sustainability orientation (Haws et al., 2014).

Finally, this research offers important insights for not only sharing economy and

engagement scholars but also for scholars interested in business models with economic and circular

potential. Empirical studies adopting a consumer perspective on circular business models are

scarce (Edbring et al., 2016; Fehrer and Wieland, 2021; Khitous et al., 2020) while consumer

engagement with circular business models like sharing business models is necessary for making

the transition towards a more sustainable circular economy (Edbring et al., 2016; Kirchherr et al.,

2017). Tunn et al. (2021) confirm that a lack of consumer engagement hinders the realization of

not only the economic but also the circular potential of sharing businesses. By showing that sharing

business model choices in combination with the sustainability orientation of consumers may boost

consumer engagement, the present research may serve as a source of inspiration for explaining

and/or increasing consumer engagement with circular business models and hence contribute to the

realization of their economic and circular potential (Laukkanen and Tura, 2020).

5.2. Practical implications

The present research suggests that practitioners in the fashion industry and potentially other

industries can optimize the economic and/or circular potential of sharing businesses by combining

the dimension levels/types that most positively influence consumer engagement (here, transferring

ownership of tangible resources, monetary compensation, substitution of human interaction by a

digital platform and local scope). In other words, practitioners can improve existing sharing

businesses by altering dimensions that may negatively affect consumer engagement and/or

25
introduce new types of sharing businesses based upon the dimension levels/types that are most

appealing to consumers. Practitioners, for instance, may boost consumer engagement with their

sharing business by allowing service providers to locally transfer the ownership of their tangible

resources in exchange for a fee. Given that consumers show a preference for sharing businesses

with a local scope that use a digital platform, sharing businesses may also benefit from directing

effort to creating local communities around digital platforms with a broader scope, as illustrated

by Peerby with its ambition to create connections between neighbors while relying upon a digital

platform that is available in different countries (Sands et al., 2020; Stofberg and Bridoux, 2019).

In other words, sharing businesses may strive for glocalization by combining both global (i.e.

sharing platform operating worldwide) and local aspects (i.e. focus on connecting members of

local communities with one another) (Dameri et al., 2019; Liu et al., 2021).

Moreover, it is of utmost importance that practitioners understand the heterogeneity of

consumers (Sands et al., 2020). Indeed, differences in elicited consumer engagement by sharing

business dimension levels/types were found to relate to consumers’ sustainability orientation. As

such, the present research suggests that sustainability orientation is a relevant and novel variable

to segment consumers in the sharing economy beyond the demographic characteristics and usage

modalities that are dominant in existing segmentation studies (Akhmedova et al., 2021; Lutz and

Newlands, 2018; Sands et al., 2020). Specifically, practitioners who target and/or reach consumers

with a low sustainability orientation may restrain their sharing business to professional service

providers. Conversely, sharing businesses targeting and/or reaching consumers with a high

sustainability orientation may allow peer service providers to share their tangible resources. All in

all, practitioners in the sharing economy can tailor their sharing business – in harmony with our

findings – to the sustainability orientation of their consumers. To achieve this end, practitioners

26
may find Figure 1 – in which the 48 combinations of the sharing business dimension levels/types

along with illustrative examples and archetypes are visualized – helpful (see Web Appendix B for

more examples).

-------------------------------------

Insert Figure 1 about here

-------------------------------------

Finally, policymakers and (non-)governmental actors – like the Ellen MacArthur

Foundation – can support practitioners by educating them about the importance of sharing business

dimensions and levels/types for engaging consumers with low and high sustainability orientations

and by guiding them to reconfigure their business models. Furthermore, policymakers can bolster

consumer engagement with sharing businesses by introducing regulations and measures that

facilitate the deployment of the most desired dimension levels/types, such as tax reductions for

consumers who engage with sharing businesses in which ownership is transferred, or help

overcome barriers with regard to less desired dimension levels/types, such as reimbursement of

registration expenses for access-based sharing businesses.

5.3. Limitations and future research

First, this research relies on a choice-based conjoint experiment with a stated preference approach.

The choice-based conjoint design requires a delicate balance between, on the one hand, the number

of attributes and attribute levels and, on the other hand, the cognitive burden for participants. Other

conjoint designs, such as an adaptive choice-based conjoint experiment, might allow researchers

to include even more sharing business dimension levels/types (e.g. digital platform complementing

human interactions between service providers and consumers). Furthermore, consumers’ stated

27
preferences may differ from actual behaviors, which is known as the attitude-behavior gap

(Cocquyt et al., 2020). Therefore, future research might complement this research endeavor by

gathering behavioral data, such as the proportion of sharing versus buying tangible resources.

Second, this research relies on data about engagement with sharing businesses among

Belgian consumers in a specific industry (here, the fashion industry). As this may limit the

generalizability of the findings, research might benefit from repetitions of this study among

consumers in different countries and different industries (Böcker and Meelen, 2017; Cocquyt et

al., 2020; Möhlmann, 2015). Additionally, future research may benefit from investigating how

business customers or governments rather than individual consumers engage with sharing

businesses, as sharing also occurs in these contexts (Grinevich et al., 2017; Mazzucchelli et al.,

2021). Moreover, the data were collected during the onset of a worldwide pandemic, which might

have resulted in biased results (e.g. increased contamination concerns). Therefore, gathering post-

pandemic data about consumer engagement with sharing businesses that vary along different

dimension levels/types is important.

Third, sharing businesses may embrace different levels/types of the sharing business

dimensions simultaneously (e.g. to respond to heterogeneous consumer needs/wants), which is

known as business model diversification (Guyader and Piscicelli, 2019). As this facet of sharing

businesses was excluded from the empirical study, future research might explore how business

model diversification affects consumer engagement. In a similar vein, the present research did not

consider the way in which sharing business dimension levels/types evolve over time (e.g. to

respond to changes in consumer needs/wants), thereby calling for longitudinal research on

consumer engagement with sharing businesses.

28
 Forth, as we find that consumers prefer to engage with sharing businesses that use digital

platforms to match service providers and consumers, whilst also exhibiting a preference for sharing

businesses with a local scope, future research may investigate how glocalization strategies (i.e.

combining global and local aspects) affect consumer engagement with sharing businesses (Dameri

et al., 2019; Liu et al., 2021).

Finally, future research should investigate to what extent consumer engagement with

sharing businesses that vary in terms of ownership transfer, professional involvement,

compensation, digitalization, and community scope contribute to realizing the economic and

circular potential of sharing businesses, not in the least when their consumers tend to engage in

indulgent consumption due to low levels of sustainability orientation (Parguel et al., 2017).

29
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