Understanding the Influence of a Host's Guest Perceptions on Sharing Intention on the Airbnb Platform : A Signaling Theory Perspective

Today the sharing economy, which involves the online sharing of under-utilized assets with unknown others, has increasingly become a prevalent e-commerce business model. While a good number of studies have explored determinants of a guest’s booking intention in the sharing economy, little attention has been given to what drives a host to accept guest’s booking requests. A host tries gathering and assessing information about a guest to decide whether to accept a request, and, in the end, hosts’ perceptions of a guest would likely affect their willingness to share accommodation online. This study is an investigation of the impact of a host’s guest perceptions on their intention to share an unused property with an unknown guest. It aims at presenting and testing a conceptual model of accommodation sharing by examining the effects of guest profiles and guest reviews on a host’s trust in guest and further on a host’s intention to share accommodation based on the signaling theory. This research collected data from 170 Airbnb users, aged 20 to 70, using an online survey on Amazon MTurk. The results indicated that a host's trust in a guest was positively affected by perceived guest favorability from guest reviews and perceived credibility from guest profiles. However, perceived fit between a host’s guest preferences and portrayed guest identity did not have a significant effect on trust. Furthermore, it was found that trust in guest had a positive relationship with sharing intent, but a negative relationship with perceived risk. Based on the results, this study offers practical as well as academic implications and suggests directions for future research