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Enhancing Customer Civility in the Peer-to-Peer Economy: Empirical Evidence from the Hospitality Sector

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Abstract

Customer civility is an established construct in the study of ethical consumption. However, scholars have paid insufficient attention to customer civility in relation to the flourishing peer-to-peer (P2P) economy. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to develop and test a theoretical framework which examines the antecedents of the customer civility in the P2P economy. We use social exchange theory to develop a model that posits customer interaction experiences with property owners, properties, and P2P platforms (e.g., Airbnb) as antecedents of customer civility in the P2P economy. Two studies were used to test our framework: Study 1 comprises a survey of Chinese customers (n = 476); Study 2 involves secondary data crawled from the Web site of Xiaozhu, one of China’s largest P2P accommodation platforms. OLS regression analysis was used for hypothesis testing. Results demonstrate three antecedents of customer civility in the P2P accommodation sector: interpersonal trust, property experience, and platform governance. In addition, the positive effect of interpersonal trust on customer civility is stronger when customers have high economic incentive, while the effect of property experience is significantly stronger when customers have low economic incentive.

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Acknowledgements

This article has been supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No.71502006), Project of Philosophy and Social Science Planning in Beijing (16JDGLA001), China National Funds for Distinguished Young Scientists (Project No.71725003), and the Supporting Plan for the Construction of High-level Young Talents in Beijing's Universities (CIT&TCD201904063), Famous Teachers of Beijing High Creative Program.

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  1. Shuang Ma, Huimin Gu, Daniel P. Hampson, and Yonggui Wang have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Tourism Sciences, Beijing International Studies University, Beijing, China

    Shuang Ma & Huimin Gu

  2. Business School, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, China

    Daniel P. Hampson & Yonggui Wang

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  1. Shuang Ma
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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The objective of our article is about consumer consumption in business, which is not related to informed consent issue.

Research Involving Human Participants and/or Animals: This article is about customer civilization in peer-to-peer accommodation through online and off-line questionnaires, and it doesn’t violate any human or animal ethics.

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Ma, S., Gu, H., Hampson, D.P. et al. Enhancing Customer Civility in the Peer-to-Peer Economy: Empirical Evidence from the Hospitality Sector. J Bus Ethics 167, 77–95 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04128-5

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