Sharing activities underpinned by the technologies of the Internet have become dominant in the activities of individuals, business and governments. Recently, such sharing activity has grown from information and media content to wider resources, including money, physical goods and servicescoined collaborative consumption. Sustainability is often cited as a key driver, underpinned by economic, social and environmental benefits. If successful, the sharing of such resources is likely to have a potentially disruptive impact on incumbents in traditional supply chains. However, given the embryonic state of its development, it is perhaps not surprising that collaborative consumption is not well understood in research or practice. With this in mind, this study undertook a four-stage Delphi study with 25 experts in order to identify the key drivers, inhibitors and likely future developments in collaborative consumption over the next 10 years. A key finding was that environmental concern (sustainability) was considered of minor importance. The paper rounds-off with conclusions and implications for practice and further research.

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Collaborative consumption websites have enabled consumers to focus on shared access to products rather than owning them. This study aims at developing a comprehensive theoretical model to explain consumer outcomes for collaborative consumption. It develops and tests a structural equation model using partial least squares path modelling and survey data collected from a car-sharing website. The results suggest that consumer intentions to rent are driven primarily by perceived economic, environmental and social benefits through the mediator of perceived usefulness, and enjoyment, in turn driven by sense of belonging to the sharing community. Interestingly, social influence did not play a role. When making word-of-mouth recommendations, in addition to these factors, consumers also take website trust into account, underpinned by the structural assurances of the website. The paper rounds off further implications of the research for theory and practice.

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