Sharing-Dominant Logic? Quantifying the Association between Consumer Intelligence and Choice of Social Access Modes

Abstract

With sharing economy and access-based consumption, consumers increasingly access goods through social access modes other than private ownership—such as co-ownership, leasing, or borrowing. Prior research focuses on consumers’ attitudinal motivations and consumption-cultural use experiences pertaining to such social exchange–based access modes. In so doing, prior research has overlooked the influence that consumers’ fundamental, even biologically shaped, cognitive traits may have on their choice of access modes. To fill this research gap, this study analyzes a data set of more than 30,000 new car registrations by male consumers in Finland, including cognitive test data from the Finnish Defense Forces and covariates from other governmental sources. The field data suggests that consumers’ intelligence scores and their choice to co-own and lease their cars are positively associated. Econometric evidence further suggests that the association between intelligence and choice of social exchange–based access modes can be explained by intelligent consumers’ higher social trust in people and institutions, as well as two circumstantial mechanisms: their financial standing and tendency to seek savings. The findings from the field data are supported by an additional survey study (n = 460). Implications for the evolution of markets and consumption, as well as human intelligence and cooperation, are discussed.

When interchangeability between providers and users makes a difference: The mediating role of social proximity in collaborative services

“…In these earlier forms of exchange, individuals buy or sell products to one another. In contrast, collaborative services are based on the exchange of services, hence on access rather than ownership (Aspara & Wittkowski, 2018;Belk, 2014;Lawson et al, 2016).…”

“…In line with recent literature investigating motives for participation in these new forms of exchanges (Aspara & Wittkowski, 2018;Benoit et al, 2017;Hamari et al, 2016;Lawson et al, 2016), this paper focuses on a distinctive characteristic of collaborative services associated with the interpersonal nature of the exchange relationship among peers, namely the interchangeability between service providers and service users, who may one day participate as service providers, but the next day may participate as service users and vice versa. As such our research question is as follows: Does it make a difference to collaborative services participants' attitude and behavior whether they play both roles or just one?…”

Bibliometric analysis of sharing economy logistics and crowd logistics

“…Social exchanges involve aspects such as user motivation and attitude, consumption experience and cultural usage of the sharing economy. Several studies suggest that the link between human intelligence and the choice of modes of access based on social exchanges can be explained by individual and institutional consumers’ increased social trust (Wang et al , 2018; Aspara and Wittkowski, 2018). This strand of work is complemented by studies of crowd intelligence platforms (Li et al , 2017).…”

The Progression and Impact of the Sharing Economy; a Preface

“…Additionally, it provides tangential values such as social utility, communal values, and possible environmental benefits. All and all, it offers smarter choices for consumption and that is perhaps why people who are more intelligent tend to engage more often in a sharing economy (Aspara & Wittkowski, 2019). Unfortunately, these benefits come with some dark sides, unintended consequences for other consumers and the society as a whole, (Griffiths, Perera, & Albinsson, 2019) which is an understudied aspect of the sharing economy.…”