User motivations to participate in sharing initiatives

The sharing economy has affected numerous spheres of our lives, and the traveling industry is one of the fields which are transformed to the highest extent by it. New peer-to-peer businesses are emerging as a result of these changes, however, many of them fail to reach a critical mass of users and thus build successful online communities. Additionally, the specific nature of sharing initiatives with regards to community building requires word-of-mouth communication rather than traditional marketing efforts. This thesis explores how offline meetups impact the motivations of users to participate in sharing initiatives, while comparing those motivations for growing and mature collaborative consumption organizations. In order to answer its research question, this study employs a qualitative approach. Thirteen indepth interviews from members of four sharing initiatives from the traveling/ mobility industry were conducted to produce relevant data on the topic. In line with previous literature on the influence of offline meetups, the results of this study confirm the important social motivation of users to attend offline meetups and to participate in online communities. Some interesting nuances to this social motivation were added, namely the willingness of users to share as well as their curiosity. Another important motivation which emerged is a trust motivation, which is related both to a feeling of being connected to the sharing initiatives after communicating with their staff, and to an increased level of engagement with the platforms. Two other motivations which were not mentioned in literature were found, those being a business motivation and a pragmatic motivation. This study also found that offline meetups impact positively the bridging social capital or the diversification of sharing initiatives' user bases, which is especially valuable in the development stage of growing their online communities. There also are significant differences between growing initiatives, which are in the process of building a critical mass of users, and mature ones, which have sustained, fully-functioning online communities. Those differences include an especially well utilized word-of-mouth communication by experienced members from mature communities compared to almost lacking communication from growing communities. Furthermore, the impact of growing communities' offline meetups is negatively influenced by the low levels of attendance and the infrequent basis of organizing of such offline events.