Beyond Money: How Social Motives Drive Green Purchases in the Sharing Economy
研究了共享经济中服务提供者的金钱和社会动机如何影响其绿色消费行为，发现社会动机通过自豪感促进绿色购买，对非绿色购买无影响。
While the sharing economy has been described as a potential pathway to enhancing sustainability and reducing hyper-consumption, scholarly inquiry into this linkage remains limited. In this research, we examined whether and how service providers’ motivations (monetary and social) for resource sharing influence their green consumption both outside and on sharing platforms. We conducted a series of eight studies that involved surveys, lab experiments, and large-scale secondary datasets across various sharing economy platforms. Results showed that service providers who are strongly motivated by the sharing economy’s social benefits are more likely to engage in green consumption, reflected in purchases made outside the platform (e.g., buying green products) and on the platform (e.g., adopting eco-friendly practices). However, service providers’ motivations have no bearing on their regular (non-green) purchases. We identified sense of pride as an underlying process and ruled out household income, perceived financial resource availability, sense of morality, and environmental concerns as alternative accounts. The findings not only contribute to the literature on the sharing economy and pro-environmental behavior but also provide actionable insights for policymakers, sharing platforms, and marketers seeking to promote sustainable lifestyles and environmentally responsible practices among service providers.