Users' motivations to participate in the sharing economy: Moving from profits toward sustainable development

The current study explores users' various motivations to participate in the sharing economy, taking into consideration both extrinsic and intrinsic drivers and monetary and nonmonetary benefits. The conceptual and structural model mainstreams a motivational continuum starting from profit making and moving to sustainable development; it also includes factors such as social, environmental, economic, and instrumental benefits. In order to test the relative importance of these motivations and thus their specific influences on user participation and level of profit making, a questionnaire-based survey was conducted with 1,004 Italian participants in the sharing market. The findings confirmed that sustainable development, socializing, knowledge, and economic incentives are significant influences on the degree of user participation and on the derived profits, whereas motivations related to product availability and practicality proved not to be meaningful in the studied context.