Author(s): Gautam Agrawal, Ruchi Garg, Ritu Chhikara and Vishal Talwar
The exponential growth of disruptive socio-economic sharing economy practices has brought into focus the i) different forms of sharing practices ii) mass adoption of the sharing practices business models. In the present age of consumerism and consumer concerns for ethical, eco-sustainable consumption, developing an understanding of the reasons behind consumers granting legitimacy or acceptance, to certain business models and/or organizations is a relevant field of study for academicians and practitioners. The present work seeks to answer the questions about the legitimacy-granting behavior in sharing practices context through the prism of personal values of the participants. The study focuses on the impact of hedonic values, social values, egoistic values and altruistic values on the consumers acceptance of different sharing practice models. Further, the study posits mediating role of the social norms in the legitimacy-granting behaviour by the consumers. The study is a conceptual framework that attempts to extend the present literature in the sharing economy domain. The study postulates an individual’s legitimacy judgment as a behaviour. It is influenced by their personal values and mediated by the social norms. Our context is the legitimacy of the sharing practices irrespective of the industry. The paper develops a conceptual framework that identifies the three categories of legitimacy that the consumers may grant to sharing practices based on their value systems. The generic framework can be empirically tested in tourism and hospitality-related settings, including but not limited to accommodation, transportation, community-based tourism.