Growing User Base in the Early Stage of Sharing Economy Platforms: An Integration of Competitive Repertoire and Institutional Legitimacy Theories

Nianxin Wang, Yuxue Fang, Yulin Fang, Huifang Li

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

Sharing economy platforms are pressed to rapidly grow user bases at the early stage by aggressively targeting potential users through competitive actions. Due to the volatile nature of the sharing economy and its disruption to industry norms, these platforms encounter legitimacy challenges that impede user base growth. This paper integrates competitive repertoire and institutional legitimacy theories to develop a research model that explains early-stage user base development in the sharing economy. We posit that the early-stage user base is associated with structural characteristics of the competitive repertoire, whose effects are moderated by a platform's socio-political legitimation efforts that address stakeholders’ regulatory and normative concerns. Using a comprehensive sample of 4644 monthly observations of 129 sharing economy platforms in China, we find that the volume of two context-specific competitive actions, offering economic incentives and staging high-visibility events, along with competitive repertoire complexity, are positively related to the platform's early-stage user base. We also identify a significant negative relationship between repertoire differentiation and user base. Direct relationships are moderated by socio-political legitimation, however, such that legitimation weakens the positive impact of context-specific action volume but enhances those of repertoire complexity and differentiation. Managerial and practical implications are discussed in light of the findings.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3484-3503
Number of pages32
JournalProduction and Operations Management
Volume32
Issue number11
Early online date8 Jul 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished online - 8 Jul 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors are grateful to the review panel for their invaluable guidance and insightful comments. This research is supported in part by National Science Foundation of China (Project No.: 72272066, 71971101 and 71921001), the MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (Project No.: 21YJC630058), the General Research Fund (Project No.: 9042848), the HKU Business School Shenzhen Research Center Funding (Project No.: SZRI2023-CRF-02), and the USTC Research Funds of the Double First-Class Initiative (Project No.: YD2040002021). Huifang Li and Yuxue Yang serve as the corresponding authors and all authors contributed equally.

Funding Information:
The authors are grateful to the review panel for their invaluable guidance and insightful comments. This research is supported in part by National Science Foundation of China (Project No.: 72272066, 71971101 and 71921001), the MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (Project No.: 21YJC630058), the General Research Fund (Project No.: 9042848), the HKU Business School Shenzhen Research Center Funding (Project No.: SZRI2023‐CRF‐02), and the USTC Research Funds of the Double First‐Class Initiative (Project No.: YD2040002021). Huifang Li and Yuxue Yang serve as the corresponding authors and all authors contributed equally.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Production and Operations Management Society.

Keywords

  • sharing economy platform
  • competitive repertoire
  • cognitive legitimacy
  • socio-political legitimation

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