The Role of Sustainable Supply Chain and Customer Care in Sharing Economy: The Moderating Effect of Customer Attitude: A Case of Ridesharing and Carsharing

Abstract

Sharing economy is known as a growing sector in the contemporary business environment with a significant benefit for the customers. This study aims to examine the influence of sustainable supply chain (SSC), customer care (CC) on sharing economy with the moderating role of customer’s attitude. To address the study objective, a valid sample of 445 respondents from ASEAN economies was collected and empirically analyzed, testing the relationship between the variables of interest. Findings of the study show that there is a significant and direct impact of SSC and CC on sharing economy under full sample of the study. Besides, the interaction effect ofthe customer’s attitude between SSC-SE, and between CC-SE demonstrate that this relationship is stronger. Study discussion indicates an excellent theoretical and empirical contribution in the literature of sharing economy and sustainability due to novel interaction role of customer’s attitude. Academicians, researchers, industry experts, and business decision-makers can significantly use the study findings. However, several limitations are also observed in this study. First, this research has investigated the one factor of sharing economy (car-sharing, ride-sharing) while ignoring the overall industry. Therefore, future research is highly recommended to cover other dimensions of sharing economy sector, containing a range of characteristics and business models. Second, sample of interest is 445, who came from selected ASEAN economies. For future studies, the sample size could be expanded with in-depth analyses based on the sub-grouping of the respondents as per regional economies. Third, this research has adopted a quantitative approach to examine the relationship between variables of interest, with no focus on qualitative techniques like interview. A further contribution could be justified by addressing these limitations.