The motives behind consumers’ intention to use peer-to-peer accommodation: an fsQCA application

Literature on the motives influencing consumers’ intention to use peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms has become vast and fragmented. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on this research stream by applying a novel methodological approach that reveals the existence of alternative combinations of motives that equally boost consumers’ intention to use P2P accommodation.

The methodological approach builds on the complexity theory and includes both linear and nonlinear techniques. The empirical analysis combines multiple regression analysis and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The sample comprises 458 users of a leading P2P accommodation platform.

The fsQCA reveals four distinct combinations of motives. Social interaction and social esteem, either combined themselves or in partial combination with economic benefits, emerge as two important drivers of behavioral intention to use P2P accommodation. Sustainability appears in three of the combinations.

This paper contributes to the P2P accommodation literature by adopting a novel methodological approach that shows the complexity behind consumers’ intention to use P2P accommodation. Consumer motives cannot be considered as separate entities because their effect on consumer intention depends on the interplay among them. Therefore, the different combinations of motives should be managed simultaneously.