More popular, more listings? Effects of popularity on Airbnb host expansion

Sharing accommodation has lowered the threshold for digital entrepreneurship in the accommodation industry, prompting entrepreneurs to join this industry. However, digital micro-entrepreneurs have been ignored by previous studies. To bridge the gap, this study aims to explore the impact of reputational asset (host popularity) and host’s human capital (entrepreneurial entry speed and managerial seniority) on host expansion grounded on the resource-based theory.

This study obtained crawler data by python from Airbnb.com, locking the time range to the past five years from 2013 to 2018 in Beijing of China. This study finally has 348 hosts’ balanced panel data to estimate the ordinary least squares regression model with fixed-year effect.

Results demonstrate that host popularity has a significant positive effect on host expansion. Furthermore, entrepreneurial entry speed strengthens the positive effect of host popularity on host expansion, whereas managerial seniority weakens the positive effect. The three-way interaction analysis reveals that the positive impact of host popularity on host expansion is strongest when managerial seniority is smaller and entrepreneurial entry speed is faster.

The research has important implications to how the platforms interfere with the implementation of host expansion strategy and adds valuable insights to understand the transformation process of host expansion from nonprofessional to professional.

The research has expanded the literature related to the micro-entrepreneurship of the sharing economy and verified the application of resource-based theory under sharing economy.