Purpose: Trust plays a crucial role in overcoming uncertainty and reducing risks. Uncovering the trust mechanism in the sharing economy may enable sharing platforms to design more effective marketing strategies. However, existing studies have inconsistent conclusions on the trust mechanism in the sharing economy. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the antecedents and consequences of different dimensions of trust (trust in platform and trust in peers) in the sharing economy.Design/methodology/approach: First, we conducted a meta-analysis of 57 related articles. We tested 13 antecedents of trust in platform (e.g. economic benefits, enjoyment, and information quality) and eight antecedents of trust in peers (e.g. offline service quality and providers’ reputation), as well as their consequences. Then, we conducted subgroup analyses to test the moderating effects of economic development level (Developed vs Developing), gender (Female-dominant vs Male-dominant), platform type (Accommodation vs Transportation), role type (Obtainers vs Providers), and uncertainty avoidance (Strong vs Weak).Findings: The results confirm that all antecedents and consequences significantly affect trust in platform or peers to varying degrees. Moreover, trust in platform greatly enhances trust in peers. Besides, the results of the moderating effect analyses demonstrate the variability of antecedents and consequences of trust under different subgroups.Originality/value: This paper provides a clear and holistic view of the trust mechanism in the sharing economy from an object-based trust perspective. The findings may offer insights into trust-building in the sharing economy.

Users are playing an increasingly vital role in innovation. Previous studies have shown that personality traits are crucial factors in innovation engagement. However, there is no consensus regarding the impact of some personality traits on innovation engagement. Therefore, this study investigated the impact of Big Five personality traits on user innovation engagement in an open innovation platform, including idea and comment contributions, and further explored the interaction effect of social network position and personality traits. The data collected from IdeaExchange, a user innovation platform hosted by Salesforce, were analyzed. The results show that extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience positively correlate with user innovation engagement, whereas neuroticism negatively correlates with user innovation engagement. Additionally, social network position negatively moderated the impact of agreeableness on idea contribution, and positively moderated the impact of both conscientiousness and openness to experience on idea contribution. The conclusions provide a theoretical basis for platform managers to formulate open innovation strategies and incentivise user innovation engagement.

The tourism and accommodation industry has long been a fertile field for digital entrepreneurial activities. However, sharing accommodation entrepreneurs have been ignored, whether in digital entrepreneurship or the sharing economy. This empirical study explored the relationship between start-up age and host growth based on the entrepreneurship learning theory to bridge the gap. In total, 348 hosts’ balanced panel data for 5 years were collected from the Airbnb platform. The results shown that (1) there was a curvilinear (inverted U-shaped) relationship between start-up age and host growth; (2) a critical primary growth strategy (product supply) significantly moderated the curvilinear relationship such that the inverted U-shaped relationship is less pronounced when the level of product supply is high. This study is helpful to understand digital entrepreneurs in the sharing accommodation and offers management suggestions for host growth.