Customer engagement, authenticity and loyalty in the sharing economy: a study of Italian tourists

Following the financial crisis of 2007-2008, people started to re-evaluate their consumption patterns and the value of ownership. In addition, the technological development has changed and revolutionized the marketplace. The rise of virtual markets led to the first sharing economy platforms specially in tourism sector. The overall aim of this doctoral thesis is to investigate the role of authenticity, customer engagement and loyalty in sharing economy platforms. The thesis adopts mixed-method approach and is composed of four research papers. The first paper, entitled “Drivers of customer engagement in online brand communities: a systematic literature review in the last decade”, comprises a systematic literature review that provided a thorough understanding of customer engagement and its antecedents. Since the research about customer engagement with sharing economy platforms is still limited, the review was expanded to include studies about engagement in online brand communities in general. The main drivers were identified from 89 selected papers and were organized in three groups: i.e., affective and hedonic; functional and utilitarian; and experiential drivers. The second paper is entitled “A review on the role of authenticity in sharing economy: a three-method approach”. Three different approaches were combined, specifically quantitative systematic review, bibliometric analysis and content analysis, in order to analyze 36 selected papers. The first part of the systematic literature review represented the state of the art of the research in the field. Then, the bibliometric approach was used to provide an updated review of the role of authenticity in sharing economy. Lastly, the content analysis identified a conceptual map with the most important themes of selected papers such as Airbnb, authenticity, experience, social interaction, sharing economy, loyalty, host, satisfaction and risk. These themes represent a useful starting point for further exploratory analysis. The third paper is entitled “Authenticity and customer engagement with tourism-related sharing economy platforms among Italian tourists: a PLS-SEM approach”. The analysis was conducted on 242 questionnaires collected through an online survey among Italian tourists who had used Airbnb in the previous 12 months. This study adopted a two-step procedure, confirmatory factor analysis followed by Partial Least Squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to empirically investigate the effect of authenticity on customer engagement and loyalty, as well as the mediating effect of engagement on the relationship between authenticity and loyalty. The fourth paper, entitled “The success recipe for customer loyalty in tourism sharing economy: a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA)” adopted a qualitative approach to provide a holistic understanding of customer loyalty to Airbnb in Italy. Two models were explored that consist in the presence (model 1) and absence (model 2) of the outcome, i.e., customer loyalty. The results indicated different “recipes”, i.e., different combinations of three conditions i.e., satisfaction, perceived risk and authenticity that determine the presence or absence of loyalty. This doctoral thesis by combining the strengths of qualitative and quantitative analysis provides important theoretical contributions which enhance the understanding of tourism sharing economy field and helps to support new line for further research. Due to the economic super shock caused by COVID-19 specially in tourism sector, it is very important to develop effective strategies that can help in enhancing customer engagement and customer loyalty in tourism sharing economy context. The results of this research will serve as a reference point for the future studies and managers of sharing economy platforms to restart after this global pandemic.