How guest-host interactions affect consumer experiences in the sharing economy: New evidence from a configurational analysis based on consumer reviews

Abstract

Abstract This study examines the complexity of consumer experiences in the sharing economy (SE) from the perspective of the level of interaction between consumers and service providers. Consistent with service-dominant logic, the joint efforts of consumers and service providers co-create value. In the context of accommodation-sharing, this means not just the room that guests seek but, rather, the authentic local experience they co-create with their hosts. This study proposes a text-analytics framework to extract important service dimensions directly from consumer reviews. The results indicate that the importance of service dimensions, on which consumers focus in reviews, varies with levels of interaction. To better understand the complex nature of consumer experiences in the SE, the framework integrates text analytics with fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), to shift attention from individual service dimensions to service-dimension configurations. Drawing on complexity theory, this study examines the service-dimension configurations that lead to positive and negative sentiment. The fsQCA results reveal that the causal recipes for sentiment differ for various interaction mechanisms. This is the first study to integrate topic modeling, sentiment analysis, and fsQCA, framing service-provider decision support for responding to consumers needs.