What is Airbnb

The sharing economy has developed very quickly. However, organizations like Airbnb and Uber have encountered crisis of trust. Academia still does not know what is the type of trust in sharing economy organizations. Therefore, the authors designed two studies, used data from Airbnb, to test 2 hypotheses: (1) the level of inter-organizational trust in sharing economy organizations is relatively positive to the level of participation, and (2) the price of the product or service being shared is relatively negative to the level of participation. The results find out that consumers are more willing to choose non-shared renting methods in China, yet the opposite in America. Under both conditions, price is an important moderator. This shows that the role of trust in China is mainly inter-organizational trust, but interpersonal in America. The theoretical contribution is to reveal the type of trust in the sharing economy organizations, collaborative relations and studies of Airbnb.