The Sharing Economy: Consumers’ Motivation to Participate in Shared Consumption in Russia

The sharing economy is a much-discussed topic in current academic research. Due to the unique business models of shared consumption enterprises, customer participation is elementary to their success and thus, this master thesis aims to detect motivational factors for consumers to engage in forms of collaborative consumption. Particular attention is paid to the gap between results of existing literature based on research mainly conducted in emerged markets and their validity for emerging markets. Therefore, a mixed methodology is applied, combining a systematic literature survey with empirical data col lected through an online survey among students of the Higher School of Economics in Russia. It is suggested that consumer motives to participate in shared consumption proposed in the literature on emerged markets are largely valid for emerging markets, however, are with different degrees of emphasis due to diverging prevailing socio-cultural and socio-economic conditions.