Factors Influencing Continuance Intention of Time-Sharing Cars

Abstract

Time-sharing cars, as a sustainable model for transport, have seen rapid developments in recent years. Prior studies on car sharing paid little attention to the continuance intention among users. But understanding ways to cultivate user habits is important to enhance car sharing’s contribution to sustainability. Based on the expectation confirmation model (ECM), this study adopts a user-centered perspective to explore factors affecting the continuance intention of time-sharing electric vehicles through personal cognitive variables (i.e., psychological ownership, familiarity, and trust) and external environmental variables (i.e., facilitating conditions and service quality). An online survey was conducted, and a total of 1072 valid samples were collected. The results of the structural equation modeling show that offline service quality and facilitating conditions had the greatest impact on the perceptions of usefulness and satisfaction users have for car sharing. Perceived usefulness and satisfaction positively predicted continuance intention, as in the ECM. Among customer variables, environmentalism, familiarity, and trust in peers positively predicted the perceived usefulness of car sharing. Psychological ownership played a subtle function by negatively affecting perceived usefulness but positively affecting satisfaction. We discuss the findings and practical implications for stakeholders and offer suggestions for future research.