Exploring Motivations and Barriers to Participate in Skill-Sharing Service: Insights from Case Study in Western Part of Tokyo

Abstract

Skill-sharing services have the potential to foster regional development and mutual aid within a community through residents’ social participation. Despite the growing social demand for skill-sharing services, few cases have utilized individuals’ knowledge, skills, and other intellectual assets. To widely diffuse such services, it is necessary to clarify user factors (motivations and barriers to use services) and reflect on the service design process. However, there is limited knowledge regarding user analysis and skill-sharing services. Thus, this study explores user factors that affect the intention to use skill-sharing services and derives guidelines for skill-sharing service design and development. A hypothetical user factor model was constructed through a literature review of user research in sharing services and empirical analysis of actual skill-sharing services. The hypothetical model was applied to a survey on the use of skill-sharing services by residents in Hino city, the western part of Tokyo (n = 358). The results revealed that social motivation and self-actualizational motivation significantly affected the service use intention of skill providers. Economic motivations and enjoyment of service activities derive the service use intention of skill receivers. Moreover, familiarity was identified as a significant factor for both skill providers and receivers. These findings generated practical propositions for service designers to foster the further diffusion of skill-sharing services.