A First Look on Sharewashing in the Sharing Economy: How False Claims Can Impede Trust

Sharewashing describes a platform provider’s act of misleading consumers by claiming to be motivated by social and ecological principles of sharing rather than financial profits. Drawing on established marketing literature from the context of greenwashing, we contribute to sharing economy research by proposing a research model for the impacts of sharewashing on trust in the integrity of platform providers. Our preliminary results are based on partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and survey data from 75 Millenials, suggesting a significant negative effect of sharewashing on trust, partially mediated through perceptions of risk.