Psychological and behavioral factors impacting the adoption of free-floating car-sharing in Vienna, a fsQCA study

Abstract

The paper at hand centers around the idea that free-floating car-sharing adoption may be prone to psychological and behavioral barriers. As this idea has been picked up and investigated before by Alvaro-Garcia et al. (2022), albeit employing a different methodology, this paper’s unique characteristic is, therefore, the methodology used (“fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis”), to either verify or perhaps correct previous findings, in any way substantiate them. Additionally, this paper’s scope is limited to Vienna. The methodology fsQCA revolves around the fact that several (pre-defined) conditions or latent variables amount to one or several resulting configurations, each characterized by a unique set of conditions. It, therefore, gives a multifaceted answer to the following research question: „Which configurations of psychological and behavioral factors impact the adoption of free-floating car-sharing in Vienna?” In the study at hand, fsQCA is tasked to clarify which set of conditions (=psychological barriers) leads to at least one configuration, inclined to adopt car-sharing services. Hence six latent variables (“Environmental consciousness”, “Variety seeking lifestyle”, “Propensity to share goods”, “Tech-savviness”, “Car-sharing POV” and “Preference for driving”) along with “frequency of use” were put into a questionnaire and further distributed via Clickworker to at least 100 respondents (all of which reside in Vienna). Eventually, the sample size amounted to n=103. Each latent variable encompasses several statements, and each respondent is asked to rate them on a 7-point Likert scale. The findings above all confirmed that behavioral barriers are impacting the adoption of free-floating car-sharing in Vienna. It did not however confirm previous findings relating to the demographics of car-sharing users. Whereas previous studies found mostly young males as active users, this paper found an equal split of women and men to be the case. Differences from previous studies become even more intriguing when taking a closer look at the latent variables. Previous studies constituted that environmental concerns hinder car-sharing adoption, whereas the study at hand could not confirm this diametrical relationship. It did however find a positive link between environmental concerns and car-sharing adoption. Regardless of the results, it needs to be mentioned that according to my research, this is the first paper using fsQCA to investigate possible psychological barriers in terms of car-sharing usage, either free-floating or station-based. Hence, these findings need to be corroborated by more fsQCA studies, all circling around the main theme of car-sharing usage. Concluding, this paper’s goal is to shed light on why free-floating car-sharing services, in cities where the service is already available, may not be adopted more often. Eventually, the results along with recommendations may be shared with local municipalities for them to better customize car-sharing services from a political point of view.