Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 29 (2018) 50–63

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Electronic Commerce Research and Applications

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecra

The limits of trust-free systems: A literature review on blockchain

technology and trust in the sharing economy
Florian Hawlitschek a,⇑, Benedikt Notheisen a, Timm Teubner b
a
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Department of Economics and Management, Institute of Information Systems and Marketing, Fritz-Erler-Straße 23, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
b
TU Berlin, Einstein Center Digital Future, Wilhelmstraße 67, 10117 Berlin, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: At the tip of the hype cycle, trust-free systems based on blockchain technology promise to revolutionize
Received 4 September 2017 interactions between peers that require high degrees of trust, usually facilitated by third party providers.
Received in revised form 30 January 2018 Peer-to-peer platforms for resource sharing represent a frequently discussed field of application for
Accepted 6 March 2018
‘‘trust-free” blockchain technology. However, trust between peers plays a crucial and complex role in vir-
Available online 13 March 2018
tually all sharing economy interactions. In this article, we hence shed light on how these conflicting
notions may be resolved and explore the potential of blockchain technology for dissolving the issue of
Keywords:
trust in the sharing economy. By means of a dual literature review we find that 1) the conceptualization
Blockchain
Sharing economy
of trust differs substantially between the contexts of blockchain and the sharing economy, 2) blockchain
Trust technology is to some degree suitable to replace trust in platform providers, and that 3) trust-free sys-
Trust-free system tems are hardly transferable to sharing economy interactions and will crucially depend on the develop-
Literature review ment of trusted interfaces for blockchain-based sharing economy ecosystems.
Ó 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction According to Mazzella et al. (2016, p. 27), trust represents the

‘‘Together, we are entering the trust age” (Mazzella et al., 2016, p.
31).
The rise of peer-to-peer platforms has paved the way for com-
mercial interactions among private individuals on large scale. In
recent years, technology startups have leveraged the potential of
higher resource utilization within the so-called sharing economy
(Horton et al., 2016). Such transactions involve at least three par-
ties. First, providers offer a private, usually under- or unused
resource for sale, rental, or co-usage. These may be hosts on
Airbnb, people renting out cars (e.g., on Turo), drivers offering
spare seats during a ride (e.g., on BlaBlaCar), and so on. Second,
consumers seek to use, rent, or experience the offered products
and services (i.e., guests, passengers, renters, etc.). Third, (online)
platforms serve as two-sided marketplaces. They match supply
and demand, facilitate search, communication, and the initiation
of transactions, as well as payment- and other processes (e.g., in
cases of conflict settlement). The platforms enable short-term
peer-to-peer sharing among private individuals (Fraiberger and
Sundararajan, 2015). A fundamental prerequisite for such interac-
tions to take place is mutual trust (Hawlitschek et al., 2016c).
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: florian.hawlitschek@kit.edu (F. Hawlitschek), benedikt.
notheisen@kit.edu (B. Notheisen), teubner@tu-berlin.de (T. Teubner).
‘‘key building block of society” and thus also plays an essential role
for the formation of interactions and relationships in the context of
peer-to-peer marketplaces and services. For example, renting out
an apartment on Airbnb does not only require hosts to trust poten-
tial guests to behave in a considerate and respectful manner
(toward both the host and the apartment) but also to trust in
Airbnb’s ability, integrity, and benevolence with regard to booking
and payment processes. Also guests heavily rely on their (prospec-
tive) host and the offered apartment to be adequate and fulfill their
needs. In all this, the platform provides not only the technical
infrastructure, user interfaces, and process guidance but also ser-
vices such as insurance and reputation systems, thus taking a piv-
otal role in establishing and maintaining trust among users
(Hawlitschek et al., 2016a; Katz, 2015; Teubner et al., 2017).
Against this backdrop, blockchain technology is said to facilitate
‘‘the exchange of value [. . .] without the need for an intermediary”
(De Filippi, 2017). A blockchain refers to a cryptographically
secured distributed ledger with a decentralized consensus mecha-
nism (Risius and Spohrer, 2017). In recent years, it was sometimes
denoted a ‘‘trust-free technology” (Beck et al., 2016) – and it is pro-
posed as the fundament of an alternative scenario for today’s
mainly platform-driven sharing economy. Trust-free systems rest
on the idea to utilize blockchain technology to automatically create
an immutable, consensually agreed, and publicly available record

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2018.03.005
1567-4223/Ó 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 F. Hawlitschek et al. / Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 29 (2018) 50–63
of past transactions that is governed by the whole system to miti-
gate trust issues in peer-to-peer systems (Greiner and Wang,
2015). As the underlying technological and economic system, it
enables verified and transparent recording and value exchange
mechanisms without the need for a central authority or institution
(Nakamoto, 2008; Notheisen et al., 2017b; Puschmann and Alt,
2016).
While the business model of platforms such as Airbnb and Uber
is based on their role as intermediaries between peers and private
resources, the blockchain is stated to provide an infrastructure
with the potential to organize truly decentralized markets (Avital
et al., 2016; Xu et al., 2016). In fact, several cooperatives such as
Lazooz or Share&Charge have set out to establish decentralized
sharing platforms with remarkable success in first crowdfunding
campaigns (Sundararajan, 2016). The question arises how a tech-
nological shift towards sharing platforms based on ‘‘trust-free”
blockchains will affect user behavior in the still developing plat-
form landscape, or in other words, whether the trust machine is
capable of disrupting the trust business of sharing economy plat-
form providers (Economist, 2017, 2015).
Rachel Botsman, one of the pioneers of collaborative consump-
tion, suggested that the distribution of trust among people, accel-
erated by blockchain technology will fundamentally transform
the way trust is built (Botsman, 2016; Botsman and Rogers,
2010). Moreover, a recent discussion paper by IBM stated that
blockchains have the potential to create a ‘‘sharing economy 2.0”
by decentralizing trust (Lundy, 2016). Also much of the academic
literature suggests blockchain technology to overcome trust-
related issues and hence to contribute to the resolution of one of
the fundamental challenges of peer-to-peer markets and sharing
economy activities (Glaser, 2017).
Despite the global hype, we would like to point towards the
possibility that blockchain technology may actually fall short of
many of the high expatiations associated with it (Notheisen
et al., 2017b). As we sketch out in the following, it is not probable
that blockchain technology will eliminate the need for trust
between transaction partners in the sharing economy. Yet, it is
worthwhile to describe and estimate its potential for challenging
the way how trust is built today. Consequently, our study
addresses the question how ‘‘trust-free” systems based on block-
chain technology may impact the notion and formation of trust
in the sharing economy.
To shed light on the potential of blockchain technology in
today’s sharing economy landscape, an interdisciplinary approach
is required (Notheisen et al., 2017b). Information Systems (IS)
research provides both the perspective on blockchain technology
as an IT-artifact as well as the corresponding interactions with
related tasks, existing structures, and the broader sharing economy
context (Benbasat and Zmud, 2003). In order to pave the way for
future research within this complex environment, we conduct a
dual literature review on the topics of trust in the context of the
sharing economy and blockchain technology within the IS
literature.
Following the idea of ‘‘analyzing the past to prepare for the
future” (Webster and Watson, 2002), we uncover and conflate
the intersection between the ideas of trust-free economic systems
and trust-based peer-to-peer sharing. Our contribution is twofold.
First, we provide a comprehensive, concept-centric overview of
existing IS literature on trust in the contexts of the sharing econ-
omy and blockchain technology. Second, we integrate the two per-
spectives within a joint framework to point out and evaluate issues
and paths for future research. Our findings suggest that 1) the con-
ceptualization of trust differs substantially between both contexts,
2) blockchain technology is suitable to overcome the issue of trust
in platform providers to some degree (raising the issue of trust in
algorithms), and 3) trust-free systems are hardly transferable to
51
typical sharing economy interactions and will crucially depend
on the development of trusted interfaces to blockchain-based shar-
ing economy ecosystems. Therefore such trust-free systems
require further attention from researchers as well as practitioners.
The remainder of this article is organized as follows. In Section 2,
we introduce the terms and concepts of blockchain technology, the
sharing economy, and trust as a foundation for the subsequent lit-
erature review. In Section 3, we describe the literature search and
selection process. We then present our findings in Section 4.
Finally, Section 5 concludes with a discussion of theoretical and
practical implications, nascent challenges, and suggests paths for
future research.
2. Foundations
As a foundation for our literature review, this section introduces
the central terms and concepts. First, we provide a brief introduc-
tion to blockchain technology. We then sketch out the scope and
meaning of the sharing economy umbrella term, and last, define
and introduce the notion of trust from an IS perspective.
2.1. Blockchain technology
A blockchain may be defined as a database that is shared among
its users and allows them to transact valuable assets in a public
and pseudonymous setup without the reliance on an intermediary
or central authority (Glaser, 2017; Risius and Spohrer, 2017).
The first mainstream blockchain system that was put in opera-
tion is the cryptocurrency Bitcoin (Nakamoto, 2008). Bitcoin is an
electronic, peer-to-peer cash system, designed as an alternative
means of payment – independent of governments, central banks,
and other parts of the traditional monetary system. Since the intro-
duction of Bitcoin in 2008, the technology has emerged from its
role as a verification mechanism for cryptocurrencies and heads
to a wider field of economic and commercial applications. With
its potential for disintermediation, its disruptive impact is not lim-
ited to a specific industry (Wörner et al., 2016) but rather enables
the creation of a distributed, tamper-free, and transparent record
of almost anything (Böhme et al., 2015). Potential applications in
the context of the sharing economy include multi-sided, collabora-
tive, and peer-to-peer markets (Glaser, 2017; Sun et al., 2016,
Bogner et al., 2016), legitimization and identification services
(Wörner et al., 2016), and payment and transaction systems
(Beck et al., 2016; Notheisen et al., 2017a).
From a technical perspective, a blockchain is a composition of a
distributed database, a decentralized consensus mechanism, and
cryptographic algorithms. More specifically, transactional data is
stored in a potentially infinite sequence of cryptographically inter-
connected data blocks. These blocks are ordered by a decentralized
time stamping algorithm (Gipp et al., 2015), which allows users to
vote on the validity of database updates and eventually agree on
the correct order of transactions and a shared system state at
any given point in time. As a result, the users of a blockchain sys-
tem can interact without the need for a central authority that
resolves conflicting views of the correct order of transactions.
However, the utilized consensus mechanism needs to be tailored
to the specific use case of a system. In public and pseudonymous
scenarios on one hand, appending new data has to incur a suffi-
cient amount of (computational) costs, in order to prevent mali-
cious or corrupted nodes from easily spreading incorrect
information (Lamport et al., 1982) and to impede Sybil attacks
(Douceur, 2002; Dinger and Hartenstein, 2006). In permissioned
networks on the other hand, blockchains are less decentralized
and identity-based authentication schemes can provide more effi-
cient alternatives (Bellare et al., 2009; Li et al., 2015). Independent
52 F. Hawlitschek et al. / Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 29 (2018) 50–63
of the setup, smart contracts provide a tool to build on this basic
structure and allow the implementation of program logic and
decentralized applications that go beyond the transfer of simple
monetary values. Eventually, blockchain technology provides a dis-
tributed software architecture that enables conflicting agents to
engage in cryptographically secured transactions and to interact
without the need for a centralized platform or governing authority
(Xu et al., 2016).
Besides decentralization, the advantages of blockchain-based
systems include the absence of a central point of (potential) failure
and the provision of a complete, transparent, and intrinsically valid
historical transaction log. These characteristics facilitate cost-
efficient micro transactions (Beck et al., 2016), reduce the complex-
ity of writing contracts (Davidson et al., 2016), and enable informa-
tion sharing in lemon markets (Notheisen et al., 2017a). Within
this scope, blockchains allow the resolution of conflicts by publicly
providing an unforgeable record of past transactions.
Despite these advantages, blockchains also entail a variety of
limitations and problems. First and foremost, the generation of
the decentralized consensus is built on the public availability of
historical data and the pseudonymous disclosure of the related
transacting parties. Due to this open concept, privacy protection
becomes a particular challenge. Second, in the context of smart
contracts, it is important to keep in mind that they cannot trigger
themselves but require explicit interventions (Glaser, 2017). In
consequence, self-execution at a specific point in time or following
some specific event needs to be initiated by another contract or a
human or artificial user. Third, as an autonomous transactional
database system, blockchains rely solely on the correctness of pre-
defined rules, and thus it is crucial to make sure they are secure,
reliable, and accurate (Ahangama and Poo, 2016). Due to the block-
chain’s immutable character, changing these rules requires the
deployment of a new blockchain software or smart contract. Over-
all, blockchain technology is still in its infancy and thus struggles
with a variety of technical problems such as scalability, latency,
query issues (Beck et al., 2016; Glaser, 2017), and the increasing
amount of overhead costs created by consensus algorithms
(O’Dwyer and Malone, 2014). From a non-technical perspective,
understanding the implementations of blockchain protocols and
assessing their applicability to potential use cases remains chal-
lenging for researchers, practitioners, and users alike (Glaser and
Bezzenberger, 2015).
2.2. Sharing economy
According to Puschmann and Alt (2016), the ‘‘sharing economy”
in its current meaning was first mentioned by Lessig (2008), refer-
ring to it as ‘‘collaborative consumption made by the activities of
sharing, exchanging, and rental of resources without owning the
goods” (Lessig, 2008, p. 143). In popular and academic literature,
it is commonly used as an umbrella term for a broad spectrum of
platforms, activities, and services (Hamari et al., 2016). Other
notions and descriptions include collaborative consumption
(Botsman and Rogers, 2010), access-based consumption (Bardhi
and Eckhardt, 2012), anti-consumption (Albinsson and Perera,
2012), and peer-to-peer markets (Fraiberger and Sundararajan,
2015). We refer to Dredge and Gyimóthy (2015) for an overview.
In fact, there is no single commonly agreed definition in the liter-
ature thus far (Oh and Moon, 2016) – or as Rachel Botsman put
it, ‘‘the sharing economy lacks a shared definition” (Botsman,
2013). One reason for this lack of agreement is the rapid develop-
ment of the field as well as the plethora of constantly evolving
businesses and business models within the sharing economy
ecosystem. Similar to the ambiguous use by practitioners, many
scientific publications also refer to the sharing economy without
precisely specifying their understanding of it. This ambiguous
usage of the term is problematic with regard to the interpretation
and generalizability of research findings. The sharing economy as
an oxymoron in and by itself conflates the terms sharing, that is,
‘‘the [voluntary] act and process of distributing what is ours to
others for their use” (Belk, 2007, p. 127) and economy, that is, a
‘‘system of trade and industry by which the wealth of a country
is made and used”1. These are diametrically opposed with regard
to the characteristics of human relationships (Belk, 2007) and thus
imply different kinds of behavior (Belk, 2014a). To enable a common
and more precise understanding for this review article, we introduce
the following seven criteria to delineate the subject at hand:
(1) Increasing utilization rates: Existing resources that are not
used to capacity are made use of more intensively – for
example spare rooms or lawn mowers (Schor, 2016).
(2) Peer-to-peer principle: Resources are owned, shared, and
used by private individuals, among peers, that is
(Fraiberger and Sundararajan, 2015; Hamari et al., 2016).
(3) Existence of reimbursement: Resources are shared2 in
exchange for money or other compensation – for example,
alternative currencies (Teubner, 2014).
(4) No transfer of ownership: Resources are returned to the
owner – including rental models while excluding sale
(Fraiberger and Sundararajan, 2015; Hawlitschek et al.,
2016a).
(5) Resource tangibility: Resources are partly or fully based on
physical goods such as apartments or cars (Fraiberger and
Sundararajan, 2015).
(6) Leveraging of information systems: Transactions are mediated
by information systems based on information and commu-
nication technology, excluding many traditional ridesharing
centers (Belk, 2014b; Hamari et al., 2016).
(7) Temporariness: Access to resources is granted temporarily,
resulting in recurring, ad-hoc, and short term transactions
(Belk, 2014b; Fraiberger and Sundararajan, 2015).
For our literature review, this extract of the sharing economy
can hence be summarized as follows. We consider a peer-to-
peer-based economic system in which tangible resources are
shared, in effect increasing their utilization. Transactions are of
temporary nature, mediated through online platforms, and reim-
bursed without transfer of ownership.
2.3. Trust
Trust is the ‘‘most often used word in any debate about the
sharing economy” (Nesta, 2015) and represents one of the ‘‘pro-
mise[s] of the blockchain” (Economist, 2015). It is a multilayered
and complex research topic, difficult to delineate and divergently
addressed across disciplines (Rousseau et al., 1998). However, a
common element in various trust definitions is ‘‘[. . .] the intention
to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations [. . .]”
(Rousseau et al., 1998, p. 395).
In accordance with the work of McKnight et al. (2002a),
researchers often differentiate between the disposition to trust,
institution-based trust, trusting beliefs and intentions, as well as
trust-related behavior. Accordingly, a variety of different qualita-
tive and quantitative methodologies such as field interviews, case
studies, surveys, experiments, econometric analyses, analytical
modeling, and approaches from cognitive neuroscience have
evolved to study trust in different contexts (Gefen et al., 2008).
In the IS literature, survey-based approaches provide valuable
1
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/economy
2
The term sharing in this context is not used in the sense of Belk (2010) and would
rather be considered ‘‘pseudo-sharing” (Belk, 2014a).
 F. Hawlitschek et al. / Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 29 (2018) 50–63
insights about the interrelation of different trust concepts and are
frequently applied to differentiate between targets of trust that
determine IS use (Söllner et al., 2016). However, a multi-faceted
investigation based on complementary methods is regarded as
promising – particularly for the sharing economy context (Goes,
2013; Hawlitschek et al., 2016a; Pinsonneault and Kraemer, 1993).
3. Literature review process
This paper’s literature review process follows common and
established guidelines (Levy and Ellis, 2006; Okoli, 2015; von
Brocke et al., 2009; Webster and Watson, 2002) and is summarized
in Fig. 1. We considered the IS literature on trust in both the block-
chain and the sharing economy context. In the first step, we con-
duct a separate review on both streams of literature to derive a
general understanding of their current state of development. In
the second step, we then conflate the relevant literature and dis-
cuss it within a joint analytical framework. In doing so, we identify
paths for future research and discuss the potential of blockchain
technology for building trust in the sharing economy.
3.1. Literature search
The review draws on ten databases covering the most impor-
tant IS journals and conferences. Based on combinations of the
search terms blockchain and sharing economy with trust, we con-
ducted a title/ abstract/ keyword search. This resulted in an initial
set of 435 sharing economy as well as 519 blockchain-related arti-
cles as depicted in Fig. 1.
3.2. Literature selection
The retrieved articles were analyzed based on title, abstract, and
keywords. The two main selection criteria were (1) the match to
the previously introduced concepts of blockchain technology and
the sharing economy (see 2.1 or 2.2), and (2) the focus on trust.
A paper was excluded from the review, if the notion of trust was
only briefly mentioned and not addressed by means of a valid
methodology in greater depth (i.e., a framework or model, case
study, survey, interview, literature review, experiment, simulation
or empirical approach, or proof of concept). As a result, 21 articles
were considered for further review. When in doubt, the paper was
selected for a full-text analysis. This first selection step resulted in
a list of 18 sharing economy and 3 blockchain-related articles.
These were included for a forward and backward search (Google
Scholar) to extend the coverage of the review. This resulted in 9
Fig. 1. Steps in the literature search and classification process.
53
and 6 additional articles, respectively. We updated the initial
search based on the literature selection results in December 2017
and January 2018 resulting in 18 additional articles in the sharing
economy and 8 in the blockchain technology context. Eventually,
the identified body of literature, comprising a total of 62 articles,
was then classified along the dimensions (i.e., columns) of the con-
cept matrices shown in Tables 1 and 2.
4. Literature classification and review
In the following, we present the key results of the dual litera-
ture review. First, the literature on trust in the sharing economy
will be illustrated. Second, the literature on the relation between
blockchain technology and trust will be presented and third, both
streams will be conflated within a common framework and the
corresponding concept matrix (see Tables 1 and 2).
4.1. Trust in the sharing economy
The results of the literature search and classification indicate
that trust in the sharing economy represents a prominent topic
that is increasingly addressed by IS scholars. As presented in
Table 1, the literature is rather new, with the oldest papers pub-
lished in 2013 and a high fraction of research-in-progress papers.
Moreover, we found three review papers specifically covering trust
in the sharing economy (Cheng, 2016; Knote and Blohm, 2016; ter
Huurne et al., 2017). The reviews of Knote and Blohm (2016) and
Cheng (2016) present a broad overview of the sharing economy lit-
erature with only one section addressing trust. For a more exten-
sive review on the antecedents of trust in the sharing economy,
we refer to ter Huurne et al. (2017).
Our analysis’ main focus lies on the diverse conceptualizations
of trust. In this sense, the present review exceeds the scope of
the prior review articles. We structure our review along the follow-
ing aspects. First, we consider single targets of trust in the sharing
economy, that is, whom or what to trust or not. Note that typical
transactions comprise a triad of relationships, involving peers (pro-
viders and consumers), platforms, and underutilized products
(Hawlitschek et al., 2016a,c; Möhlmann, 2016). Therefore, we sum-
marize articles that address one of the following single targets:
Trust in peers, trust in platform and trust in other targets (including
products). Second we provide a summary of articles that address
two targets –trust in peers and platform –at once. Given the body
of literature in our review, we third briefly summarize an article
of Hawlitschek et al. (2016c) comprising three targets of trust in
one study, that is, trust in peers, platform, and product.
Table 1

54
Concept matrix of trust-related Information Systems research in the sharing economy context.

Layer Methodology Details

Publication Behavioral Agent Application Infrastructure Environment Framework Case Survey Interview Literature Experiment Simulation Proof- Journal Conference Research Top IS #
Layer Layer Layer Layer Layer / Model Study Review / Empirical of- in Outlet Participants /
Concept progress Observations
Abramova et al. (2015)      320
Abramova et al.(2016)     320
Albiston et al. (2014)   
Ballús-Armet et al. (2014)    300
Cheng (2016)  
Chica et al (2017)   
Deng and Ravichandran       
(2017)
Ert et al. (2016)      1,466
Ert and Fleischer (2017)     640

F. Hawlitschek et al. / Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 29 (2018) 50–63

Forno and Garibaldi   510
(2015)
Gao et al. (2017)   309
Han et al. (2016)      
Hartl et al. (2016)     355
Hawlitschek et al. (2016c)      91
Hawlitschek et al. (2016b)     666
Hawlitschek et al. 2016a        
Hofmann et al. (2017)       186/328
Kamal and Chen (2016)       71
Keymolen (2013)   
Kim et al. (2015)      
Knote and Blohm (2016)  
Liang et al. (2018)      395
Ma et al. (2017)      355
Matzner et al. (2015)     
Mittendorf (2016)       189
Mittendorf (2017a)       248
Mittendorf (2017c)      203
Mittendorf (2017b)       248
Mittendorf (2017d)      179
Mittendorf and    53
Ostermann (2017)
Möhlmann (2015)    187
Nunes and Correia (2013)       39
Philip et al. 2015     19
ter Huurne et al. (2017) 
Teubner et al. (2014)        216
Teubner et al. (2016)    
Teubner et al. (2017)   
Teubner and Hawlitschek    
(2018)
Thierer et al. (2015)   
Tussyadiah (2015)   799
Tussyadiah (2016)   799
Wu et al. (2016)    1,345
Wu et al. (2017)     445
Yang et al. (2016)      
Ye et al. (2017)       
 F. Hawlitschek et al. / Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 29 (2018) 50–63 55

4.1.1. Trust in peers

Outlet Participants /
Observations
Trust in peers, that is, trust between consumers and providers,
is a central element of many sharing economy business models. In

194,332

400/22
this sense, Charlie Aufmann (Experience Design Lead at Airbnb)

136

562
20
stated ‘‘[. . .] the trust that makes Airbnb possible is when hosts
Behavioral Agent Application Infrastructure Environment Framework Case Survey Interview Literature Experiment Simulation Proof- Journal Conference Research Top IS #

and guests trust each other.” (Aufmann, 2016).




4.1.1.1. Consumer perspective. Trust in providers, that is trust in
progress

peers from a consumer perspective, is typically captured by a trust-

worthiness scale of varying complexity. Some authors like Ert et al.
in

(2016) and Ert and Fleischer (2017), who studied the effects of
photos, facial and image characteristics on the perceived trustwor-
thiness of Airbnb hosts, measure trustworthiness on a one dimen-
















sional 10-point scale (i.e., ‘‘How trustworthy is this person?”).
Details

More typically, however, trust is captured as a latent construct

with multiple dimensions. To investigate the formation of room-


Concept

sharing intention among Chinese travelers, Wu et al. (2017), for

example, conceptualize trust as a reflective construct based on
/ Empirical of-




Kim et al. (2011) and Möhlmann (2015). Ma et al. (2017) capture

trustworthiness of Airbnb hosts by developing a trustworthiness
survey scale on the three dimensions ability, benevolence, and
integrity and Teubner et al. (2017, 2016) conceptualize trust as


‘‘a consumer’s willingness to rely on a host’s actions and inten-

tions, which can be further separated into the trusting beliefs of
ability, integrity, and benevolence” (p. 55). Further extending and
challenging the dimensionality of trust, Deng and Ravichandran
(2017) apply a belief-based conceptualization drawing on the attri-
Review

butes ‘‘Competent, Fulfilling, Resourceful, Caring, Altruistic, Fair,



Honest, Conscientious, Credible, Coherent, Consistent, Reliable”

(p. 4), captured by respective survey items. The authors further-
more suggest to differentiate between visual-based trust and
text-based trust in providers to analyze consumers purchasing


behavior on Airbnb. An alternative approach is suggested by

Hartl et al. (2016), who investigate whether governance increases


cooperation in collaborative consumption communities. The

Study

authors measure trust as different levels of distrust in other peo-




Methodology

ple’s cooperation based on a scale suggested by Van Lange et al.

(1998).
/ Model











4.1.1.2. Provider perspective. The literature on trust in consumers

from a provider perspective suggests similar measurement
Concept matrix of trust-related Information Systems research in the blockchain context.

approaches. To experimentally investigate the effect of different

Layer

response strategies to negative reviews for Airbnb hosts,

Abramova et al. (2016, 2015) conceptualize trust towards an
Airbnb host as a reflective construct covering trusting beliefs
towards the host based on McKnight et al. (2002b). Investigating
how trust and perceptions of risk influence accommodation provi-
Layer

ders’ intentions to share on Airbnb, Mittendorf (2017b) adapts the



constructs suggested by Gefen (2000) and Pavlou and Gefen (2004)

to capture trust in renters. A methodological exception is the work
Layer Layer

of Ballús-Armet et al. (2014). In an intercept survey the authors














investigate car owners’ attitude towards peer-to-peer carsharing

vehicle provision and find that half of the surveyed car owners












express a lack of trust in others with regard to their personal

belongings.
Layer

Layer

4.1.1.3. Consumer and provider perspective. Existing studies that

Sas and Khairuddin (2017) 

seek to investigate consumers’ and provider’s trust in peers in

Ahangama and Poo (2016)

Sas and Khairuddin (2015)

Fröwis and Böhme (2017)
Greiner and Wang (2015)

Roman and Stefano, 2016

Alexopoulos et al. (2017)

Litos and Zindros (2017)

Notheisen et al. (2017a)

Lustig and Nardi (2015)

the same study, in most cases attempt to measure trust using the
Al Khalil et al. (2017)

Maurer et al. (2013)

same survey-based scale for both perspectives. For example,

Bogner et al. (2016)

Zarifis et al. (2015)

Chan et al. (2017)
Beck et al. (2016)

Nunes and Correia (2013) capture trust as a single survey question

Xu et al. (2017)

addressing the trustworthiness of a person. Similarly, Kamal and

Publication

Chen (2016) suggest member trust as an antecedent to the willing-

ness to participate in the sharing economy. The use of multi-item
Table 2

scales is inter alia suggested by Teubner et al. (2014). The authors

conceptualize trust in the context of C2C platforms as relating to
56 F. Hawlitschek et al. / Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 29 (2018) 50–63
the vulnerability of a consumer towards another one and apply a
measurement scale suggested by Jarvenpaa et al. (1999). Also
Hawlitschek et al. (2016b) use a reflective construct for of the lack
of trust in other users (based on Mayer and Davis, 1999) as one of
24 potential drivers and impediments for participation in peer-to-
peer rental. Beyond typical survey-based approaches, some
authors have focused on alternative notions of trust conceptualiza-
tion or measurement. A semantic modeling approach is applied by
Albiston et al. (2014). Interpersonal trust is identified as one of sev-
eral driving factors in selecting a shared journey. The conceptual-
ization is grounded on research on trust in social networks and
distinguishes between direct trust (i.e., between two directly
related entities) and indirect trust (i.e., along paths between enti-
ties). Chica et al. (2017) strike a new path by applying an evolu-
tionary trust game to simulate trusting relationships in a
simplified population of (un)trustworthy agents. High levels of
cooperation in this trust game context are associated with trust
within the population. The first approach that provides an actual
behavioral measure for trust among peers is the work of
Hawlitschek et al. (2016a). The authors introduce an experimental
framework for measuring trust-related behavior instead of trusting
intentions and beliefs based on the trust game (Berg et al., 1995;
Bolton et al., 2004). As a complementary approach to existing
survey-based research, the ‘‘sharing game” (Hawlitschek et al.,
2016a) comprises two phases modeling both consumer’s trust in
the provider and the provider’s trust in the consumer captured
by separate behavioral measures.
4.1.2. Trust in platform
Trust in a platform or the corresponding (sharing economy)
platform provider can be interpreted as the beliefs regarding the
performance of an institution or organization rather than an indi-
vidual (Lu et al., 2010). The only article that solely focuses on this
single target of trust is written by Kim et al., (2015). The authors
hypothesize that trust in the platform is a direct antecedent of
intention to participate in the sharing economy. They suggest to
measure trust as the belief that a platform is honest, reliable, and
competent, based on Ba and Pavlou (2002).
4.1.3. Trust in other targets
The literature on an isolated investigation of trust in other tar-
gets can be grouped in three main streams. The first stream com-
prises approaches that integrate the single targets of peers and
platform to a new joint target. Examples for this are the works of
Tussyadiah (2015), Tussyadiah (2016) and Möhlmann (2015). The
second stream captures trust on a generalized and abstract level,
without a specific identifiable target. Matzner et al. (2015), for
example, define trust as the individual perception that ‘‘participat-
ing in sharing services is trustworthy” (p. 6). Forno and Garibaldi
(2015) find that home-swappers exhibit high levels of generalized
trust and Thierer et al. (2015) discuss how trust scores can help the
platform provider to increase users trust by uncovering fraud and
abuse. On an even more abstract level Wu, Ma and Zeng (2016)
investigate the role of service-provider’s attributes from the ‘‘per-
spective of trust” (p.67). The authors use a web-crawler to obtain
data from a Chinese accommodation sharing platform and match
host attributes to the categories of ability, benevolence, and integ-
rity. The third stream of literature in fact extends or complements
the notions of trust on peers or platforms. A noteworthy approach
to the conceptualization of trust in the sharing economy was pub-
lished by Keymolen (2013). Investigating the concept of trust from
a philosophical perspective, she discusses the role of trust and
technology in collaborative consumption as ‘‘interpersonal system
trust” (Keymolen, 2013, p. 139) instead of interpersonal trust with
a direct nature as suggested by Botsman and Rogers (2010). Inter-
personal system trust takes the role of the platform as a mediator
between the parties as well as the role of technology as part of the
trust formation process into account.
4.1.4. Trust in peers and platform
The joint consideration of two targets of trust comes with the
advantage that their relative importance can be assessed. As stated
in Section 4.1.3, some authors group trust in peers and platform in
a single new target of trust. However, many others differentiate
between both targets within the scope of the same article. In the
following we present the corresponding studies grouped by the
respective perspective.
4.1.4.1. Consumer perspective. Using measurement scales inter alia
adapted from Lu et al. (2010), Ye et al. (2017) conceptualize trust
in two distinct constructs – a guest’s trust in the host and in the
platform. Similarly, Yang et al. (2016) differentiate between
cognitive-based trust towards the platform and affect-based trust
towards the host. Also Mittendorf (2017a,c) distinguish between
trust in the platform provider (i.e., Couchsurfing) and trust in
accommodation providers. Gao et al. (2017) differentiate between
trust in the carsharing service platform and trust in drivers (con-
sidering the disposition to trust as an antecedent to both). Hypoth-
esizing about the actual relation of both targets, Han et al. (2016)
lay out how to investigate the transfer of trust from Airbnb to
the host (i.e., how trust in Airbnb positively affects the trust in
hosts, given a certain fit of user, platform, and host characteristics).
One of the few studies referring to the concepts of disposition to
trust and institution-based trust (instead of trustworthiness per-
ception and trusting beliefs) is the work of Liang et al. (2018).
The authors differentiate between institution-based trust (trust
in Airbnb) and the disposition to trust (trust in hosts). A further
alternative of measuring trust is introduced by Hofmann et al.
(2017). Investigating the relationship between power and trust,
the authors differentiate between the concepts of implicit and
reason-based trust (see Castelfranchi and Falcone, 2010) in the
provider and in other users.
4.1.4.2. Provider perspective. The relationships between several
constructs covering trusting beliefs towards peers and the platform
are extensively discussed in the work of Christoph Mittendorf. He
provides a recurring variation of different theoretical models that
are largely based on a similar conceptualization of trust. In one
of his first articles, Mittendorf (2016) considers trust from an
accommodation provider towards renters and the platform. He val-
idates the corresponding research model based on a questionnaire
administered to Airbnb users. Within the scope of the work he dis-
cusses the concept of trust transfer in online environments by
demonstrating that trust in the platform also drives trust in ren-
ters. Mittendorf (2017d) extends the previously introduced model
by distinguishing between trust in business and trust in private
customers. A very similar model is proposed by Mittendorf and
Ostermann (2017).
4.1.4.3. Consumer and provider perspective. A small selection of
studies suggests to consider trust in peers and platforms from both
the perspectives of consumers and providers. Philip et al. (2015)
suggest that trust in pee-to-peer rentals is embedded in the risk
of use. The authors base their finding on the analysis of a corre-
sponding question in an interview setting and further conceptual-
ize both peers and the platform as targets for trust. Teubner and
Hawlitschek (2018) – addressing trust as a multifaceted and com-
plex construct – review different means of building trust towards
providers, consumers and the platform (i.e., verification and signal-
ing, ratings and reviews, insurances and support, web design, and
user representation).
 F. Hawlitschek et al. / Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 29 (2018) 50–63
4.1.5. Trust in peers, platform, and product
The most complex conceptualization of trust in the sharing
economy is suggested by (Hawlitschek et al., 2016c) and covers
various facets. The authors propose a model that distinguishes
between three targets of trust, that is, peer, platform, and product
(‘‘3P”). The influence of these three targets on users’ intention to
consume/provide a shared product or service are regarded from
both the consumer and the supplier perspective. The dimensions
of trust (i.e., ability, integrity, benevolence) are derived from estab-
lished e-commerce literature (Gefen and Straub, 2004; Lu et al.,
2010).
Overall, the presented articles on the conceptualization of trust
reveal the complexity and diversity of concepts and theories that
are discussed and applied in the context of the sharing economy.
Since the background and theoretical foundation of the above sta-
ted trust conceptualizations vary widely, it is difficult to compare
and discuss the actual results of the presented studies in detail.
However, some common characteristics can be identified. The tar-
gets of trust are often separated into platform and peer, which
applies to the consumer as well as the provider perspective. Com-
pared to traditional e-commerce where trust mainly referred
toward vendors (Gefen and Straub, 2004), trust towards peers
has become central in the sharing economy. Hawlitschek et al.
(2016c) include product as a third target of trust. From a method-
ological point of view, the combination of frameworks or models
that are validated by means of a survey largely dominate the other
approaches.
4.2. Blockchain-based systems and trust
In comparison to our findings for trust in the sharing economy,
the conceptualization of trust in the blockchain context has
received less attention in the field of IS (see Table 2). More specif-
ically, many interdisciplinary studies focus on the impact of cryp-
tocurrencies on traditional economic or commercial structures.
Discussed topics include the adoption of cryptocurrencies in the
corporate world (Connolly and Kick, 2015; Ingram et al., 2016;
Ingram and Morisse, 2016), Bitcoin-based business models
(Kazan et al., 2015), or the usage of Bitcoin as a financial instru-
ment (Baek and Elbeck, 2014; Fuerstenau and Kliewer, 2014;
Glaser et al., 2014; Hur et al., 2015; Mai et al., 2015). Existing work
addressing trust-related issues is mainly grounded on the ability of
blockchain-based systems to enforce rules and contractual agree-
ments without an arbitrating authority. Specifically, the studies
identified in this section either discuss the notion of blockchain
as a trust-free system, present proof of concept prototypes that illus-
trate potential application contexts, or elaborate on blockchain-
based trust-building mechanisms.
4.2.1. Trust-free systems
Introduced by Greiner and Wang (2015), the notion of trust-free
systems proposes to utilize blockchain technology’s capability to
automatically create an immutable, consensually agreed, and pub-
licly available record of past transactions that is governed by the
whole system to mitigate trust issues in peer-to-peer systems. In
addition, smart contracts allow the implementation of contractual
agreements and other applications to happen within this suppos-
edly trust-free environment. This way, costly mechanisms to build
trust in intermediaries or interpersonal trust are thought of to be
rendered obsolete by design (Greiner and Wang, 2015). However,
assessing whether a system is actually trust-free or not remains
challenging. Fröwis and Böhme (2017) take a first attempt and
define a smart contract’s understandability, its integrity over time,
and the absence of unilaterally manipulable data as a prerequisites
for being trust-free. They map these prerequisites to Ethereum and
find that about 40% of the deployed smart contracts violate the
57
non-manipulability condition and thus are not trust-free according
to the definition. Lustig and Nardi (2015), on the other hand, ques-
tion the concept of being trust-free in general. In their study, they
utilize interviews with Bitcoin users to argue that the need for trust
will not be obliterated but rather shifts from central authorities
towards algorithms that govern users’ interactions (Maurer et al.,
2013). An important facet of this algorithmic form of trust is the
users’ trust in the formal and legal correctness of the underlying
smart contracts (Al Khalil et al., 2017). In addition, algorithmic
trust is not limited to the correct functioning of the algorithm
but also includes a variety of sociotechnical factors. In the specific
context of Bitcoin, these factors include the support of third party
services, legitimacy within the current institutional environment,
and the transparency and comprehensibility of the underlying
algorithms (Lustig and Nardi, 2015). Ahangama and Poo (2016)
support these interview-based findings and provide survey-based
evidence for a positive relationship between reputation and struc-
tural assurances and the user’s trust in cryptocurrencies. In addi-
tion, they find that users’ expertise is an important prerequisite
to assess the fit between a task and the applied technology. Sas
and Khairuddin (2015) apply established concepts from Human
Computer Interaction research to the Bitcoin ecosystem and iden-
tify trust as an important prerequisite for all stakeholders (i.e.,
users, miners, exchanges, and governments) to accept
blockchain-based systems in their daily lives. In addition, the
authors suggest to differentiate between technological, social,
and institutional trust when investigating trust in the Bitcoin sys-
tem. Building on this framework, Sas and Khairuddin (2017) con-
duct semi-structured interviews with 20 Bitcoin users and
identify decentralization, de-regulation, miner’s expertise, as well
as transparent, easy, and low costs transactions as trust-
facilitating factors. The main challenge on the other hand is the risk
of insecure transactions resulting from dishonest counterparties.
Zarifis et al. (2015) corroborate this view with a survey among Bit-
coin users and, consistent with Lustig and Nardi (2015) and
Ahangama and Poo (2016), emphasize the relevance of
institution-based trust for the adoption and application of
blockchain-based payment systems. In total, these findings contra-
dict the previously introduced notion of trust-free systems, high-
light the importance of institutional factors, and emphasize that
some sort of a trusting relationship is a prerequisite for users to
adopt blockchain-based systems.
4.2.2. Prototypes
Despite the aforementioned concerns, some design science
approaches pick up the notion of trust-free systems and transfer
the concept of intermediary-free platforms to potential application
contexts. Roman and Stefano (2016) for instance suggest using the
blockchain as a technical infrastructure to substitute trusted third
parties in data market places. Beck et al. (2016) go beyond pure
suggestions and develop a proof of concept prototype to replace
the trust-based payment system of a coffee shop with a smart con-
tract. Based on their prototype, the authors argue that blockchain
technology has the potential to increase the cost efficiency of
micro-transactions. This finding, however, stands in contrast to
what is observed in the Bitcoin network, where transaction costs
increase rapidly3. Applying a similar approach, Bogner et al.
(2016) present a proof of concept prototype to demonstrate how
decentralized applications enable the sharing of everyday objects.
As already highlighted in Section 2.1, the resulting independence
of a central authority comes at the cost of privacy. Xu et al. (2017)
try to address this issue and provide the design of a privacy respect-
3
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-you-wont-be-buying-a-coffee-with-bitcoin-
anytime-soon-14989968003
58 F. Hawlitschek et al. / Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 29 (2018) 50–63
ing platform that provides a tool to enforce agreements between
owners and actual users of physical goods. Notheisen et al. (2017a)
discard the sharing perspective and introduce a decentralized
trust-free transaction system that allows users to transfer real-
world assets without a central registry. In addition, they propose
to utilize the blockchain’s publicly shared and immutable record to
mitigate the impact of informational asymmetries on bilateral trans-
actions. However, their prototype also highlights the dependence on
the benevolence, integrity, and ability of trusted third parties to cre-
ate and update the assets’ digital representations truthfully.
4.2.3. Trust-building mechanisms
Trust-building mechanisms offer a way to resolve some of the
above-mentioned issues by allowing other users to quantify the
level of trust they have in a particular user. Litos and Zindros
(2017) propose to use blockchain technology to build a decentral-
ized reputation network, where trust (direct and indirect) is
expressed through monetary pledges. To illustrate the functional-
ity and effectiveness of their approach, they apply game theory
and show that the decentralized reputation systems is Sybil-
resistant and that trust relationships are robust against the redis-
tribution of direct trust. Chan et al. (2017) outline a similar idea
and propose to use smart contracts to record past interactions. In
contrast to Litos and Zindros (2017), this approach builds on the
implicit assumption that users tend to interact with trustworthy
users. Alexopoulos et al. (2017) use the concept of a blockchain-
based trust network for secure user authentication and to secure
reputation against attackers. In a graph theoretic model, they illus-
trate how the blockchain’s immutability and disclosure features
and its distributed nature help to repel various attacks, including
double registration, stale information, or denial of service attacks.
Sharing Economy
Literature
Behavioral Layer
Trust in peers
Trust Frontier
Other targets of trust
Agent Layer
plafform
Trust in
Application Layer
(interpersonal system trust)
Protocol
Layer
Infrastructure
Layer
Hardware
Environment
Layer
Fig. 2. Extended Blockchain Engineering Framework (based on Notheisen et al., 2017b).
Overall, the reviewed blockchain literature indicates that the
blockchain’s trust-free property builds on the synergetic collection
of its technological features. These features comprise public disclo-
sure, immutability, the consensually agreement of the transac-
tional data record, and the ability of smart contracts to automate
services. However, a variety of articles questions this notion and
highlights the importance of trust in the deployed algorithms
and institutional support. In addition, the trust-facilitating features
require a closed ecosystem (Glaser, 2017) or the support of trusted
third parties.
4.3. Bringing it all together: Towards a joint framework of trust
A central issue in current literature on the sharing economy and
blockchain is the ambiguous use of central terms such as trust. A
consequence of this trend is the ongoing speculation and hype
around possible applications of the blockchain technology that
may fail to live up to existing expectations (Notheisen et al.,
2017b). In order to guide future research on trust-related issues
at the interplay of the sharing economy and blockchain technology,
a common typology for the different conceptualizations of trust is
required. As a starting point, we apply the blockchain engineering
framework introduced by Notheisen et al. (2017b). The blockchain
engineering framework was introduced to support researchers as
well as practitioners in analyzing and designing the elements of
blockchain-based platforms. It comprises four layers – the environ-
ment layer, the infrastructure layer, the application layer, and the
agent layer. The environment layer forms an ambient fundament
that incorporates social, legal, and economic surroundings and
norms and constrains the action spaces available within the other
layers. Building on this foundation, the infrastructure layer forms
the technological backbone of the blockchain system. It consists
Blockchain Literature
Trust-free systems
Trust-building
mechanisms
Business
Microstructure Markets, Services, Platforms
Structure
Prototypes
Blockchain Infrastructure (IT-Infrastructure)
Decentralized
Distributed Cryptographic
Consensus
Database Protocol
Mechanism
Layer
Socio-Economic and Legal Environment
 F. Hawlitschek et al. / Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 29 (2018) 50–63
of the protocol layer, which implements the core blockchain ele-
ments (as introduced in Section 2.1) and connects the heteroge-
neous crowd of devices of the hardware layer with a specific
application context. The resulting application layer realizes the fea-
tures and rules that form a platform, market, or service that
enables and governs the interaction of human and computer
agents in the agent layer. As depicted in Table 2, most of the exist-
ing literature on trust in the context of blockchain technology can
be categorized within the boundaries of the blockchain engineer-
ing framework. More specifically, the reviewed literature indicates
that the trust-free property builds on the synergetic collection of
technological features located in the infrastructure layer and appli-
cation layer. Therefore, the notion of trust-free systems applies well
to the logic of the blockchain engineering framework, as long as it
operates as a closed ecosystem within its technical boundaries
(Glaser, 2017). Particularly, this includes transactions carried out
in the agent layer of the framework.
Importantly, the agent layer itself captures the virtual represen-
tations of both human or computer agents within the blockchain-
based system. However, in many use-cases for blockchain technol-
ogy, it is crucial to take the actual interaction of agents in the real-
world into account. This means that behavior outside the closed
blockchain ecosystem needs to translate into the agent layer
(Glaser, 2017; Notheisen et al., 2017b). For example, peers in a
sharing economy scenario need to interact with each other, with
(smart) products, and/or the platform. The corresponding issue of
reliably transferring information on such real-world interactions
to the virtual representations within the blockchain-based system
emphasizes the boundaries of technical systems that operate trust-
free in theory. We consequently extend the framework of
Notheisen et al (2017b) by an additional behavioral layer that is
separated from the agent layer by a trust frontier. It allows a behav-
ioral perspective on the rather technical idea of ‘trust-free’ (peer-
to-peer) platforms and paves the way for a structured analysis of
different targets of trust from a behavioral perspective.
Most trust conceptualizations that are addressed in the sharing
economy literature describe the relationships between human
agents (i.e., peers) with each other, the platform, and potentially
a product or other targets. In consequence, the literature on trust
is widely grounded in the behavioral layer. However, some contri-
butions are located in the agent layer (if, for instance, profiles or
ratings are discussed as a means of virtual user or product repre-
sentation) and also in the application layer (in case the target for
trust is the platform). This is well reflected in the typical notion
of online matching, offline interaction, and online rating on sharing
economy platforms (Hawlitschek et al., 2016a). The relevance of
the infrastructure layer is only discussed in one case. Specifically,
Keymolen (2013)’s conceptualization of interpersonal system trust
goes beyond the translation of offline cues to an online environ-
ment (e.g., through representation in the agent layer). The author
suggests to take into account the peculiarities of the underlying
online technology. In particular, it is recommended to ‘‘evaluate
the techniques employed to build, use, and maintain the plat-
forms” (Keymolen, 2013).
In contrast, the reviewed blockchain literature conceptualizes
trust mostly in the lower technology-based layers, and thus does
not cross the trust frontier. An exception is the study of Sas and
Khairuddin (2017), which dips into the behavioral layer and
attempts to elicit the main trust challenges of Bitcoin users and
the related mitigation strategies. In their assessment, the authors
find that a core element of dealing with dishonest counterparties
is a transactional limitation on those embedded in a credible insti-
tutional or social environment. In the light of our framework, this
highlights the importance to connect virtual action spaces with
actual behavioral patterns to establish trust between interaction
parties and to cross the trust frontier.
59
Fig. 2 illustrates the extended framework and connects the lay-
ers with the conceptual clusters identified in our dual literature
review in Section 3 and Tables 1 and 2.
5. Discussion and conclusion
Before the backdrop of our research question, how ‘‘trust-free”
systems based on blockchain technology may impact the notion
and formation of trust in the sharing economy, our review has
demonstrated that the concepts of trust for the sharing economy
and for blockchain technology differ substantially and that there
exists an obvious tension. On the one hand, trust in the sharing
economy is widely regarded as a complex concept with multiple
stakeholders, targets, and dimensions (Hawlitschek et al., 2016a,c
Mittendorf, 2016; Möhlmann, 2016; Tussyadiah, 2016, 2015;
Yang et al., 2016). On the other hand, the promise of the blockchain
as a trust-free technology points at the replacement of trusted
third parties such as platform intermediaries.
The difference that lies in these mainly distinct concepts has
important implications for theory and practice. First, in order to
successfully contribute to theory on trust in different contexts, it
is of utmost importance for sharing economy and blockchain-
related research to agree on a set of common concepts and expres-
sions and to relate those to established work. Since both fields of
research are relatively young, it is all the more necessary to criti-
cally assess and discuss the ‘‘promises” derived from non-
academic literature and media, from a scientific, well-structured
and theory-grounded point of view. Second, established platform
operators and developers of blockchain-based platforms need to
be aware of the fact that blockchain technology in and by itself is
not able to provide an environment that renders trust-building
outside the closed blockchain ecosystem obsolete. Third, in order
to leverage the advantages of a trust-free blockchain-based plat-
form, means of overcoming the trust-frontier between the closed
technical system and the actual physical world need to be further
developed by both researchers and practitioners. In the following,
we discuss possible means for overcoming the trust-frontier and
sketch out paths for future research.
5.1. Overcoming the trust-frontier
Glaser (2017, p. 1550) states that blockchains ‘‘could provide
the infrastructure to decentralise intermediary services and means
of trustless payments” due to the high degree of ecosystem closed-
ness that peer-to-peer markets typically provide. While we agree
with the general notion of the blockchain’s potential to replace
central infrastructures as well as intermediary and payment ser-
vices, we suggest a more critical view on the actual closedness of
complex sharing economy ecosystems. Based on our literature
review, we argue that the sharing economy as a complex phe-
nomenon with socio-technical characteristics (John, 2012), can
usually not be regarded as a fully self-contained or closed ecosys-
tem that only relies on transactions and information generated
within its own boundaries (cf. Glaser, 2017). We propose the con-
cept of the trust frontier that separates interactions in the behav-
ioral layer from their representation in the agent layer. Since
human interactions in the real world are very difficult to integrate
in a closed blockchain-based ecosystem without the need for a
‘‘trusted interface” (Glaser, 2017, p. 1550), sharing transactions
with actual human interaction cannot be carried out in a com-
pletely ‘‘trust-free” manner.
A recent study on commons-oriented sharing ecosystems finds
that ‘‘when it comes to more complex social relationships, involv-
ing sharing of resources and assets, blockchain technology alone
does not suffice for people to develop trusted interactions”
60 F. Hawlitschek et al. / Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 29 (2018) 50–63
(Pazaitis et al., 2017, p. 6). The authors suggest to address this issue
by introducing an additional trust layer based on human relations,
that is, a reputation system nourished by a community-based eval-
uation process (Pazaitis et al., 2017). Using participatory evaluation
as a first step towards a trusted interface to blockchain-based
ecosystems may, however, entail a set of potential drawbacks.
Not only did the authors report that users stated a sense of discom-
fort for evaluating certain contributions of others – actually
empowering the crowd entails the risk of unintended conse-
quences and even misbehavior (Wagenknecht et al., 2017;
Wilson et al., 2017).
The German start-up slock.it circumvents the problem of inte-
grating behavioral aspects in the blockchain system, by reversing
the challenge: ‘‘With Slock.it, Airbnb apartments become fully
automated, smart objects can be rented on demand and unused
vehicles get a new lease on life.” Instead of developing a trusted
interface, slock.it extends the reach of the closed blockchain sys-
tem by integrating smart products in a blockchain-based internet
of things. Therefore, mainly behavioral aspects related to shared
products and not necessarily to other peers need to be considered.
However, this strategy does not resolve or overcome the trust fron-
tier but rather shifts it towards the real world, leaving the question
of trusted interfaces for human behavior unaffected.
As a result of the current scarcity of functional trusted inter-
faces to blockchain-based sharing ecosystems, the sharing econ-
omy is unlikely to run completely trust-free in the near future.
Even if the development of trusted interfaces for overcoming the
trust frontier would be available, replacing trust in a platform pro-
vider with the provision of blockchain-based algorithmic authority
raises several issues concerning trust in algorithms (Ahangama and
Poo, 2016; Lustig and Nardi, 2015). A user’s individual degree of
trust in algorithms and her willingness to rely on blockchain tech-
nology may well depend on the technical knowledge, experience,
and affinity. While smart contracts that organize sharing economy
transactions can in theory be reviewed by each individual capable
of reading their specifications and thus may operate trust-free, less
tech-savvy users have to trust in the algorithm itself or rather the
programmers or actors providing the code and making the algo-
rithm ‘‘run smoothly” (Lustig and Nardi, 2015, p. 751) and legally
compliant (Al Khalil et al., 2017). As suggested by Lustig and
Nardi (2015), this kind of trust in algorithms may require regula-
tion, the development of social norms, and a common language
between developers and lawyers (Al Khalil et al., 2017) that further
complicate the successful development of platforms based on
blockchain technology. In the words of the Economist (2016):
‘‘New technologies, from sharing-economy apps to the blockchain,
offer routes around some of the trust deficits that stand in the way
of growth. Yet whether such solutions to problems of mistrust
build on or undermine social ties is no easy question to answer.”
Particularly in view of the vision of entirely trust-free systems, sev-
eral important questions remain yet to be answered.
5.2. Blockchain and the sharing economy: Paths for future research
Although first academic attempts to investigate the potential of
blockchain technology in replacing trusted third parties are made
(Bogner et al., 2016; Sun et al., 2016), the success of such attempts
is rather limited and primarily focuses on the context of online
interaction and transaction transparency (Huckle et al., 2016).
Actual connections of the blockchain with the physical world are
hardly addressed in the literature so far, particularly with regard
to trust. A noteworthy exception is a recent paper by Pazaitis, De
Filippi and Kostakis (2017), who approach the issue of ‘‘trusted
interactions on top of the trustless blockchain technology” by the
introduction of a so-called proof-of-value concept to verify the
value of a (human) contribution to a sharing ecosystem.
Following this promising work, future research should address
the design of trusted interfaces to support the successful imple-
mentation of blockchain-based sharing platforms – not only for
online, but also for offline interactions. Overcoming the trust fron-
tier without the necessity of trusted third parties will be a major
challenge for future work and may provide platform operators
with a business opportunity. Moreover, to better understand con-
sumers’ perception of blockchain-based platforms, particularly
with regard to the formation of trust, future research should
address the conceptualization and development of adequate mea-
surement instruments for trust in blockchain-based algorithms.
Overall, we call for high degrees of rigor in the specification and
discussion of the concept of trust. It is of utmost importance for
both theory and practice to clearly understand the concepts,
dimensions, and targets of trust to develop meaningful results.
To successfully translate the hype around blockchain technology
into viable sharing economy applications, both practical and
research efforts will be urgently needed.
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank Christopher Mertens for his valuable
assistance and Christof Weinhardt for his support during the elab-
oration of the foundations of this article. Furthermore, we would
like to thank the reviewers and participants involved in the 17th
International Conference on Group Decision and Negotiation for
their feedback, as well as the editors and reviewers of Electronic
Commerce Research and Applications. Finally, financial support
of Boerse Stuttgart is gratefully acknowledged.
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