Moral Misconduct Within the Sharing Economy in the

Context of Chinese Culture

Zhengyu Yang

High School Attached to Northeast Normal University, Changchun, Jilin Province, 130022, China

Keywords: Moral Misconduct, Sharing Economy, Bike-Sharing, Ride-Hailing.

Abstract: Due to significant progress in technology and increased attention to sustainable development, sharing

economy has developed rapidly. This paper examines the phenomenon of moral misconduct within the

sharing economy, and delves into how the unique characteristics of the sharing economy, such as anonymity

and the lack of ownership, can lead to unethical behavior. Through case studies in bike-sharing and ride-

hailing industries, the paper identifies common issues like improper use, theft, and violence, are often caused

by information asymmetry and inadequate accountability. Despite these challenges, the sharing economy also

has the potential to promote trust and pro-social behavior. The paper offers recommendations for users,

companies, and governments to address these moral challenges and enhance the positive impacts of the

sharing economy.

1 INTRODUCTION

In 1978, Felson & Spaeth first proposed the concept

of collaborative consumption (Felson & Spaeth,

1978). The essence of this concept is sharing

economy, also known as collaborative economy.

Later, scholars further refined the connotation of the

sharing economy. Sharing economy refers to an

economic pattern where users do not need to own the

products and services but share them with other users

through cooperative ways (Botsman & Rogers,

2010). Liu Genrong (2017) further categorized

sharing economy into two main types: one involves

the rental of personal items, where users pay only for

the right to use the item without purchasing

ownership, such as Uber and Airbnb. Renting out

personal idle items does not impair the owner’s rights.

On the contrary, it can provide corresponding

incomes. The other type involves the transfer of the

usage rights of items. By sharing resources such as

capital, land, technology, and time, with shared

benefits, people can get benefits together. A good

example is crowdfunding (Liu, 2017).

The sharing economy is based on existing idle

resources and transferring the usage rights to those in

need. Thus it can effectively increase the utilization

rate of resources, and greatly reduce costs. Zheng

Zhilai (2016) summarized six advantages of the

sharing economy: high product utilization, low

operating costs, meeting personalized and customized

needs, low transaction costs, a large number of

customers, and contributing to environmental

protection and social sustainable development. Due to

the improvement of networking platforms and

people’s increasing emphasis on sustainable

development, sharing economy has rapidly expanded.

The sharing economy lead to moral misconduct

(Guo et al., 2023). In the early stages of the sharing

economy, moral misconduct is more likely to occur.

Some studies have found that the anonymity and the

lack of ownership in the consumption process of the

sharing economy can both induce unethical behavior

(Liu, Fan, & Li, 2020; Bardhi, & Eckhardt, 2012; Shi,

Zhao, & Ji, 2020). However, as sharing economy

continues to develop, people have begun to focus on

its positive effects. A study found that sharing

economy can give participants positive psychological

cues and significantly reduce their subsequent

unethical behavior (Guo, Huang, Yuan, & Gao,

2019). Another study also revealed that sharing

economy has the power to enhance social cohesion

(Munk, 2017).

2 CASES DESCRIPTION OF

MORAL MISCONDUCT IN

SHARING ECONOMY

Bike-sharing and ride-hailing are two typical

588

Yang, Z.

Moral Misconduct within the Sharing Economy in the Context of Chinese Culture.

DOI: 10.5220/0014003800004912

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Innovative Education and Social Development (IESD 2025), pages 588-592

ISBN: 978-989-758-779-5

industries that follow the sharing economy model. By

analyzing the development history of these two

industries and exploring the causes of moral

misconduct, people can better understand the

interaction between the sharing economy and

morality.

In the early stages, the bike-sharing market

emerged in universities, with the main purpose of

solving on-campus commuting issues for students,

and the user base mainly consisted of students. With

the increasing awareness of environmental protection

and the improvement of transportation infrastructure,

the bike-sharing industry experienced rapid growth

(Wang, 2022).

Despite the fact that bike-sharing greatly

improved citizens' travel efficiency and alleviated the

difficulty of finding a taxi, it also led to some issues

of moral misconduct. The main manifestations

include disorderly parking, the use of private locks,

theft, and deliberate damage to vehicles (He, 2022).

These behaviors have a very negative impact on

society, such as significant cost losses to bike-sharing

companies, wasting social resources, and ruining the

cityscape.

Most ride-hailing platforms follow the same

business model. Taking Uber and Didi as examples:

first, they integrate idle vehicle resources and offer

flexible working arrangements to attract suppliers.

Then, using information technology, they quickly

dispatch vehicles based on customer demand. This

approach improves vehicle utilization efficiency and

helps to increase the income for the platform, drivers,

and passengers. By providing more targeted services,

the platforms achieved the aim of further attracting

consumers. Due to generally low prices, convenient

and flexible services, and a broad customer base, the

ride-hailing industry has experienced rapid growth in

recent years.

In the ride-hailing industry represented by Uber

and Didi, consumers can be either the service or

product demanders or suppliers. The sharing

platforms ostensibly provide a communication

channel for both parties, but in reality, they do not

take responsibility for either side. Once a breach of

trust occurs, this shirking and shifting of

responsibility can result in one side bearing the loss

alone. Therefore, issues like "who is responsible for

accidents involving rented shared cars" and "who is

liable for damages during the sharing process" are

common (Zhang, & Gu, 2021).

On April 29, 2018, a passenger was injured after

being beaten by a driver during a ride-hailing dispute

but could not reach Didi's customer service for

assistance. On May 5, 2018, a driver threatened a

passenger with a knife in order to delete a bad review

after the passenger complained about the driver being

late. On May 6, 2018, a Didi passenger was killed

while taking a Didi Hitch ride in Zhengzhou. On

August 24, 2018, a Didi Hitch driver raped and

murdered a passenger in Leqing, Wenzhou, leading to

the official suspension of Didi Hitch. Such frequent

malicious incidents reveal the severity of moral

misconduct in the ride-hailing industry. Generally,

the manifestations of moral misconduct include:

platforms uncritically pursuing economic benefits

and excessively relaxing the investigation of drivers

and vehicles, inadequate risk prevention and handling

mechanisms, lack of evaluation and screening

mechanisms; drivers extorting or even harming

passengers, profiting without the passenger's

knowledge, and interfering with passenger reviews;

passengers extorting drivers.

Some scholars believe that information

asymmetry is a premise for the formation of moral

misconduct. Asymmetric information refers to the

different information held by individuals in a

transaction. People who have sufficient information

are often in a favorable position, while those who lack

information are in a disadvantageous position. Only

when the condition of information asymmetry

between both sides is met can one side hide actions

and information to gain profit. From the perspective

of platforms, the formation of moral misconduct in

the ride-hailing industry may follow these steps: the

lowering of platform investigation results in a varied

quality of the overall resource supply, which is the

origin of moral risk; inadequate risk prevention

mechanisms and untimely risk disposal by the

platform become the main stages of moral risk

occurrence; the lack of evaluation and screening

mechanisms in the platform's payment and receipt

process, coupled with economic considerations,

means that the platform neither can nor wants to deal

with problematic drivers, causing risks to accumulate

in the system and leading to a cycle of moral risk (Shi

et al., 2020).

Other scholars argue that trust is an important

factor influencing consumer behavior. In the sharing

economy model, trust becomes the key for the

platform, resource providers, and resource demanders

to conduct transactions, significantly positively

affecting whether cooperation between participants is

achieved and influencing consumers' willingness to

continue participating. Therefore, some scholars

consider trust as the "currency" of the sharing

economy. (Guo et al.,2019).

Some properties of sharing economy itself can

also lead to moral misconduct. Bardhi and Eckhardt

Moral Misconduct within the Sharing Economy in the Context of Chinese Culture

589

(2012) conducted an interview study with 40 car-

sharing consumers. They conducted 40 interviews

with young, urban, professional Zipcar users in

Boston. The interviews continued about one hour in

average, and explored joining motivations, car

relationships, and the behavior of people. They also

collected data from observation and company

materials. They found that sharing economy

encourages a kind of negative reciprocity and made

these consumers more selfish and more concerned

about personal interests. Anonymity, the lack of

consumer ownership and limited duration of use in

sharing economy acquiesce consumers to break the

rules and prejudice the interests of others. Basically,

since sharing economy is to access goods or services

without ownership, it is likely for consumers to act

irresponsibly or immorally within the consuming

processes. Liu et al. (2020) also discovered that

compared to private objects, shared products have

more implications on moral misconduct, and the lack

of ownership is a main cause of such behavior.

Consumers' personal values also significantly

influence their behavior in the sharing economy. Liu

et al. (2020) conducted a study about this topic. The

study used several quasi-experiment. After that, the

sample of 300 participants (62% male, ages 19-55)

was surveyed on unethical consumer behaviors using

shared versus private products. Liu found in their

survey that if consumers hold self-oriented values, the

likelihood of moral misconduct in sharing economy

activities increases; if consumers are more inclined

toward pro-social values, moral misconduct is less

likely to occur. Additionally, some scholars, from the

perspective of rational individuals, believe that cost

and benefit determine people's behavior in the sharing

economy.

However, as the sharing economy continues to

develop, other studies have discovered its positive

social functions. A study found the more people cared

about the interests of others and society, that

individual consumption behaviors in the sharing

economy significantly and positively predicted their

pro-social values four weeks later; the more they

engaged in sharing economy activities, the more they

cared about the interests of others and society (Roos,

& Hahn, 2017)

Guo et al. (2023) found that experiences with

sharing economy can positively predict individual

pro-social behavior. Trust plays a mediating role in

the relationship between sharing economy attitudes,

actual experiences, and pro-social behavior,

indicating that the sharing economy can enhance

individuals' trust levels, thereby promoting pro-social

behavior.

3 SUGGESTIONS FOR USERS

Users can establish a sense of sharing and use bikes

civilly; enhance their sense of responsibility and

actively participate in supervision. For consumers, it

is important to fully recognize the value that sharing

products bring to themselves and society, such as

providing more options, reducing risks, and

strengthening interpersonal relationships. Research

founded that if participants believe they are using

shared products or by activating a sharing economy

mindset, the unethical behavior of participants can be

significantly reduced (Guo et al., 2019). Wu (2020)

also confirmed that respecting the individuality of

each consumer, properly treating all possible choices,

and acknowledging different requirements can

enhance cooperation, and ultimately achieve mutual

benefits and reciprocity.

4 SUGGESTIONS FOR

COMPANIES AND

PLATFORMS

Companies can reasonably use big data to achieve

precise targeting, as well as enhance consumers'

psychological ownership by cultivating sharing

product brands and building sharing product

communities. Platforms also ought to ensure

information quality. Using nudges can make these

measures get better effects.

By ensuring information quality, raising the

standard for driver and vehicle reviews on platforms

is a crucial prerequisite for passengers choosing

shared travel. Ride-hailing platforms ought to fully

utilize big data monitoring, user mutual evaluation,

third-party certification, and third-party credit rating

mechanisms to improve the credit records of relevant

entities. This includes strengthening identity

verification, credit rating, and credit management of

resource providers, as well as enhancing credit

records, risk warnings, and online disclosure of illegal

and dishonest behaviors (Shi et al., 2020).

In an information society, the most valuable

resource is information. Excessive sharing of

information resources can lead to a series of related

criminal activities; therefore, it is important to

prevent the leakage of citizens' private information.

Especially since various transactions in modern

society are electronic, information data can easily be

accessed by criminals. It is necessary to strictly limit

the arbitrary sharing of information involving

citizens' addresses, health, occupations, families, ID

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cards, phone numbers, bank cards, and other details

among different organizations or individuals.

Changing the presentation and timing of data can

enhance the effectiveness of nudges and the ability to

shape and reinforce behavior. The development of

internet technology provides more space for

promoting interventions, and big data has begun to

reshape government and corporate nudges, making

them more personalized and powerful. As an internet

company, bike-sharing companies can improve push

effectiveness by leveraging vast amounts of user

behavior data and user platforms. Targeted

interventions are aimed at users who are more likely

to engage in illegal parking behavior. Bike-sharing

companies can use historical data on user behavior to

predict the likelihood of future user stacking and

parking behavior. They can then focus only on users

who are most likely to exhibit such behavior,

minimizing interference with other silent users.

Personalized interventions involve using experiments

and data analysis to predict which features of

intervention information elicit stronger responses

from users, thereby implementing heterogeneous

intervention measures. Additionally, push content

can be customized based on the user's city and

historical bike usage data. For example, users can be

notified about the city’s parking rates and their credit

score rankings within the same city, making it easier

for users to understand and change their behavior (He,

2022).

Liu's research (2020) found that the lack of

psychological ownership is an important reason for

consumer moral misconduct. Consumers with self-

oriented social value orientations are more likely to

engage in unethical behavior, compared to those with

pro-social social value orientations. Therefore, For

government regulatory agencies, Liu et al. (2020)

suggest that in addition to using legal means and

administrative measures to strengthen the

management of sharing products and the governance

of consumer behavior, it is more important to enhance

education through publicity.

5 SUGGESTIONS FOR

GOVERNMENT

For governments, improving governance

mechanisms, proposing sharing economy, and

establishing proper information sharing limitations

are feasible measures.

Wang (2022) provided solutions including

improving governance mechanisms, establishing

government-enterprise communication channels,

enhancing refined company management, uers’

participate in supervision.

Zhang (2016) suggested the government make

proper institutional arrangements and establish a

secure credit system. The foundation of sharing

economy is credit; without credit as a guarantee, the

safety of sharing economy cannot be ensured. The

government should adopt a combined online and

offline approach, focusing online on cooperation with

social networks, e-commerce platforms, and other

internet companies, and integrating offline credit

records from public security, tax, industry and

commerce, courts, and the central bank to establish a

comprehensive online and offline secure credit

system.

In the development process of the sharing

economy, emphasizing interaction, sociality, and

trust will help exert the positive social functions of

sharing economy, thereby promoting its healthy

development and benefiting society. Guo et al. (2023)

found that sharing economy not only increased

people's trust levels but also promoted moral

behavior.

6 CONCLUSIONS

This paper has explored the phenomenon of moral

misconduct within sharing economy, particularly in

the bike-sharing and ride-hailing industries. The

analysis reveals that anonymity, lack of ownership,

and information asymmetry significantly contribute

to unethical behavior, such as theft, improper use, and

violence. However, the sharing economy also has

potential to foster trust and pro-social behavior when

properly managed. To address these moral

challenges, the paper suggests targeted measures for

users, companies, and governments, including

enhancing psychological ownership, improving

business strategies, and strengthening governance

mechanisms. The significance of this study lies in its

contribution to understanding the ethical dimensions

of the sharing economy, in providing actionable

recommendations that can guide sustainable

development, and in promoting benefits of sharing

economy while minimizing moral risks.

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