Repairing the trust in ride-sharing after security incidents

Abstract

Purpose

A rash of security incidents in ride-sharing have made discovering the mechanisms to repair consumers' trust essential for the information technology (IT)-enabled ride-sharing platforms. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the two response strategies (i.e. security policies [SPs] and apologies) of platforms repair passengers' trust and whether the two implementation approaches of SPs (i.e. pull and push) lead to different results in repairing passengers' trust in the platforms.

Design/methodology/approach

A field survey based on a real scenario (n = 238) and an experiment (n = 245) were conducted to test the hypotheses empirically. Structural equation modeling and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) are employed in the data analyses.

Findings

This study finds that (1) both SPs and apologies aid in repairing trust; (2) repaired trust fully mediates the influence of SPs on continuance usage and partially mediates the influence of apologies on continuance usage; (3) security polices and the three dimensions of apologies play different roles in repairing trust and retaining passengers and (4) both pull-based and push-based SPs can repair the violated trust; however, the effect of the pull approach is greater than that of the push approach.

Practical implications

The findings provide guidelines for ride-sharing platforms in taking appropriate actions to repair users' trust after security incidents.

Originality/value

The findings reveal the mechanism of trust repairing in the fields of ride-sharing and extend the contents of the trust theory and pull–push theory.

Citation

Chen, A., Wan, J. and Lu, Y. (2022), "Repairing the trust in ride-sharing after security incidents", Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 122 No. 1, pp. 118-136. https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-10-2020-0623