Trust and control on peer-to-peer platforms : A sociomaterial analysis of guest-host relationships in digital environments

This thesis investigates how trust is built in the relationships between guests and hosts in digital environments of peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms. The growth of P2P platforms and their use of information and communication technologies have sparked scholarly and public discussions about trust in the digital age. Trust is a social phenomenon essential for cooperation and orderly social relationships. By applying a sociomaterial perspective, this thesis explores how trust is built with technological means and the implications it has for social relationships in a tourism setting. Trust building is investigated by drawing on insights from tourism studies, information systems studies, and organizational studies. This multi-disciplinary perspective is applied in studying the case of the Airbnb platform’s guests and hosts. By analysing guest-host relationships and their interactions with the platform’s technologies, the thesis shows how trust between guests and hosts is transformed by algorithmic means of organizational control.The relationship between trust and control is analysed in four research papers that deal with trust building from different perspectives. Together, the papers provide a multilayered explanation of the relationship between trust and control. The analysis begins with Paper 1, which investigates the discursive framing of trustworthiness in the platform’s policies. Paper 2 and 3 employ digital ethnographic observations and interviews with Airbnb guests and hosts to understand what happens when they interact with each other and the platform. Finally, the conceptual review of scholarly work in Paper 4 identifies how trust building relates to surveillance. The thesis contributes to the debate on digital technologies in tourism, relating trust to control in tourism literature. It shows that trust is closely related to algorithmic management of online marketplaces. This allows platform organizations to shape relationships between guests and hosts as well as influence the use of their assets. The thesis proposes viewing P2P platforms as actively shaping the outcomes of guest and host interactions, rather than just mediating them. Practically, this thesis offers insights into the implications of using information and communication technologies to manage consumer-provider relationships.