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Ridesharing is a sharing economy revolution fueled by Information and Communication Technology (Matsuo, 2020). It is an arrangement in which two or more people who intend to travel in the same route or direction travel in the same bike or car and share the cost of travel (Furuhata et al., 2013; S. Lee et al., 2021). Ridesharing has evolved into a popular means of transportation (Shaheen & Cohen, 2019). Different genres of ridesharing comprise acquaintance-based, organization-based, Ad hoc based and Online ride matching programs (Chan & Shaheen, 2012). The emphasis of this study is on Online ride matching programs or On-demand ridesharing.
Researchers have extensively investigated the different aspects of ridesharing. These include Agent-based model for ridesharing (Nourinejad & Roorda, 2016), Benefits on the environment (Yu et al., 2017), CSR and ridesharing behavior (Jeon et al., 2020), Efficiency of ridesharing (Ruch et al., 2020) and Segmentation of ridesharing users (Soltani et al., 2021). Behavioral elements of ridesharing have also been widely explored around the globe (Abutaleb et al., 2020; Hasan et al., 2021). However, the review of relevant literature identified two gaps that need to be addressed. First, empirical studies examining the determinants of ridesharing from emerging economies, especially from South Asian countries, are scanty. Second, the role of perceived health risk on COVID-19 in ridesharing intention has not been explored much in the ridesharing context.
Being an emerging economy, air pollution and transportation inadequacies are surging in India (Chakrabartty & Gupta, 2014; Haque & Singh, 2017). Thus, ridesharing is an appropriate sustainable transportation model for India and other developing economies as well (Chan & Shaheen, 2012; Teubner & Flath, 2015). Nevertheless, the pandemic had significantly disrupted the global ridesharing industry (W. Wang et al., 2022), which resulted in the suspension of ridesharing services in India (Mahale, 2020). Fortunately, the ridesharing industry is now on the path to recovery, following the ‘new normal’ (Krammer, 2021). However, extrinsic factors affecting ridesharing intention in the new normal era are unknown. At this outset, it is essential to investigate the antecedents of ridesharing intention and the role of perceived health risk on COVID-19 in the relationship between the determinants and the ridesharing intention. Therefore, the research questions addressed in this study are:
- 1.
Whether extrinsic factors such as attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control are antecedents of ridesharing intention?
- 2.
Whether perceived health risk on COVID-19 act as a moderator in the relationship between ridesharing intention and the determinants?
The research questions are formulated within the framework of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991), which is an extension of the theory of reasoned action (TRA) (Ajzen, 1985). It was first framed to predict consumer behavior, which helps marketers successfully market their products and services. For many reasons, TPB is an exceptional approach towards understanding sharing economy. First, the main factors of behavioral performance, which are significant in the backdrop of sharing economy, are captured by the theory's fundamental variables. Second, the critical, influential variable in the framework ‘attitude’ reflects consumers' assessments of the anticipated costs and benefits of the sharing economy. Third, TPB is subject to the addition of new normative variables (Ajzen, 1991). Finally, numerous recent studies in the sharing economy used TPB to explain the sharing intention and behavior (Kim et al., 2018; Lang & Joyner Armstrong, 2018; Roos & Hahn, 2019). The construct used to extend the TPB in this study is Environmental Concern (EC).