No matter what the name, we’re all the same? Examining ethnic online discrimination in ridesharing marketplaces

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

Sharing marketplaces emerged as the new Holy Grail of value creation by enabling exchanges between strangers. Identity reveal, encouraged by platforms, cuts both ways: While inducing pre-transaction confidence, it is suspected of backfiring on the information senders with its discriminative potential. This study employs a discrete choice experiment to explore the role of names as signifiers of discriminative peculiarities and the importance of accompanying cues in peer choices of a ridesharing offer. We quantify users’ preferences for quality signals in monetary terms and evidence comparative disadvantage of Middle Eastern descent male names for drivers and co-travelers. It translates into a lower willingness to accept and pay for an offer. Market simulations confirm the robustness of the findings. Further, we discover that females are choosier and include more signifiers of involuntary personal attributes in their decision-making. Price discounts and positive information only partly compensate for the initial disadvantage, and identity concealment is perceived negatively.

Original languageEnglish
JournalElectronic Markets
Volume32
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)1419-1446
Number of pages28
ISSN1019-6781
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 09.2022
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The current article is the extended version of the ECIS paper (https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2020_rp/48). I would like to thank Dr. Jianwei Hou, who served as associate editor, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. The author also acknowledges the assistance of Georg Voronin in creating the mock-ups for the experiment.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).