Sustainable Governance of the Sharing Economy: The Chinese Bike-Sharing Industry

Socialist countries, such as China, have stressed the importance of an equitable society where citizens work together. Thus, the sharing economy (e.g., the bike-sharing industry) could be one of the challenges determining the future of China, as the initial bubble of the bike-sharing industry collapsed in 2017, with many problems stemming from the users’ deposits that were lost and the depletion of the investment funds, resulting in numerous malfunctioning bikes every day. This paper evaluates the bike-sharing industry in terms of sustainable governance in the future and identifies its factors. Therefore, we use the structural equation model based on survey questionnaires and find that most of the input variables of the perceived rational (PRV) and emotional values (PEV), perceived risk (PR), and externalities (EXT) are not very successful in promoting the sustainable governance of the bike-sharing industry. However, using the bootstrapping simulation approach, we find that the role of modulators such as satisfaction and sustainable management factors are statistically significant. The modulating effect of a user’s satisfaction on the intention of continuous use based on all four inputs of PRV (0.304), PEV (0.298), PR (−0.156), and EXT (0.263), as well as the other indirect variables of sustainable management, such as environmental factors (0.284), is shown to be statistically significant. Based on these modulating effects, we conclude that the sharing economy, represented by the bike-sharing industry, could be one of the most important business cases for the future of China, but only if it is strongly supported by the public. Therefore, to help the industry get out of its current slump, we propose that the bike-sharing companies put in more diverse efforts to employ multi-use types of innovation with practical benefits such as coupons for the nearest shops, and social functions that enhance the quality of life such as mileage contribution from bike sharing for disabled people. Evidently, the Chinese government should eliminate “the over-supply issues” through appropriate market governance and increase its efforts toward a better public–private partnership (PPP), as the sharing economy should be based on the harmonization of all interest groups to eventually create value.