An Empirical Study into Consumer Acceptance of Dockless Bikes Sharing System Based on TAM

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors address an interesting problem regarding the operability of most bike-sharing schemes in most part of the world. In fact, bikes tend to be 'disappearing' in useless parts of the urban grid because of the asymmetry of movements, that inevitably leads to piling. Frequent corrections of this inefficient allocation of bikes through their redistributing is essential.

The article does not make it very clear, though, how this problem can be solved by TAM alone. This is partly due to the awkward manner in which the (pertinent) literature is presented in sections one and two: references are presented, the concepts are mentioned, but almost none of these concepts (including TAM) are adequately described so that the average reader actually understands what the authors are actually willing to show.

Part of this can be blamed on incorrect formulations due to the poor command of the English language. This not only makes the article difficult to understand, but also leads to plain nonsense. Examples: the ''cost of money''; the ''value of the price'', and so forth. This is, however, solvable through a serious proofreading of the text.

There are some issues also with the empirical part, other than the ones mentioned by the authors. The concepts that are the basis of the structural model are too complex to be reflected in the questions posed. Bikes are often a complement to other modes of transportation so the model split decisions that are depending partly on other values that those analyses, may interfere decisively in the model proposed. Moreover, it is not clear why researching the behavior of Chinese bike-sharers are useful to those in other parts of the world. Car ownership is indeed an important ingredient of a person's status, maybe more so in China than in other parts of the world. In any case, a more critical attitude with respect to the empirical part is essential.

 

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer

Thank you for your letter and for the valuable and helpful comments concerning our manuscript entitled “An Empirical Study into Consumer Acceptance of Sharing Bicycle System based on Technology Acceptance Model” (ID:1085746). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in red in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as follows.

First of all, based on your comments, we revised the wrong expressions in the draft. Due to too much space in the first draft to describe the imbalance and accumulation of shared bicycles, we have misunderstood you in describing the focus of the research problem. Therefore, in response to the improper expression of grammatical style and syntax, we reviewed and re-proofed the text with the help of a native English teacher. The problem discussed in this article is the drivers of acceptance of dockless sharing bicycles (DLBS) System. Therefore, this article explores consumer acceptance of DLBS by expanding TAM, rather than an optimization solution based on the asymmetry of movement and the accumulation of shared bicycles.

Second, in the empirical part of this article, this research attempts to combine the use context of DLBS, introduce multiple antecedent variables, and explore the impact of different value dimensions on the perceived usefulness of DLBS, which in turn affects consumers' use behavior. Similarly, we also introduce two constructs: ease of use of application and subjective norms.

Third, the Chinese brand DLBS has now entered more than 200 cities in more than 20 countries including the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and Thailand, enriching the travel options of people of all countries. Therefore, the findings of this study may affect consumption in other parts of the world. It is helpful for those who use it.

Fourth, indeed owning a car is an important label for a person, and the same is true for the Chinese. On the one hand, in many scenarios, cars have great functional advantages (Line 461 to Line 479); on the other hand, for the complex traffic environment in a country with a large population like China, in some use scenarios, DLBS attracts consumers by virtue of its convenience, economical and environmentally friendly.

Special thanks to you for your insightful comments.

Reviewer 2 Report

, the paper needs major corrections due to the following reasons, mostly of technical nature:

• First, due to the bad grammar, style and syntax, it needs to be  proofread by an English lector;
• The authors use inconvenient style when discussing the research contribution/ results of the other researchers in the field (e.g. “Scholars say …..”, is repeatedly written). Hence, I suggest to see the commonly adopted style and apply it in the whole of the paper.
• The authors use abbreviations without firstly explaining the full title (such as TAM, D&M, etc. ). After mentioning the concept for the first time in its full name and its abbreviation (in brackets), in the rest of the paper only abbreviation is to be used;
• TAM and TAM2 models need to be shortly elaborated;
• The authors haven’t listed in the References all the authors mentioned in the text (I have found at least ten authors not being quoted in the reference list, and vice versa); also, there are inconsistencies between the information about either authors or the publishing year between the body text and the  reference list;
• I have also found differences between β and t values (Hypotheses: H1d; H1 e…) explained in Figure 2 and the text below it …
• Generally, authors should give an effort to make the text more readable and fluent.

Author Response

Dear reviewer

Thank you for your letter and for the valuable and helpful comments concerning our manuscript entitled “An Empirical Study into Consumer Acceptance of Sharing Bicycle System based on Technology Acceptance Model” (ID:1085746). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in red in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as follows.

In responding to comments of bad grammar, style and syntax.

We reviewed and wrote the manuscript with the help of a native English teacher.

Second, we unify the research styles of other scholars in the literature and apply them to the full text.

Third, we have revised the abbreviation of the concept of the article and used it in the full text (Line 169: D&M).

Fourth, we unified the difference between the β value and the t value in the text, and redraw Figure 2. (Line 407 to Line 418 in the text).

In responding to comments that TAM and TAM2 models need to be shortly elaborated; we briefly abbreviate the TAM and TAM2 parts (Line 166 to Line 186 in the text)

Finally, for the matching and corresponding issues in the literature review part, we used literature citation software to update all references in the article, and corresponded to their author information, publication year and other information. (In the full text)

Special thanks to you for your insightful comments.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have made an successful effort to improve the paper and embrace the suggestions that were made an an earlier draft. The paper is interesting to read and addresses a pertinent issue. The only point, already raised before, is that the representation of the consumption behaviour with respect to the choice of transportation modes continues to be rather simplistic. Choosing ome mode or another is not just a question of accepting a bike sharing scheme, but depends on many other factors. This also regards, obviously, the acceptance of DLBS systems. I would like to ask the authors to spend some extra energy in trying to make the model more realistic and therefore better applicable for policy actions.

Author Response

Dear reviewer

Thank you for your letter and for the valuable and helpful comments concerning our manuscript entitled “An Empirical Study into Consumer Acceptance of Sharing Bicycle System based on Technology Acceptance Model” (ID:1085746). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in red in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as follows.

Based on your suggestions, we have enriched our research model and introduced a new variable (facilitating conditions) enrichment research framework. Facilitating conditions are defined as the degree to which an individual believes that an organizational and technical infrastructure exists to support use of the system. Considering the specific context of the research, the facilitating conditions are important parts of the acceptance of the DLBS system. After we have conducted various tests and analyses on this variable, as the research results show, it has a significant impact on the consumer's intention to use, and then significantly affects the consumer's acceptance of using DLBS.

Special thanks to you for your insightful comments.

Reviewer 2 Report

Even though it is not a mistake, I would prefer if the authors have used the common way of referring to different sources instead repeating "scholars say " (again) .

As an example, instead of writing: "Scholars define the sharing economy of the present era by proposing the difference between ownership and access entail (Bardhi & Eckhardt, 2012)....

you may write: "As Bardhy and Eckhardt (2012) pointed, the contemporary sharing economy could be defined ....

 

There is still quite  a lot of such repetition: I suggested to replace the words  "Scholars say "

Author Response

Dear reviewer

Thank you for your letter and for the valuable and helpful comments concerning our manuscript entitled “An Empirical Study into Consumer Acceptance of Sharing Bicycle System based on Technology Acceptance Model” (ID:1085746). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in red in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as follows.

We have compiled a literature review, and converted the expressions of references into appropriate expressions. We used the suggested writing methods to enrich our text and improve the readability of this article.

Special thanks to you for your insightful comments.