Saleh Shuqair, a Ph.D. student at NOVA IMS and researcher at the Information Management Research Center (MagIC), received the Best Paper Award Based on Doctoral Work at the 50th European Marketing Academy (EMAC) Annual Conference, held at ESIC Business & Marketing School in Madrid, Spain.
The awarded paper, entitled “Personal vs. Commercial Peer Service Providers: The Role of Communal Norms and Empathy in the Sharing Economy,” researches the consumer responses to different types of peer providers in the tourism sharing economy—specifically within the context of Airbnb. Through two experimental studies involving over 600 participants, the research demonstrates that consumers show stronger loyalty towards personal peer providers (e.g., individuals renting a private room) when these providers engage in communal, socially interactive behavior. The study also reveals that empathy mediates this effect, and that the impact of social engagement depends significantly on whether the provider is perceived as a personal or commercial host.
Supervised by Professor Diego Costa Pinto, Saleh Shuqair's research contributes to a deeper understanding of consumer behavior in platform-based tourism services and offers practical implications for peer-to-peer service providers operating in increasingly commercialized markets.
The EMAC Annual Conference is one of the most prestigious academic gatherings in the field of marketing in Europe. It fosters scholarly exchange and collaboration among marketing researchers worldwide. Saleh Shuqair’s recognition highlights the strength of doctoral research developed at NOVA IMS and MagIC in addressing timely and impactful questions in marketing science.