The uniqueness of entrepreneurship in the sharing accommodation sector: Developing a scale of entrepreneurial capital

Hosts on sharing lodging platforms are viewed as an emerging form of entrepreneurs. This study aims to define entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial capitals and generate a multidimensional scale of entrepreneurial capitals for sharing accommodations (ECSA). A rigid procedure with three steps was followed to develop and validate this scale. An initial pool of items was provided through content analysis of 59 written surveys and literature review in Step 1. In Step 2 exploratory factor analysis (n = 150) was applied to further purify and refine this preliminary item pool. The 17-item ECSA scale was validated using confirmatory factor analysis (n = 328) in Step 3. Results support ECSA which covers four perspectives (i.e., financial, social, intellectual, and human capitals). The ECSA scale enriches the research body of entrepreneurship by examining an emerging business phenomenon. And it prepares practitioners for becoming micro-entrepreneurs on sharing lodging platforms.