What makes bikes cool, and is coolness enough to encourage bike commuting?

Abstract

Commuting by bike is considered a healthy, and eco-friendly practice, and several stakeholders and business are enhancing this practice by encouraging their employees to commute by bike. However, there is lack of studies that address this phenomenon from a marketing/branding perspective. This study focuses on studying the effect of bike-related factors such as bike comfort, conditions, features and quality in addition to perceived environmental, social and health values on bike coolness, afterwards the study examines how bike coolness influence intention to use bike to commute. Moreover, the study discusses the effect of several barriers on the path from bike coolness to intention to use bike to commute. To test the research model, two online survey-based studies were conducted, and Structural Equation Modelling was used to test the proposed hypotheses. The findings indicate that most of bike-related factors positively influence bike coolness while perceived social value and perceived health value impact only on one and two dimensions of bike coolness, respectively. Moreover, the study found that two dimensions of coolness (aesthetically pleasing, and popular) enhance the intention to use bikes to commute. Finally, the study discusses the moderating effect of several work-related, personal and environmental variables on the path from coolness to intention. Based on these findings, theoretical contributions were discussed and managerial implications on how to enhance bike commuting practices were provided.

Date of Award	19 Oct 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Maher Georges Elmashhara (Supervisor) & Ricardo Ribeiro (Co-Supervisor)