Assessing timebanking use and coordination: implications for service exchange tools

Purpose: Timebanking is a generalized, voluntary service exchange that promotes use of otherwise idle resources in a community and facilitates community building. Participants offer and request services through the mediation of the timebank software. In timebanking, giving help and accepting help are both contributions; contributions are recognized and quantified through exchange of time-based currency. The purpose of this paper is to explore how users perceive timebank offers and requests differently and how they influence actual use. Design/methodology/approach: This survey study, conducted in over 120 timebanks across the USA, examines users’ timebanking participation, adapting dimensions of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Findings: The authors found that perceived ease of use in timebanking platforms was positively associated with positive attitudes toward both requests and offers, whereas perceived usefulness was negatively associated with positive attitudes toward requests and offers. The authors also found that having positive attitudes toward requests was important to elicit behavioral intention to make a request, but that positive attitudes toward offers did not affect behavioral intentions to make offers. Practical implications: The authors discussed these results and proposed design suggestions for future service exchange tools to address the issues the authors raised. Originality/value: The study is among the first few studies that examine timebanking participation using large-scale survey data. The authors evaluate sociotechnical factors of timebanking participation through adapting dimensions of TAM.