The frequent occurrence of security incidents in ride-sharing is a challenge for the survival of IT-enabled ride-sharing platforms. Passengers’ protective behavior is an effective means to alleviate this issue, with benefits to both the passengers and the platforms. This study explores the mechanisms of passengers’ protective behavior in the ride-sharing context by combining protection motivation theory (PMT) and usage situation theory. We test our hypotheses using data (n = 346) collected from a field survey based on a real scenario. The findings reveal that PMT and usage situation theory work well to explain passengers’ protective behavior during ride-sharing. This study explains the motivation behind passengers’ protective behavior in the ride-sharing context, extends the contents of PMT by exploring its antecedents, and extends the contents of usage situation theory by introducing a new dimension. Our findings can help ride-sharing platforms take appropriate strategies to improve passengers’ protective behavior.

拼车安全事故频发，是对IT赋能拼车平台生存的挑战。乘客的保护行为是缓解这一问题的有效手段，对乘客和平台都有好处。本研究结合保护动机理论（PMT）和使用情境理论，探讨了拼车情境下乘客保护行为的机制。我们使用基于真实场景的实地调查收集的数据 (n = 346) 测试我们的假设。研究结果表明，PMT 和使用情境理论可以很好地解释乘客在拼车过程中的保护行为。本研究解释了乘车共享环境中乘客保护行为背后的动机，通过探索 PMT 的前因扩展了 PMT 的内容，并通过引入新的维度扩展了使用情境理论的内容。我们的研究结果可以帮助拼车平台采取适当的策略来改善乘客的保护行为。