sharing economy essay

A business journal from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

The Sharing Economy: A New Way of Doing Business

December 11, 2015 • 11 min read updated: may 10, 2024.

Two forces are fueling the sharing economy: assets that sit idle such as cars, and advances in technology that make sharing easy.

Before it had a name and became a cutting-edge concept, the sharing economy had outposts in the American economy. Carpooling, for instance, has long been a way of sharing both the cost of commuting and leveraging an expensive asset — the private automobile (which sits idle more than 90% of the time).

Few observers in the last few decades recognized carpooling as a vanguard phenomenon, but that’s what it was. The same basic concept, technologically assisted, has been applied to nearly every aspect of modern life. And it’s enabled cost savings, convenience and environmental benefits on a large scale.

As a result, the peer-to-peer story is one of stellar growth. From modest roots, the international sharing economy reached about $15 billion in 2014, reports PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), and it is on track to reach $335 billion by 2025. Public opt-in to the collaborative economy almost doubled from 2013 to 2014. An AGC Partners report said that investors committed $4.93 billion to 71 deals related to the sharing economy in 2014, up five times from 2013.

“The success of Uber, Airbnb and TaskRabbit isn’t a fad — it’s a new way of doing business,” PwC said.

The two essentials are lumpiness and technology. In a groundbreaking paper, “Sharing Nicely: On Shareable Goods and the Emergence of Sharing as a Modality of Economic Production” ( Yale Law Journal , 2004), Yochai Benkler, an entrepreneurial legal studies professor at Harvard, used carpooling as an example of large-scale sharing of private goods. Cars, he pointed out, are “lumpy” goods, that is, they have to be purchased in units that exceed the buyer’s immediate needs. People invest in such goods when the lifetime value of the item is greater than its price (loans and leases, of course, help bend the cost curve to match the long period during which expensive items offer value).

At least until recently, car buyers haven’t worried about the excess capacity they were purchasing, as long as the lifetime value of the vehicle was greater for them than its lifetime cost. But the reality is that all that time the private automobile sits idle, economic value is going unrealized. And cars are by no means alone in their lumpiness. Houses, apartments, offices, bikes, computers, clothes, books, toys — all represent goods that individuals buy for their own use, but which bring with them a good deal of excess capacity. And don’t forget physical and intellectual labor: A handyman’s ability to fix things goes unused much of the time, as does an engineer’s ability to design solutions to specific problems.

“In the collaborative economy it’s not the idea of sharing that’s new… What’s different now is the introduction of technology into the concept.” — H.O. Maycotte, Umbel

All this excess capacity is what makes the sharing economy possible. According to Oscar Salazar, the founding chief technology officer at Uber, now CTO at carpooling startup Ride and an executive advisor to Rubicon Global, one reason the transportation sector has been so successfully “shared” is, “a lot of people own cars; in some countries the number of vehicles surpasses the human population.”

But excess capacity existed long before anyone began talking about an economy based on sharing (the term “sharing economy” wasn’t used to describe this kind of enterprise until the mid-2000s.) What empowered this new way of doing business was technology.

As it existed in the post-war years, carpooling was a widespread phenomenon. According to Benkler, it had become the second-largest commuter transportation system in the U.S. But it was not an activity that could be scaled up to the level of a commercial enterprise. Neither was offering a room to a guest, selling old clothes or toys at a garage sale or fixing a neighbor’s sink.

What made Uber, Airbnb, eBay, TaskRabbit and all the other sharing-economy companies possible is the combination of Big Data analytics, low-cost cloud storage, prevalence of social media and widespread use of mobile devices.

Virtually all the sharing companies establish trust through crowdsourcing. Online reviews are at the heart of the sharing economy.

“In the collaborative economy it’s not the idea of sharing that’s new; people have been doing that for eons,” notes H.O. Maycotte, founder and CEO of data rights management company Umbel in an article published on Dell.com. “What’s different now is the introduction of technology into the concept — particularly easy-to-use digital technologies like location-based GPS that allow people to quickly make and respond to requests for goods and services.”

A Sharing Economy or Asset-light Economy?

Before there was a sharing economy, there was a rental industry, which created excess capacity at a scale that could be commercialized. Hotel companies built large structures and then rented out individual rooms to make a profit. Car rental companies purchased large fleets of cars, which they rented out by the day very profitably. But such rental-based business models demand not just capacity but also infrastructure. Hotels have to maintain properties, clean rooms, take reservations and provide a host of other services. Similarly, car rental companies have to maintain and store cars that are not in use, schedule pick-ups and drop-offs, build and staff rental offices and provide customer service.

Uber and Airbnb, on the other hand, don’t have to worry much about infrastructure. Airbnb doesn’t own any hotels and yet it has more rooms for rent than Marriott and Hilton, according to The New York Times. And Uber said in a blog post that it provided 140 million car rides in 53 countries and more than 250 cities in 2013 without owning any cars or employing any full-time drivers.

Both companies do have full-time staff, of course, for customer service of various kinds and most importantly for technology. But neither private company is forthcoming about the number of people on its corporate staff. A check of open positions suggests that Airbnb and Uber incur significantly less labor costs than their brick and mortar competitors. On a recent day, Airbnb listed just 204 open positions worldwide, while Hilton had more than 10 times that number of jobs posted in just the U.S. and the U.K. That’s a huge difference in salaries and benefits, generally a significant part of a company’s cost structure.

Some have argued in fact, that the sharing economy is really nothing of the sort. “Sharing is a form of social exchange that takes place among people known to each other, without any profit, argues a recent article in the Harvard Business Review. “When ‘sharing’ is market-mediated — when a company is an intermediary between consumers who don’t know each other — it is no longer sharing at all. Rather, consumers are paying to access someone else’s goods or services for a particular period of time. It is an economic exchange.”

Seen in this light, the distinctive feature of the sharing economy — its use of technology — is less about sharing and more about reducing costs by enabling vast numbers of customers and freelance workers to do business with each other, under the umbrella of the companies’ brands. Robin Chase, co-founder of Zipcar, describes the process as “leveraging excess capacity, building platforms for participation that organize and simplify the work of these collaborating peers.” Chase said that her book Peers Inc. is based on the thesis that tapping into all that extra value is only possible with platforms “that make the effort of sharing assets, ideas and networks very simple.”

Many peer-to-peer companies begin with a simple idea of leveraging excess capacity, but it is the technology-enabled ease of use that makes them work. Marc Gorlin started Roadie when he realized that he could build an alternative to traditional shipping companies such as FedEx and UPS by leveraging existing passenger vehicles already on the road. “Someone is leaving somewhere and going somewhere else all the time,” he said. “Suppose they could also earn money and other benefits by carrying packages to that destination?”

But the key to Roadie’s future was making it incredibly simple for drivers and customers to connect and do business. The company’s mobile app enables an entire transaction to take place in moments (the Roadie keeps 80% of the contracted amount; the company 20%). One user reports standing in line to buy a rug at Ikea that was too big for his car, and a Roadie driver offering to deliver it for him before he’d reached the cash register. The Waffle House chain, with some 1,750 restaurants in 25 states, is now a Roadie partner (drivers get a free waffle as part of the bargain), and Roadie employs no full-time drivers or vehicles to meet the demand.

Another possible term for this approach is asset-light, and some of the largest hotel chains are embracing a far less technological approach to achieve the same corporate objective. A 2014 article in Medill Reports notes that Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott and Starwood (Marriott recently announced plans to acquire Starwood) have all “adopted what’s known as an ‘asset-light’ model. Using this model, a hospitality company places more emphasis on franchising and managing hotels, rather than being the direct owner of hotel properties. The physical owner of a hotel property pays franchise royalties to the hospitality company for the right to operate under its name.  This strategy requires less capital from the hotel chain.”

Value Proposition Unchanged for Consumers in the Sharing Economy

However you define it, the sharing economy is a disruptive force in a slew of industries, particularly travel, consumer goods, services, taxis, bicycles and car rental, finance, music, employment and waste. And the disruption may be long-term if the new businesses permanently change consumers’ attitudes towards ownership. In the PwC study, 81% of people familiar with the sharing economy agreed that “it is less expensive to share goods than to own them individually” and 57% agreed, “Access is the new ownership.”

Shelby Clark, CEO of Peers described the disruption in the automotive sector. “I think the biggest change that we’re seeing here is that people are choosing to buy mobility as opposed to just buying a car.” Or as the saying goes, “I don’t need a drill, I need a hole in the wall.”

Whether attitudes towards ownership change for good remains to be seen. Another supposed aspect of disruption seems far less likely to endure. While 78% of the people surveyed by PwC said that the new sharing companies helped build a stronger community and 86% agreed that it was more fun doing business with these “upstarts” than with traditional companies, research published in the Journal of Consumer Research takes issue with this “romanticized view on access.”

According to the researchers, Giana M. Eckhardt (Royal Holloway University of London) and Fleura Bardhi (City University London), users of Zipcar “don’t feel any of the reciprocal obligations that arise when sharing with one another. They experience Zipcar in the anonymous way one experiences a hotel; they know others have used the cars, but have no desire to interact with them. They don’t view other Zipsters as co-sharers of the cars, but rather are mistrustful of them, and rely on the company to police the sharing system so it’s equitable for everyone.”

In fact, companies take the trust issue very seriously. Some go so far as to carefully vet those they do business with. DogVacay has a five-step screening process that certifies only 15% of applicants to offer dog sitting services. TaskRabbit runs identity and criminal record checks as well as in-person interviews. And many companies provide some level of insurance.

“Consumers simply want to make savvy purchases, and access economy companies allow them to achieve this, by offering more convenience at  lower price.” — Giana M. Eckhardt and Fleura Bardhi, researchers

Virtually all the sharing companies establish trust through crowdsourcing. Online reviews are at the heart of the sharing economy. Before anyone agrees to use an Uber driver, rent an Airbnb room, sleep on a Couchsurfing couch or hire a TaskRabbit handyman, they check out what others who’ve used the particular service have to say. And companies facilitate this through easy-to-use technology and easy–to-understand rating systems.

If community and trust are not key variables in the value proposition for the sharing economy, what is important is what has always been of most value to consumers: convenience and cost. In the PwC survey, 86% and 83% respectively agreed that sharing companies make life more affordable and more convenient and efficient. According to Eckhardt and Bardhi, “Our research shows that consumers simply want to make savvy purchases, and access economy companies allow them to achieve this, by offering more convenience at  lower price.”

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• Aims and Background
• What is the Great Transition?
• Why a Great Transition?
• Global Scenarios
• Publications

Juliet Schor

The “sharing economy” has attracted a great deal of attention in recent months. Platforms such as Airbnb and Uber are experiencing explosive growth, which, in turn, has led to regulatory and political battles. Boosters claim the new technologies will yield utopian outcomes—empowerment of ordinary people, efficiency, and even lower carbon footprints. Critics denounce them for being about economic self-interest rather than sharing, and for being predatory and exploitative. Not surprisingly, the reality is more complex. This essay, based on more than three years of study of both non-profit and for-profit initiatives in the “sharing economy,” discusses what’s new and not so new about the sector and how the claims of proponents and critics stack up. While the for-profit companies may be “acting badly,” these new technologies of peer-to-peer economic activity are potentially powerful tools for building a social movement centered on genuine practices of sharing and cooperation in the production and consumption of goods and services. But achieving that potential will require democratizing the ownership and governance of the platforms.

Introduction | What is the Sharing Economy? | Why Share? | How Green is the Sharing Economy? | Does the Sharing Economy Build Social Capital? | Exploiting Labor? | Organized Sharers? | Conclusion: Creating a Movement | Endnotes

Introduction

Earlier this year, hundreds of people gathered in a downtown San Francisco venue to celebrate—and debate—the “sharing economy.” The term covers a sprawling range of digital platforms and offline activities, from financially successful companies like Airbnb, a peer-to-peer lodging service, to smaller initiatives such as repair collectives and tool libraries. Many organizations have been eager to position themselves under the “big tent” of the sharing economy because of the positive symbolic meaning of sharing, the magnetism of innovative digital technologies, and the rapidly growing volume of sharing activity.

While boosterism has been the rule in this sector, a strong contingent at the conference questioned whether the popular claim that the sharing economy is fairer, lower-carbon, and more transparent, participatory, and socially-connected is anything more than rhetoric for the large, monied players. Janelle Orsi, an activist lawyer, opened with a provocative challenge: “How are we going to harness the sharing economy to spread the wealth?” The Airbnbs of the world and their venture capitalist backers are siphoning off too much value, she and others argued. Discussions of labor exploitation, race to the bottom dynamics, perverse eco-impacts, unequal access for low-income and minority communities, and the status of regulation and taxation engaged attendees throughout the next two days.

Over the last year, these and related debates have been raging within and outside the sharing community. Will the sector evolve in line with its stated progressive, green, and utopian goals, or will it devolve into business as usual? This moment is reminiscent of the early days of the Internet, when many believed that digital connection would become a force for empowerment. The tendency of platforms to scale and dominate (think Google, Facebook, and Amazon) offers a cautionary tale. So, too, does the history of Zipcar. Once the face of the sharing economy, it is now a sub-brand of Avis. Will other sharing platforms follow similar trajectories as they grow? Or will the sharing economy be the disruptive, world-changing innovation its proponents expect? And if it is, will it change the world for the better? It is too early for definitive answers to these questions, but important to ask them. 1

While many of the most visible platforms in the sharing economy began in the United States, sharing has become a global phenomenon, both because of the expansion of platforms to other countries, and because the idea of sharing has caught on around the world. Platforms are proliferating throughout Europe, where cities are becoming centers of “sharing” practices. Paris, for example, has become the annual home of the “OuiShare” fest. The Arab world has a raft of new sharing innovations, Colombia has become a sharing hub in Latin America, and Seoul is a center of sharing. Last year, the government of Ecuador launched Buen Conocer, an initiative to radically reimagine the nation according to principles of sharing—open networks, open production, and an economy of the commons. While the politics of these sharing efforts differ across the globe, what is common is the desire among participants to create fairer, more sustainable, and more socially connected societies.

I became interested in the sharing economy in 2008 while I was writing a book about a transition to a small-scale, ecologically sustainable economy. 2 At that time, I predicted a decline in full-time employment, as well as the need to reduce working hours as a method of controlling carbon emissions. I proposed a new household model in which people would have diverse sources of income, and would access goods and services through varied low-cost channels. With enough of a safety net and sufficient public goods, such a world could yield greater freedom, autonomy, and quality of life. If it were able to provide decent earnings and reasonably low prices, the sharing economy could be an important component of that new model. Today, however, with the corporatization of a number of the leading players, the role of the sharing economy in a just and sustainable transition is an open question.

It is timely to step back and take stock of what has happened and how the arguments both for and against the sharing economy stack up. Because my research has focused on the United States, this essay will do so as well, returning to the global dimensions of sharing in the conclusion. I begin with a brief review of what the sharing economy is, where it came from, and why people are participating in it. I will then consider the sharing economy’s impacts on ecological well-being and social connection. I conclude with the question of whether these new technologies and practices can lead to new forms of organizing that may be part of a citizens movement for a fairer and more sustainable economy.

What is the Sharing Economy?

Coming up with a solid definition of the sharing economy that reflects common usage is nearly impossible. There is great diversity among activities as well as baffling boundaries drawn by participants. TaskRabbit, an “errands” site, is often included, but Mechanical Turk (Amazon’s online labor market) is not. Airbnb is practically synonymous with the sharing economy, but traditional bed and breakfasts are left out. Lyft, a ride service company, claims to be in, but Uber, another ride service company, does not. Shouldn’t public libraries and parks count? When I posed these questions to a few sharing innovators, they were pragmatic, rather than analytical: self-definition by the platforms and the press defines who is in and who is out.

Sharing economy activities fall into four broad categories: recirculation of goods, increased utilization of durable assets, exchange of services, and sharing of productive assets. The origins of the first date to 1995 with the founding of eBay and Craigslist, two marketplaces for recirculation of goods that are now firmly part of the mainstream consumer experience. These sites were propelled by nearly two decades of heavy acquisition of cheap imports that led to a proliferation of unwanted items. 3 In addition, sophisticated software reduced the traditionally high transaction costs of secondary markets, and at eBay, reputational information on sellers was crowdsourced from buyers, thereby reducing the risks of transacting with strangers. By 2010, many similar sites had launched, including ThredUp and Threadflip for apparel, free exchange sites like Freecycle and Yerdle, and barter sites such as Swapstyle.com. Online exchange now includes “thick,” or dense, markets in apparel, books, and toys, as well as thinner markets for sporting equipment, furniture, and home goods.

The second type of platform facilitates using durable goods and other assets more intensively. In wealthy nations, households purchase products or hold property that is not used to capacity (e.g., spare rooms and lawn mowers). Here, the innovator was Zipcar, a company that placed vehicles in convenient urban locations and offered hourly rentals. After the 2009 recession, renting assets became more economically attractive, and similar initiatives proliferated. In transportation, these include car rental sites (Relay Rides), ride sharing (Zimride), ride services (Uber, UberX, Lyft), and bicycle sharing (Boston’s Hubway or Chicago’s Divvy Bikes). In the lodging sector, the innovator was Couchsurfing, which began pairing travelers with people who offered rooms or couches without payment back in 1999. Couchsurfing led to Airbnb, which has reported more than 10 million stays. 4

There has also been a revival of non-monetized initiatives such as tool libraries, which arose decades ago in in low-income communities. These efforts are typically neighborhood-based in order to enhance trust and minimize transportation costs for bulky items. New digital platforms include the sharing of durable goods as a component of neighborhood building (e.g., Share Some Sugar, Neighborgoods). These innovations can provide people with low-cost access to goods and space, and some offer opportunities to earn money, often to supplement regular income streams.

The third practice is service exchange. Its origins lie in time banking, which, in the United States, began in the 1980s to provide opportunities for the unemployed. 5 Time banks are community-based, non-profit multilateral barter sites in which services are traded on the basis of time spent, according to the principle that every member’s time is valued equally. In contrast to other platforms, time banks have not grown rapidly, in part because of the demanding nature of maintaining an equal trading ratio. 6 There are also a number of monetized service exchanges, such as Task Rabbit and Zaarly, which pair users who need tasks done with people who do them, although these have encountered difficulties expanding as well.

The fourth category consists of efforts focused on sharing assets or space in order to enable production, rather than consumption. Cooperatives are the historic form these efforts have taken. They have been operating in the US since the nineteenth century, although there has been a recent uptick in new ones. Related initiatives include hackerspaces, which grew out of informal computer hacking sessions; makerspaces, which provide shared tools; and co-working spaces, or communal offices. Other production sites include educational platforms such as Skillshare.com and Peer-to-Peer University that aim to supplant traditional educational institutions by democratizing access to skills and knowledge and promoting peer instruction. 7

In what follows, I will use a number of terms, including providers, consumers, participants, and users. Consumers are those who are buying services, while providers, or suppliers, are offering them. Participants can be on either side of a transaction. Users is also often employed this way. For example, Airbnb calls hosts and guests users, but in other platforms, e.g., Lyft or Uber, users would be riders, rather than drivers. On the other hand, we have found in our research that quite a few people who are providers on a site also use it as consumers, so the distinction is often more useful for transactions than persons.

The operation and the long-term impacts of these platforms are shaped by both their market orientation (for-profit vs. non-profit) and market structure (peer-to-peer vs. business-to-peer). These dimensions shape the platforms’ business models, logics of exchange, and potential for disrupting conventional businesses. Examples of each type are shown in Figure 1.

While all sharing economy platforms effectively create “markets in sharing” by facilitating exchanges, the imperative for a platform to generate a profit influences how sharing takes place and how much revenue devolves to management and owners. For-profit platforms push for revenue and asset maximization. The most successful platforms—Airbnb and Uber, valued at $10 and $18 billion respectively— have strong backing from venture capitalists and are highly integrated into existing economic interests. 8 The introduction of venture capitalists into the space has changed the dynamics of these initiatives, particularly by promoting more rapid expansion.

While some of the platforms present a gentle face to the world, they can also be ruthless. Uber, which is backed by Google and Goldman Sachs, has been engaging in anti-competitive behavior, such as recruiting its competitors’ drivers. While its representatives articulate a neoliberal rhetoric about the virtue of “free markets,” the company is apparently hedging its bets on what “free” markets will deliver for it by hiring Obama campaign manager David Plouffe to bring some old-fashioned political capital to its defense. By contrast, many of the initiatives in the sharing space, such as tool libraries, seed banks, time banks, and food swaps, are non-profits. They do not seek growth or revenue maximization, but instead aim to serve needs, usually at a community scale.

While the for-profit vs. non-profit divide is the most important one, the divide between P2P (peer-to-peer) and B2P (business-to-peer) platforms is also significant. P2P entities earn money by commissions on exchanges, so revenue growth depends on increasing the number of trades. In contrast, B2P platforms often seek to seek to maximize revenue per transaction, as traditional businesses often do. Consider the differences between Zipcar (B2P) and RelayRides (P2P). On RelayRides, owners earn income from renting their own vehicles, choosing trades based on their needs, and setting rates and availability. Zipcar functions like an ordinary short-term car rental company. With a P2P structure, as long as there is competition, the “peers” (both providers and consumers) should be able to capture a higher fraction of value. Of course, when there is little competition, the platform can extract rents, or excess profits, regardless.

Sharing platforms, particularly non-profits that are operating to provide a public benefit, can also function as “public goods.” A tool library is like a public library in many ways, although it is not organized by a government, not typically supported by public funds, and not necessarily governed by a democratic process. Many public goods have a G2P structure (government-to-peer), rather than P2P. But P2P structures can be, and frequently are, democratically organized. 9

Motives for participating in the new sharing economy differ, which is not surprising given the diversity of platforms and activities. Some participants are drawn by the trendiness or novelty of the platforms. It is, however, important to recognize that the novelty about which many participants (and platforms) talk can be an expression of classism and racism. Sharing is not just a relic of pre-modern societies; such practices remain more common in working-class, poor, and minority communities. The discourse of novelty employs a false universalism that can be alienating to people who have maintained non-digital sharing practices in their daily lives.

Beyond novelty and the pull of new technologies, participants tend to be motivated by economic, environmental, and social factors. 10 Sharing economy sites are generally lower in cost than market alternatives. Particularly with P2P sites, value can be redistributed across the supply chain to producers and consumers and away from “middlemen,” in part because producers’ costs are lower. An Airbnb host, for example, can deliver a room more cheaply than a hotel. The platforms’ fees are also lower than what established businesses extract in profits. (Airbnb’s maximum fee is 15%.) Service and labor exchange platforms, whether they are time banks or for-profit platforms like Task Rabbit, extract far less value than traditional agencies that arrange child care, concierge services, or home health care aides. The platforms also allow people to earn money in ways that had not previously been safely or easily available.

Many sites advertise themselves as green and present sharing as a way to reduce carbon footprints. It is a truism among “sharers” that sharing is less resource intensive than the dominant ways of accessing goods and services (e.g., hotels, taxis, shopping malls) because of the assumed reduction in demand for new goods or facilities. The actual environmental impacts of the sites are far more complicated, however, as will be discussed in the following section.

The desire to increase social connections is also a common motivation. Many sites advertise this feature of their activities, and participants often articulate a desire to meet new people or get to know their neighbors. While heartwarming anecdotes about making new friends are plentiful, many platforms fail to deliver durable social ties. For instance, a recent study of carsharing found that the two parties to the transaction often never met on account of remote access technology. 11

Finally, a commitment to social transformation is an important motivator. My Connected Consumption Research Team has found that many respondents emphasize the value of sharing and collaboration, and some are highly critical of capitalism, the operation of the market, and the business-as-usual economy. 12 Ideological motivation, however, varies by site, with less exhibited by earners on platforms such as Airbnb and RelayRides and more by participants in time banks and food swaps.

How Green is the Sharing Economy?

Most sharing economy websites advertise their green credentials, and many users care about their ecological impact. The ecological benefits of sharing are often seen as obvious: secondary markets reduce demand for new goods, so footprints go down. Staying in existing homes reduces the demand for new hotels just as toolsharing reduces new tool purchases. However, despite the widespread belief that the sector helps to reduce carbon emissions, there are almost no comprehensive studies of its impact. At this point, they are long overdue.

An exception is a recent study of carsharing. 13 It found a measurable reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but only because of substantial reductions from a small fraction of households. For the majority, carsharing, by expanding access to cars, increased emissions.

The ordinary assumptions about ecological impacts are generally about the first, visible shifts made by a consumer—purchasing used products rather than new ones, or staying in a private home rather than a hotel. To assess overall ecological impacts, however, we have to consider ripple effects. What does the seller or the host do with the money earned? She may use the money to buy high-impact products. Does the appearance of a market for used goods lead people to buy more new things that they intend to sell later? If travel becomes less expensive, do people do more of it? All of these effects raise ecological and carbon footprints.

There is also the question of impacts at the level of the economy as a whole. The platforms are creating new markets that expand the volume of commerce and boost purchasing power. The larger, for-profit companies are claiming to generate substantial business and income for their providers. If so, they are likely creating economic activity that would not have existed otherwise—more travel, more private automobile rides—and not just shifting purchasing from one type of provider to another. My students and I have found that Airbnb users are taking more trips now and that the availablity of cheap ride services is diverting some people from public transportation. That means the platforms result in higher carbon emissions, because their services use energy. The companies can’t have it both ways—creating new economic activity and reducing carbon emissions—because the two are closely linked.

Does the Sharing Economy Build Social Capital?

While the discourse of novelty in this sector is overrated, there is something new afoot: what I call “stranger sharing.” Although there are exceptions (e.g., elite travelers in ancient Greece), people have historically limited sharing to within their own social networks. Today’s sharing platforms facilitate sharing among people who do not know each other and who do not have friends or connections in common. Stranger sharing entails higher degrees of risk, and many of today’s exchanges are quite intimate—sharing one’s home or car, going into strangers’ homes to do work, or eating food prepared by unknown cooks. The platforms reduce risk by posting information on users via feedback and ratings. This points to a second novel dimension—the use of digital technology to reduce transactions costs, create opportunities in real time, and crowdsource information. The uniqueness of this new sharing economy is that it mobilizes technology, markets, and the “wisdom of crowds” to bring strangers together.

Many sites in the sharing space advertise social connection as a core outcome of their activity. But do these sites actually build friendships, networks, and social trust? The evidence is mixed. Stanford sociologist Paolo Parigi and his colleagues have found that Couchsurfing does, in fact, lead to new friendships. However, the ability of the platform to create such connections, especially close ones, has declined since its inception in 2003. Users have become “disenchanted” as the relationships they form are now more casual and less durable. 14 Other studies have found that social connection can be elusive, with time bank participants expressing disappointment in the degree of social connection they gained and RelayRides users describing their interactions as “anonymous” and “sterile.” 15

The role of ratings and reputational information is at the center of questions about social capital. The conventional wisdom is that the provision of crowdsourced information on users is what leads people to feel safe about interacting in intimate ways with strangers. 16 Parigi’s research, however, uncovered a paradox: the more reputational information the site provided about people, the less users formed strong bonds. Venturing into unknown territory with strangers may be more of the appeal of some sites than their ability to master a utilitarian calculus of risk and reward.

Sharing economy sites can also reproduce class, gender, and racial biases and hierarchies. In our research at a food swap, my team and I found that cultural capital, a type of class privilege, limited the trades members were willing to make. Only participants with the “right” offerings, packaging, appearance, or “taste” received offers or, in some cases, even felt comfortable returning. In our time bank research, we found that some people screen potential trading partners by grammar and education, and that many highly educated people were unwilling to offer their most valuable skills (like programming or web design), preferring instead to act as amateur electricians or manual workers. 17 A recent study also reported evidence of racial discrimination among Airbnb users, finding that non-black hosts were able to charge 12% more than blacks for comparable properties. 18

Exploiting Labor?

The debut of the sharing economy was marked by plenty of language about doing good, building social connections, saving the environment, and providing economic benefits to ordinary people. It was a feel-good story in which technological and economic innovation ushered in a better economic model. Especially in the aftermath of the financial crash, this positive narrative was hard to resist. Social activists flocked to these initiatives, hoping to piggyback on their popularity. Maybe, they thought, digital P2P platforms could be a pathway to a true grassroots, inclusive, fair, and lowimpact economy.

Dean Baker, a progressive economist, claims the new sharing is “largely based on evading regulations and breaking the law” and subjects consumers to a substandard, possibly unsafe product. 19 Anthony Kalamar has called out “sharewashing,” in which platforms shift risk onto employees under the guise of “sharing.” 20 Tom Slee, writing in Jacobin , has challenged Airbnb’s claim that its users are single individuals earning small amounts of extra money, finding that half the revenue generated in New York City accrues to hosts with multiple listings. 21

The central theme of the critics is that for-profit platforms have coopted what began as a progressive, socially transformative idea. Are they right? Regarding regulation, insurance, and taxation, the platforms are mobilizing political support, and, my experience suggests that they seem to be generally accepting of the idea that some regulation is necessary. Because most of the action is at the local and state level, there is a great deal of variation. But the trend seems to be towards a light regulatory touch that will allow the platforms to operate and grow.

There is less clarity about how the platforms are affecting labor conditions. Critics see them as architects of a growing “precariat,” a class on the precarious edge of economic security, and argue that the impetus for sharing is not trust, but desperation. 22 From the perspective of drivers, errand-runners, and hosts, they describe a race to the bottom, with risk-shifting from companies to individual “microentrepreneurs.”

Part of the difficulty in assessing the impact of these new earning opportunities is that they are being introduced during a period of high unemployment and rapid labor market restructuring. Working conditions and protections are already being eroded, real wages are declining, and labor’s share of national income in the US has declined to historic lows. If the labor market continues to worsen for workers, their conditions will continue to erode, and it will not be because of sharing opportunities. Alternatively, if labor markets improve, sharers can demand more of the platforms because they have better alternatives. The two effects will work in opposite directions: with destruction of demand for legacy businesses and growth for sharing companies.

We also need to consider the diversity of industries in which sharing platforms are operating. Some sectors are characterized by high rents that are easy to capture with disruptive technologies. Consider taxis. The biggest impact is likely the erosion in the value of medallions, the licenses they must possess to operate, because these medallions yield pure rents. While drivers in conventional operations may be capturing some of this excess profit, they are already facing adverse market conditions and, in many places, earning low hourly wages, as they are forced to pay high leasing and other fees to the owners of the medallions and vehicles. Union members fare better, but could they do better with Uber? Many have switched in hopes that they can. So far, though, the results are mixed, in part because they face increasing competition from platforms like UberX and Lyft, on which drivers use their own cars. And early high returns have been reduced by Uber’s fare cuts, which have led to driver protests and organizing efforts.

An online platform with a good rating system should improve labor conditions. Consider the market for home health aides, where agencies currently take an enormous fraction of hourly fees, sometimes more than half. 23 A P2P matching platform would take a lower fraction, enabling low-paid workers to earn considerably more and have more autonomy over which jobs they accept. Where owners, agencies, or other actors are extracting rents, P2P platforms should do what they claim—distribute value to consumers and producers and away from gatekeepers and rent extractors.

Ultimately, the question is about how much value providers on these platforms can capture. This depends partly on whether they can organize themselves, a question the next section will explore. But there is another dimension, which is whether there is competition among platforms. Will they come to monopolize a given space, as we have seen in the areas of search, social media, and retail (Google, Facebook, Amazon)? Or are these P2P enterprises different? What they are offering is software, insurance, ratings, and a critical mass of participants. These are functions that can be replicated. For example, if the volume of users continues to grow, then critical mass may be achievable on multiple platforms. The ratings systems are not yet very good, and there are already start-ups attempting to delink ratings from individual platforms. Insurance can also be unbundled. At the May conference, venture capitalist Brad Burnham predicted a coming round of cost-squeezing akin to the cost-squeezing that the start-ups are inflicting on legacy businesses. On the other hand, the more the platforms are backed by and integrated with the large corporations that dominate the economy, the more monopolized the sector will be, and the less likely value will flow to providers and consumers.

Organized Sharers?

An alternative to the co-optation path is one in which sharing entities become part of a larger movement that seeks to redistribute wealth and foster participation, ecological protection, and social connection. This will only happen via organization, even unionization, of users. Indeed, the question of whether providers should organize is now firmly on the table, although it is too early to know how things will evolve. 24

Airbnb has begun to encourage its users to organize. In 2013, the global head of “community” at the company co-founded Peers.org, an attempt to build a social movement of sharers. Not long after, Airbnb created its own organizing platform for guests, hosts, and employees, which has led to the creation of numerous local groups of users who are coming together on and offline for a variety of purposes, including sharing advice and affecting public policy. The company wants these groups to push for favorable regulation. But they may develop agendas of their own, including making demands of the company itself, such as setting price floors for providers, pushing risk back onto the platforms, or reducing excessive returns to the entrepreneurs and the venture capitalists. On the labor exchanges, where the need for organization is perhaps most acute, providers could push for minimum wages.

Existing platforms could also potentially become user-governed or cooperatively owned, an outcome some voices within the community are advocating. The platforms’ discourse borrows heavily from the peer production world and emphasizes the ability of these technologies to empower ordinary individuals. As many online communities have shown, the online environment can be conducive to organizing against unpopular policies, software changes, and practices. The fact that users create so much of the value in these spaces militates in favor of their being able to capture it, should they organize to do so. To date, that type of movement has not developed, but it still might.

Alternately, organizations that are part of the solidarity sector, such as unions, churches, civil society groups, and cooperatives, could create platforms for their members. They could build alternatives to the for-profits, particularly if the software to operate these exchanges is not too expensive. These platforms could be usergoverned and/or owned. For example, a taxi cooperative in Portland, Oregon, has adopted the technology used by ride sharing companies and will effectively morph into a driver-owned Lyft or Uber. In general, mounting a competitive challenge to business-as-usual should be easier when production is P2P because the platform is a broker, not a producer. This is one of the reasons the sharing platforms have grown so rapidly, while efforts to create worker cooperatives have yielded so few new enterprises and jobs. In the end, though, it is not just about economics. The key to making sharing economies socially just is to emphasize an explicit politics of sharing, as well as nurturing collective, public forms of sharing.

Conclusion: Creating a Movement

So what are we to make of the sharing economy? There is little doubt that the prosharing discourse is blind to the dark side of these innovations. At the same time, the critics are too cynical. There is potential in this sector for creating new businesses that allocate value more fairly, that are more democratically organized, that reduce eco-footprints, and that can bring people together in new ways. That is why there has been so much excitement about the sharing economy. The emergence of P2P communities that share goods, space, and labor services can be the foundation of a new household model in which people are less dependent on employers and more able to diversify their access to income, goods, and services. But the early stage goodwill from the big platforms will dissipate as they become incorporated into the business-as-usual economy. We are at a critical juncture in which users’ organizing for fair treatment, demands for eco-accountability, and attention to whether human connections are strengthened through these technologies can make a critical difference in realizing the potential of the sharing model. There is an enormous amount of new economic value being created in this space. It is imperative that it flow equitably to all participants. After all, that is what we ordinarily call sharing.

Ultimately, the ability of the new sharing practices to help catalyze a social transition may also depend on the form these initiatives take around the world. As the sharing economy expands in Europe, its practices are likely to be embedded in political, regulatory, and social contexts which are more attuned to the stated values of fairness, sustainability, openness, and cooperation. In Latin America, the leftward shift toward social solidarity, poverty alleviation, and democracy also suggests a context more conducive to a cooperative and community-oriented sharing movement, as we have seen in Ecuador. For those of us in countries where the pressures to commodify and concentrate value from these platforms are most intense, these developments can reveal possibilities.

Outside the US, the impetus to share in transportation, housing, foods, and goods is more integrally tied to city-level goals of carbon emission reduction, informational transparency and genuine democracy. By embedding sharing practices within those larger municipal level movements, the likelihood that the sharing movement can achieve its stated goals is greater. My hunch is that the more that US sharing activists connect with other sharers around the globe, the more success we will have in pushing the goals of eco-accountability, value distribution, and social solidarity. This also means an openness to and ideally connection with other social movements that are already active on these issues. Ultimately, a cross-fertilization could both create accountability for the sharing platforms and organizations and embed sharing practices and cooperative economic activity into the DNA of the social movements.

The sharing economy has been propelled by exciting new technologies. The ease with which individuals, even strangers, can now connect, exchange, share information, and cooperate is truly transformative. That’s the promise of the sharing platforms about which virtually everyone agrees. But technologies are only as good as the political and social context in which they are employed. Software, crowdsourcing, and the information commons give us powerful tools for building social solidarity, democracy, and sustainability. Now our task is to build a movement to harness that power.

1. Over the past three years, I have been conducting qualitative research on the sharing economy funded by the MacArthur Foundation ( http://clrn.dmlhub.net/projects/connected-consumption ). My research team has conducted seven cases: three non-profits (a time bank, a food swap, and maker-space), three for-profits (Airbnb, RelayRides, and Task Rabbit), and one hybrid (open-access education). We have done more than 150 interviews and more than 500 hours of participant observation. 2. Juliet B. Schor, True Wealth: How and Why Millions of Americans Are Creating a Time-rich, Ecologically-light, Small-scale, High-satisfaction Economy (New York: The Penguin Press 2011). 3. Ibid. 4. Ryan Lawler, “Airbnb Tops 10 Million Guest Stays Since Launch, Now Has 550,000 Properties Listed Worldwide,” December 19, 2013, http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/19/airbnb-10m/ . 5. Edgar Cahn and Jonathan Rowe, Time Dollars (Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, 1992). 6. Emilie Dubois, Juliet Schor, and Lindsey Carfagna,“New Cultures of Connection in a Boston Time Bank,” in Practicing Plenitude , eds. Juliet B. Schor and Craig J. Thompson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014). 7. It is worth noting the historical and global connections between the sharing platforms and other types of P2P activity. The collaborative software movement, which harnesses the unpaid work of software engineers to write code and solve problems collectively, paved the way for file-sharing, video posting, and crowdsourcing information, as seen in Wikipedia or citizen science. The global “commons” movement is encouraging peer production and the information commons, as well as the protection of ecological commons. 8. Andrew Ross Sorkin, “Why Uber Might Well be Worth $18 Billion,” New York Times , June 9, 2014, http:// dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/how-uber-pulls-in-billions-all-via-iphone/ ; Evelyn Rusli, Douglas MacMillan, and Mike Spector, “Airbnb Is in Advanced Talks to Raise Funds at a $10 Billion Valuation,” Wall Street Journal , March 21, 2014, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303802104579451022670668410 . 9. For more on sharing and public goods, see Julian Ageyman, Duncan McLaren, and Adrianne Schaefer-Borrego, “Sharing Cities,” Briefing for the Friends of the Earth Big Ideas Project, September 2013, http://www.foe.co.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/agyeman_sharing_cities.pdf . 10. Technophilia also spurs participation. People enjoy the sophisticated interfaces offered by many sites and like using the internet to do things quickly and easily. Many users have been “digitally primed” by years of sharing files or contributing information online. 11. Anny Fenton, “Making Markets Personal: Exploring Market Construction at the Micro Level in the Car-sharing and Time Bank Markets,” Unpublished paper, Harvard University, 2013. 12. Dubois, Schor, and Carfagna, op. cit. 13. Elliott W. Martin and Susan A. Shaheen, Greenhouse Gas Impacts of Car Sharing in North America , Mineta Transportation Institute Report 09-11 (San Jose, CA: Mineta Transportation Institute, 2010). 14. Paolo Parigi and Bogdan State, “Disenchanting the World: The Impact of Technology on Relationships,” Unpublished paper, Stanford University, n.d. 15. Dubois, Schor, and Carfagna, op. cit.; Fenton, op. cit. 16. Recent studies have found inaccuracies in ratings systems, especially the tendency to overrate positive features and under-report bad experiences. A colleague and I review recent studies in Juliet B. Schor and Connor Fitzmaurice, “Collaborating and Connecting: The Emergence of a Sharing Economy,” in Handbook on Research on Sustainable Consumption , eds. Lucia Reisch and John Thogersen (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar), 2015. 17. Juliet B. Schor et al., “Paradoxes of Openness and Distinction in the Sharing Economy,” Unpublished paper, Boston College, 2014. 18. Benjamin Hardin and Michael Luca, “Digital Discrimination: The Case of Airbnb,” Harvard Business School Working Papers, 2014. 19. Dean Baker, “Don’t Buy the ‘Sharing Economy’ Hype: Aibnb and Uber Are Facilitating Ripoffs,” The Guardian , May 27, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/27/airbnb-uber-taxes-regulation . 20. Anthony Kalamar, “Sharewashing is the New Greenwashing,” OpEd News , May 13, 2013, http://www.opednews.com/articles/Sharewashing-is-the-New-Gr-by-Anthony-Kalamar-130513-834.html . 21. Tom Slee, “Sharing and Caring,” Jacobin Magazine , January 24, 2014, https://www.jacobinmag. com/2014/01/sharing-and-caring/ . 22. Kevin Roose, “The Sharing Economy Isn’t About Trust, It’s About Desperation,” New York Magazine , April 24, 2014, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/04/sharing-economy-is-about-desperation.html . 23. Jane Gross, “Home Health Aides: What They Make, What They Cost,” New York Times , December 30, 2008, http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/home-health-aides-what-they-make-what-they-cost/ . 24. Uber and Lyft drivers have begun unionization efforts in various cities. Union representatives were at the San Francisco conference, and unionization has emerged as a topic of conversation among sharing innovators. This year, the National Freelancers’ Union opened a benefits desk offering insurance, 401(k) plans and other benefits for “independent” laborers in a variety of companies, including Lyft.

Cite as Juliet Schor, "Debating the Sharing Economy," Great Transition Initiative (October 2014), http://www.greattransition.org/publication/debating-the-sharing-economy .

As an initiative for collectively understanding and shaping the global future, GTI welcomes diverse ideas. Thus, the opinions expressed in our publications do not necessarily reflect the views of GTI or the Tellus Institute.

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What Is the Sharing Economy?

• How It Works
• How It's Evolving

The Gift Economy

The bottom line.

• Fundamental Analysis
• Sectors & Industries

Sharing Economy: Model Defined, Criticisms, and How It's Evolving

Gordon Scott has been an active investor and technical analyst or 20+ years. He is a Chartered Market Technician (CMT).

Katrina Ávila Munichiello is an experienced editor, writer, fact-checker, and proofreader with more than fourteen years of experience working with print and online publications.

The sharing economy is a peer-to-peer  (P2P) economic model. It facilitates acquiring, providing, or sharing access to goods and services. Sharing economies have existed throughout history, but in modern times the sharing economy is experiencing a revival with the support of community-based online platforms.

Key Takeaways

• The sharing economy involves short-term peer-to-peer transactions to share the use of idle assets and services or to facilitate collaboration.
• Today's sharing economy is often conducted using online platforms that connect buyers and sellers.
• The sharing economy is rapidly growing and evolving but faces significant challenges in the form of regulatory uncertainty, as well as concerns about abuses.

Understanding the Sharing Economy

Communities of people have shared assets for thousands of years. In modern times, the advent of the Internet—and its use of big data —has made it easier for asset owners and those seeking to use those assets to find each other within their communities.

The modern sharing economy is also referred to as the share economy, collaborative consumption, collaborative economy, or peer economy.

Sharing economies allow individuals and groups to make money from their underused assets, their free time, or both. In a sharing economy, idle assets such as parked cars and spare bedrooms can be rented out short term. In this way, physical assets are shared as services.

A car-sharing service like Zipcar is an example of a sharing economy service. Zipcar participants can make use of daily or hourly car rentals, with the vehicles parked close to their homes rather than at a traditional car rental agency, rather than owning a private vehicle. According to data from the Brookings Institute, private vehicles went unused for 95% of their lifetime in 2017.

The same report detailed Airbnb’s cost advantage over hotel space as homeowners made use of spare bedrooms. Airbnb rates were reported to be between 30-60% cheaper than hotel rates around the world.

How the Sharing Economy is Evolving

The sharing economy has evolved over the past few years to encompass a wide range of online economic transactions that may even include business to business (B2B) interactions.

Other platforms that have joined the sharing economy include:

• Co-Working Platforms : Companies that provide shared open workspaces for freelancers, entrepreneurs, and work-from-home employees in major cities.
• Peer-to-Peer Lending Platforms : Individuals lend money to other individuals at rates cheaper than those available from traditional lenders.
• Fashion Platforms : Individuals sell or rent their clothes.
• Freelancing Platforms : Freelance workers from writers to handymen find jobs posted by individuals or businesses.

In 2017, the Brookings Institute predicted that the sharing economy would grow from $14 billion in 2014 to a forecasted $335 billion by 2025. Those numbers increased dramatically within a few years. In 2022, Allied Market Research valued the market value of the sharing economy at $387.1 billion and projected that it would reach $827.1 billion by 2032.

Criticisms of the Sharing Economy

The sharing economy can create more economic flexibility for participants, allowing them to make extra money while at the same time decreasing the resources that each individual needs to own. However, there are criticisms of the way the sharing model has grown and changed over time.

Regulation and Government Oversight

Criticism of the sharing economy often involves regulatory uncertainty. Many of the services offered on these platforms are intended to replace industries that are highly regulated by federal, state, or local authorities, for example, taxicabs and hotels. Individuals offering short-term rental services may not be following government regulations or paying the fees. This could allow them to charge lower prices. It also opens the door to incompetent and even unscrupulous competitors.

The lack of government oversight can lead to a risk of serious abuses of buyers and sellers in the sharing economy, such as a lack of privacy or the unfair treatment of contractors. Even when laws are in place to regulate sharing platforms, those laws are not always followed.

For example, in Virginia, multiple cities and counties claim that Airbnb has avoided sharing the data necessary to determine whether it is paying the correct local and state taxes. Regulators are concerned that this lack of transparency is intended to hide information like units illegally operating as Airbnb rentals.

Bias Within Platforms

There is also a concern that information shared on an online platform can create racial and gender bias among users. This can happen when users are allowed to choose who they will share their homes or vehicles with, or because of implicit statistical discrimination by algorithms.

Moving Away From the Sharing Economy

The growth of many sharing economy services has led to a model that is organized less around sharing. Instead, contractors use sharing platforms to create full-time businesses, becoming similar to the commercial services the sharing economy was initially meant to replace.

For example, Airbnb originally encouraged hosts to rent out unused rooms in their own houses, or to rent out their houses when they were away from home. As the popularity of the service grew, however, many Airbnb units became full-time private rentals. This has led to concerns that, rather than promoting the sharing economy, Airbnb has contributed to rising housing and rental costs, as hosts buy properties to use solely as rental units. This decreases the supply of both long-term rental units and houses for sale.

The gift economy, in which participants do not charge each other money for the things they share or do, has arisen in response to perceived failures in the sharing economy. This model is organized around principles of community support and sustainable reuse.

Examples of the gift economy include:

• The Buy Nothing Project: Locally managed neighborhood groups that give or loan each other goods and services for free
• Repair cafés: Pop-up events in which volunteers help neighbors repair items or appliances rather than buying new ones
• Tool libraries: Local hubs for borrowing tools rather than owning them
• Little Free Library: A nonprofit that enables participants to create book-sharing boxes in their front yards where neighbors can leave or take books

Many public libraries also allow patrons to borrow children's toys, tools, home appliances, and other shared items in addition to books and movies.

How Is the Sharing Economy More Environmentally Sustainable?

The sharing economy is often cited as environmentally beneficial because it allows existing resources to be used more efficiently. An Uber driver sells rides to many people who otherwise would have to buy vehicles. A co-working space provides all of the equipment and space needed for a large number of home offices.

What Is the Downside of the Sharing Economy?

Consider an alternate name for the sharing economy: the gig economy. Some of its participants appreciate the freedom and flexibility that has been made feasible as the sharing economy has grown. However, this also allows businesses to shift away from hiring full-time workers to hiring more contractors. This decreases the number of jobs available that offer stable benefits such as regular pay, health insurance, sick leave, and paid vacation time.

How Does the Share Economy Differ From the Conventional Economy?

The share economy has several distinct characteristics:

• It allows direct interaction between buyer and seller, without a retail go-between.
• It's a short-term commitment for one job, not a contract for ongoing services.
• It stretches one person's resources or skills to serve many others.

The sharing economy has enabled many people to live a life that is relatively independent and flexible while sharing their resources and talents with others like them. It can allow participants to make extra money by pooling unused resources, which decreases the resources that each individual needs to own.

However, there are concerns and criticisms of the sharing economy. Most peer-to-peer participants rely on access to sophisticated trading platforms to connect, and these platforms are backed by large businesses that take a big slice of the profits for themselves and may not follow government regulations. As these models evolve, many of them become full-time businesses rather than embracing the short-term sharing of resources within the community.

Governance Studies at Brookings. " The Current and Future State of the Sharing Economy ," Page 3.

Allied Market Research. " Sharing Economy Market Research, 2032 ."

The Daily Progress. " Cities and Counties Across Virginia Say Airbnb Is Breaking the Law ."

Airbnb. " Fighting Discrimination and Building Inclusion ."

Forbes. " The Airbnb Effect on Housing and Rent ."

Buy Nothing Project. " About ."

Repair Cafe. " About ."

Little Free Library. " About Us ."

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• DOI: 10.22381/jsme4320161
• Corpus ID: 157260860

DEBATING THE SHARING ECONOMY

• Published 2016
• Environmental Science, Economics

881 Citations

The passions and the interests: unpacking the 'sharing economy'.

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Sharing Economy—Another Approach to Value Creation

Political economies and environmental futures for the sharing economy, the trap of success: a paradox of scale for sharing economy and degrowth, the sharing economy: rhetoric and reality, does the sharing economy hurt the traditional economy evidence in the hospitality industry from the united states, understanding the sharing economy, the sharing economy: definition, measurement and its relationship to capitalism, the emergence of the sharing economy: implications for development, sharing economy in romania - is sharing the future of business, 24 references, paradoxes of openness and distinction in the sharing economy, the sharing economy and digital discrimination: the case of airbnb, disenchanting the world: the impact of technology on relationships, the impact of technology on relationships within organizations, sharing and caring., this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 4.0 international license, related papers.

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• The rise of the sharing economy

On the internet, everything is for hire

LAST night 40,000 people rented accommodation from a service that offers 250,000 rooms in 30,000 cities in 192 countries. They chose their rooms and paid for everything online. But their beds were provided by private individuals, rather than a hotel chain. Hosts and guests were matched up by Airbnb, a firm based in San Francisco. Since its launch in 2008 more than 4m people have used it—2.5m of them in 2012 alone. It is the most prominent example of a huge new “sharing economy”, in which people rent beds, cars, boats and other assets directly from each other, co-ordinated via the internet.

You might think this is no different from running a bed-and-breakfast, owning a timeshare or participating in a car pool. But technology has reduced transaction costs, making sharing assets cheaper and easier than ever—and therefore possible on a much larger scale. The big change is the availability of more data about people and things, which allows physical assets to be disaggregated and consumed as services. Before the internet, renting a surfboard, a power tool or a parking space from someone else was feasible, but was usually more trouble than it was worth. Now websites such as Airbnb, RelayRides and SnapGoods match up owners and renters; smartphones with GPS let people see where the nearest rentable car is parked; social networks provide a way to check up on people and build trust; and online payment systems handle the billing.

What’s mine is yours, for a fee

Just as peer-to-peer businesses like eBay allow anyone to become a retailer, sharing sites let individuals act as an ad hoc taxi service, car-hire firm or boutique hotel as and when it suits them. Just go online or download an app. The model works for items that are expensive to buy and are widely owned by people who do not make full use of them. Bedrooms and cars are the most obvious examples, but you can also rent camping spaces in Sweden, fields in Australia and washing machines in France. As proponents of the sharing economy like to put it, access trumps ownership.

Rachel Botsman, the author of a book on the subject, says the consumer peer-to-peer rental market alone is worth $26 billion. Broader definitions of the sharing economy include peer-to-peer lending (though cash is hardly a spare fixed asset) or putting a solar panel on your roof and selling power back to the grid (though that looks a bit like becoming a utility). And it is not just individuals: the web makes it easier for companies to rent out spare offices and idle machines, too. But the core of the sharing economy is people renting things from each other.

Such “collaborative consumption” is a good thing for several reasons. Owners make money from underused assets. Airbnb says hosts in San Francisco who rent out their homes do so for an average of 58 nights a year, making $9,300. Car owners who rent their vehicles to others using RelayRides make an average of $250 a month; some make more than $1,000. Renters, meanwhile, pay less than they would if they bought the item themselves, or turned to a traditional provider such as a hotel or car-hire firm. (It is not surprising that many sharing firms got going during the financial crisis.) And there are environmental benefits, too: renting a car when you need it, rather than owning one, means fewer cars are required and fewer resources must be devoted to making them.

For sociable souls, meeting new people by staying in their homes is part of the charm. Curmudgeons who imagine that every renter is Norman Bates can still stay at conventional hotels. For others, the web fosters trust. As well as the background checks carried out by platform owners, online reviews and ratings are usually posted by both parties to each transaction, which makes it easy to spot lousy drivers, bathrobe-pilferers and surfboard-wreckers. By using Facebook and other social networks, participants can check each other out and identify friends (or friends of friends) in common. An Airbnb user had her apartment trashed in 2011. But the remarkable thing is how well the system usually works.

Peering into the future

The sharing economy is a little like online shopping, which started in America 15 years ago. At first, people were worried about security. But having made a successful purchase from, say, Amazon, they felt safe buying elsewhere. Similarly, using Airbnb or a car-hire service for the first time encourages people to try other offerings. Next, consider eBay. Having started out as a peer-to-peer marketplace, it is now dominated by professional “power sellers” (many of whom started out as ordinary eBay users). The same may happen with the sharing economy, which also provides new opportunities for enterprise. Some people have bought cars solely to rent them out, for example.

Incumbents are getting involved too. Avis, a car-hire firm, has a share in a sharing rival. So do GM and Daimler, two carmakers. In future, companies may develop hybrid models, listing excess capacity (whether vehicles, equipment or office space) on peer-to-peer rental sites. In the past, new ways of doing things online have not displaced the old ways entirely. But they have often changed them. Just as internet shopping forced Walmart and Tesco to adapt, so online sharing will shake up transport, tourism, equipment-hire and more.

The main worry is regulatory uncertainty (see Technology Quarterly article ). Will room-renters be subject to hotel taxes, for example? In Amsterdam officials are using Airbnb listings to track down unlicensed hotels. In some American cities, peer-to-peer taxi services have been banned after lobbying by traditional taxi firms. The danger is that although some rules need to be updated to protect consumers from harm, incumbents will try to destroy competition. People who rent out rooms should pay tax, of course, but they should not be regulated like a Ritz-Carlton hotel. The lighter rules that typically govern bed-and-breakfasts are more than adequate.

The sharing economy is the latest example of the internet’s value to consumers (see Free exchange ). This emerging model is now big and disruptive enough for regulators and companies to have woken up to it. That is a sign of its immense potential. It is time to start caring about sharing.

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “The rise of the sharing economy”

Leaders March 9th 2013

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What Is the Sharing Economy?

Definition of the sharing economy, how the sharing economy works, examples of the sharing economy, pros and cons of the sharing economy.

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A sharing economy is an economic model that allows consumers to share in the creation or use of products, goods, and services. This sharing often takes place across digital platforms, such as online communities or apps.

Key Takeaways

• The sharing economy involves the sharing of resources, often through online or mobile platforms.
• Key examples of the sharing economy include ride-sharing, short-term rentals, coworking, and grocery delivery services.
• Performing gig work can raise concerns over things like safety and privacy, as well as taxation and how to report income.

What exactly is the sharing economy? Here's one definition: "A shared economy model allows consumers to share creation, production, distribution, trade, and consumption of goods and services."

The IRS views the sharing economy through the lens of gig work . Using the terms “gig economy” and “sharing economy” interchangeably, the IRS defines both as "activity where people earn income providing on-demand work, services, or goods," often through a website or app. According to the IRS, gig work includes:

• Driving for a ridesharing service
• Renting out property
• Running errands or completing short tasks
• Selling things online
• Providing creative or freelance services

Income earned from gig work is taxable and must be reported as such on your tax return .

• Alternate names : Gig economy, shared economy, peer economy, shareconomy, collaborative economy, collaborative consumption

In a broad sense, the sharing economy works through mutual cooperation. Digital platforms such as websites or apps make it possible for people to connect with one another to share services or goods.

For example, Uber is one of the best-known examples of a sharing economy model at work. A rider opens the Uber app and enters their destination. That rider is matched with an Uber driver , an independent contractor or gig worker who drives the rider to their destination. In exchange for using their personal vehicle and their time, the driver collects a base fare from Uber and could receive a tip from the rider. The rider, meanwhile, benefits from being able to reach their destination by sharing someone else's vehicle.

Because the sharing economy spans so many activities, regulating it at a federal level has been difficult. Some of the key issues raised by state and federal regulators and lawmakers center on:

• The safety of people who participate in sharing economy activities, such as rideshare drivers and passengers.
• Labor laws and the classification of gig workers.
• Taxation of gig workers and companies that contract with them.
• Data collection and privacy of people who use sharing economy apps or platforms.
• Discriminatory practices

Two of the biggest segments of the sharing economy to come under regulatory scrutiny are ride-sharing and vacation rentals. Uber and Lyft fought extensively against regulations that would have required them to classify drivers as employees . Airbnb hosts, meanwhile, have to navigate local rules and regulations about short-term rentals.

Critics of the proposed PRO Act , which would substantially change labor laws, have argued that it's a direct threat to the sharing economy.

As mentioned, ride-sharing and short-term home rentals are two of the most visible examples of the sharing economy. Airbnb, for example, allows homeowners to rent out part or all of their homes to individuals for short periods of time.

Here's how it works. Airbnb provides an online platform where homeowners with extra space can connect with people who want to rent it. When someone rents a room or a full home, they pay the homeowner, and Airbnb collects a fee for its service in facilitating the transaction. Other vacation rental platforms such as Homeaway and Booking.com work similarly.

Other sharing economy examples include:

• Workspace sharing, like the kind offered by Wework
• Reselling via apps or websites, like eBay or LetGo
• Crowdfunding sites, like GoFundMe
• Peer-to-peer lending sites, like Prosper or LendingClub
• Equipment rental apps, like Sparetoolz
• Clothing rental services, like Rent the Runway or Tulerie
• Delivery services, like DoorDash or Seamless
• Grocery shopping and delivery services, like Instacart or Postmates

While sharing economy apps can provide convenient access to services or goods, consumers may pay fees to use them.

The sharing economy offers both advantages and disadvantages for consumers and for gig workers. Here's a look at the pros and cons of a shared economic model.

Potentially lower prices for goods and services

Gig work can provide extra income 

Increased access to goods and services

Safety concerns for both workers and customers

Lack of regulation can be problematic

Data and privacy risks may exist

Pros Explained

• Potentially lower prices for goods and services : Sharing resources can potentially translate to lower costs for consumers. For example, spending $20 each week on shared rides could be less expensive than owning, insuring, and maintaining a vehicle.
• Gig work can provide extra income : One in three Americans has at least one side hustle, and many of them work in the sharing economy. Gig work can provide much-needed extra income if you experience a pay cut or if stagnating wages make it hard for you to keep up with a rising cost of living .
• Increased access to goods and services : The sharing economy can make it easier to obtain goods or services. For example, if you spent most of 2020 staying home except for essential outings, you might have turned to a grocery delivery service to keep your pantry stocked. That kind of convenience is a hallmark of the sharing economy.

Cons Explained

• Safety concerns for both workers and customers : Performing gig work or hiring a gig worker can pose safety risks. An Uber safety report released in 2019, for instance, revealed nearly 6,000 sexual assaults and 19 deaths involving drivers and riders during 2017 and 2018.
• Lack of regulation can be problematic : Changing regulations can bring uncertainty for both gig workers and consumers who use sharing economy platforms. If you rent out a room on Airbnb , for example, an unexpected change to local laws could curb your earning potential.
• Data and privacy risks may exist : Cybersecurity is also a concern for people who use sharing economy platforms. Sharing information with an app can be risky if it's not properly encrypted.

Washington State University. " How the Sharing Economy Is Transforming Business ." Accessed June 16, 2021.

Internal Revenue Service. " Gig Economy Tax Center ." Accessed June 16, 2021.

American Bar Association. " Regulatory Challenges in the Sharing Economy ." Accessed June 16, 2021.

Airbnb. " What Hosting Regulations Apply to You? " Accessed June 16, 2021.

Zapier. " One in Three Americans Have a Side Hustle ." Accessed June 16, 2021.

Uber. " Uber U.S. Safety Report ." Accessed June 16, 2021.

Regulating the Sharing Economy: Introduction to the Special Issue

Internet Policy Review 5(2)

15 Pages Posted: 14 Aug 2016

Kristofer Erickson

University of Glasgow - CREATe Centre

Inge Sørensen

University of Glasgow - Centre for Cultural Policy Research

Date Written: July 28, 2016

In this introductory essay, we explore definitions of the ‘sharing economy’, a concept indicating both social (relational, communitarian) and economic (allocative, profit-seeking) aspects which appear to be in tension. We suggest that the sharing economy can be defined by its common features of network enabled, aggregated membership in a pool of offers and demands (for goods, services, creative expressions). This definition of the sharing economy distinguishes it from other related peer-to-peer and collaborative forms of production. Understanding the social and economic motivations for and implications of participating in the sharing economy is important to its regulation. Each of the papers in this special issue contributes to knowledge by linking the social and economic aspects of sharing economy practices to regulatory norms and mechanisms. We conclude this introductory essay by suggesting future research to further clarify and render intelligible the sharing economy, not as a contradiction in terms but as an empirically observable realm of socio-economic activity.

Keywords: Sharing economy, gig economy, collaborative consumption, regulation, platforms, Uber, AirBnB

JEL Classification: P48, P32, O35, O38

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Kristofer Erickson (Contact Author)

University of glasgow - create centre ( email ).

9 Professors' Square Glasgow, G12 8QH United Kingdom

University of Glasgow - Centre for Cultural Policy Research ( email )

13, Professor Square University of Glasgow Glasgow United Kingdom

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2 The Sharing Economy

Juliet B. Schor, Boston College

Mehmet Cansoy, Boston College

• Published: 09 October 2018
• Cite Icon Cite
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The “sharing economy” has become highly contentious. This chapter takes a broad view, addressing key issues in ongoing debates: terminology, participation, experiences, regulation, discrimination, and inequality. High cultural capital (HCC) participants, who are the majority, see themselves creating a virtuous moral alternative to the conventional market. However, their activities increasingly take place on large for-profit platforms that are resulting in a series of undesirable outcomes. These include pervasive racial and class discrimination, and the generation of inequality. The two largest platforms (Airbnb and Uber) have had adverse effects on urban housing and transportation, which have been the subject of recent regulatory efforts. Ultimately, the dynamism of the sharing economy, and the lack of fixed institutions, norms, and participants, means consumer researchers should be asking critical questions about the sector, its claims of common good, and its impact on social life.

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Airbnb: Sharing Economy Processes Review Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Sharing economy model, airbnb background, why airbnb will survive the sharing model, reference list.

Approximately a decade ago, expensive hotel stays and the lack of authentic experience offered to a tourist encouraged future Airbnb owners to co-found one of the largest marketplaces for lodging and activities run by local hosts. Entering the sharing economy, the Airbnb team revolutionized the private market with a new concept of collaborative consumption, an economic model where access to goods and services is valued over ownership (Gorog, 2018). However, a recent outbreak of the Coronavirus compromised the smooth operation of the sharing economy, questioning the future utility of the sharing economy. In this assignment, sharing economy is defined as an economic model which centers around P2P marketplaces where underutilized assets, services, or goods are rented for material and non-monetary gain (Gorog, 2018). On the example of Airbnb company in the sector of tourism, this paper argues that sharing economy business model will survive the financial crisis caused by the global pandemic.

The sharing economy has quickly become a new trend in the business world. It operates on the basis of short-term peer-to-peer transactions to share the usage of minor services, assets, or to facilitate cooperation between professionals (Curtis and Lehner, 2019). Due to the digitization of services, it is now easier for people to connect and exchange underused assets in the dynamics of the so-called, sharing economy (Frenken and Schor, 2017). The main goal of this model is to allow groups and individuals to earn money under the premise of collaborative consumption, using the value of poorly allocated or underused benefits as physical assets (Curtis and Lehner, 2019). Frequently, sharing economy involves an online platform as a connecting unit for buyers and sellers.

The sharing economy model stands on the opposite stances that remain fundamental to the traditional economy. It rejects the concept of private ownership and makes a profit using the idea of shared consumption and production of goods and services (Frenken and Schor, 2017).

Instead of being driven by incentive and competition as members of the traditional market, those participating in the sharing economy commit to sharing their space, expertise, and time for the greater good.

Despite the growing popularity of the model, some experts remain sceptical toward its future success, legality, and profitability. One of the key minuses lays in the regulatory uncertainty of the rental services (Mehmed, 2016). Platforms connecting buyers and sellers do not regulate the activity of the unlicensed individuals, raising suspicions about the reliability of their policies and the rationality of their costs. Another disadvantage is focused on a series of abusive behaviors manifested both by buyers and sellers in the sharing economy (Mehmed, 2016). Those include but are not limited to unfair treatment, discrimination, and fraudulent rentals.

By 2020, Airbnb has dominated the co-living segment, positioning itself as one of the world’s biggest marketplaces representing the sharing economy model in the tourist sector. Though hotels, hostels, and motels still remain popular in the tourist sector, the model of bed and breakfast, used by Airbnb, advocates for more authentic experiences (‘Airbnb’, 2020). As more and more people have an opportunity to travel long-distance, the tourist industry strives to win the competition by bringing foreign culture closer to the visitor.

Airbnb unites sellers (hosts) and buyers (tourists) on a simple and user-friendly platform, providing short-term lodging and unique activities for leisure time for different age groups, costs, and preferences. The company also extended its home-renting services for weddings, work trips, and family reunions, targeting a wide group of clients (Adamiak, 2019). With more than seven million accommodations available and 50 thousand authentic activities offered, it works successfully in 220 countries (Adamiak, 2019). Coronavirus pandemic, followed by strict quarantine rules, restricted traveling, and social distancing recommendations, put the future of Airbnb at risk as millions of apartments remained empty due to the lack of demand. However, the company quickly found a new way to attract clients by introducing online experiences, making adjustments to meet legal requirements, and remaining loyal to the organization’s mission.

Actions taken by the Airbnb team since the COVID-19 outbreak give enough evidence to believe that the sharing economy model will survive once the global crisis is over. Though the tourist section might take years to recover, the scope of the company’s services is not fully targeted toward traveling visitors. Weddings, work meetings, family reunions, and long-term rentals constitute a sufficient portion of the organization’s revenue, suggesting that locals might enjoy the benefits of the company if foreigners are not allowed to travel.

The logic behind the sharing economy will most likely not be exactly the same as it used to be before the pandemic. As a result of the pandemic, Airbnb emphasized the long-term rentals as strict social distancing rules made a rapid, sharp shift from short-term to monthly stays. Private space will no longer be a luxurious asset offered by Airbnb but a legal requirement for lodging (Oskam and Boswijk, 2015). Despite the aforementioned changes, Airbnb will continue operating with a consideration of community and authenticity. Hosts will continue providing cultural experiences to tourists, even though some of them might switch to digital format to prevent the spread of the virus once the lock-down is over.

One of the initiatives the Airbnb team decided to launch to encourage trust, as the main component of the model, was the “Enhanced Cleaning Initiative” (‘Airbnb’, 2020). The project aimed to restore confidence in hosts who appear to be hesitant to rent their apartments in fear of getting sick with the Coronavirus. It was also meant to encourage open relationships between the buyers and sellers, balancing between the opportunity to share the unused assets and staying healthy during the worldwide pandemic. Trust would be the central aspect marketing specialists attempt to convey in their campaigns after the COVID-19 pandemic (Oskam and Boswijk, 2015). With close media attention and overt criticism of the shared spaces, Airbnb will have to promote not only the authenticity of its services but also their safety and security (Oskam and Boswijk, 2015). Another effective marketing strategy would be to stress the significance of community, communicating the message of unity in face of crisis. After the pandemic is over, the company should prioritize accessibility and affordability of the experiences offered on the platform, showing compassion to those affected financially.

Despite the successful efforts of Airbnb to move their services online, it is not safe to claim that the sharing economy model would prove to be successful in all 220 countries where the company operates. The success of the organization in the upcoming years will depend largely on the rate at which people will recover from the financial crisis. Traveling restrictions, capita per person, as well as unemployment rates should be taken into consideration as the company prepares a plan on retaining their customers. Some of the strategies that Airbnb might implement are the following: 1) digitalizing experiences; 2) providing dedicated remote customer service quickly and more efficiently; 3) limiting the option of renting a private room. The organization can also offer discounts for the most active users (both buyers and sellers) and the most innovative online experiences.

In conclusion, Airbnb represents a sharing economy model in the tourist sector, providing inexpensive short-term and long-term rentals, as well as authentic tourist experiences performed by local hosts. The company utilizes physical assets such as empty rooms, apartments, and beds as services to assist people of different age categories and social statuses. With the mission to unite the community in a genuine experience, the organization connects buyers and sellers on a simple, user-friendly tourist. Though sharing space is central to the way the company works, strict social distancing policies have not been able to stop the operation of Airbnb completely. During the quarantine, the team shifted focus to long-term stays and introduced online remote experiences to remain loyal to its mission, serving both hosts and visitors. In its marketing campaigns, the company emphasized trust to restore confidence in the sharing model in buyers and sellers.

It is yet early to judge the future success of the Airbnb sharing model due to the uncertainty around unemployment rates and traveling restrictions after the quarantine ends. However, the flexibility and openness demonstrated by the team give enough evidence to predict that the company will survive the crisis caused by the Coronavirus. By implementing strategies promoting safe and affordable tourist experiences, Airbnb can remain the leader in the bed and breakfast market. Despite the initial expectations and interpretations of the data collected, only time will show whether the sharing model survives the pressure of the global pandemic.

Adamiak, C. (2019) ‘Current state and development of Airbnb accommodation offer in 167 countries’, Current Issues in Tourism , pp. 1-20.

Airbnb (2020).

Curtis, K. and Lehner, M. (2019) ‘Defining the sharing economy for sustainability’, Sustainability , 11(567), pp. 1-25.

Frenken, K. and Schor, J. (2017) ‘Putting the sharing economy into perspective’, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 23, pp. 3-10.

Görög, G. (2018) ‘The definitions of sharing economy: a systematic literature review’, Management, 13(2), pp. 175-189.

Mehmed, N. R. (2016) ‘Airbnb and the sharing economy: policy implications for local governments’, SPNHA Review , 12(1), pp. 1-26.

Oskam, J. and Boswijk, A. (2015) ‘Airbnb: the future of networked hospitality businesses’, Journal of Tourism Futures, 2, pp. 22-42.

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IvyPanda. (2022, February 19). Airbnb: Sharing Economy Processes Review. https://ivypanda.com/essays/airbnb-sharing-economy/

"Airbnb: Sharing Economy Processes Review." IvyPanda , 19 Feb. 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/airbnb-sharing-economy/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Airbnb: Sharing Economy Processes Review'. 19 February.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Airbnb: Sharing Economy Processes Review." February 19, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/airbnb-sharing-economy/.

1. IvyPanda . "Airbnb: Sharing Economy Processes Review." February 19, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/airbnb-sharing-economy/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Airbnb: Sharing Economy Processes Review." February 19, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/airbnb-sharing-economy/.

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Is the Meaning of the “Sharing Economy” Shared Among Us? Comparing the Perspectives of Japanese and Swedish Researchers

• Published: 22 February 2021
• Volume 15 , pages 87–106, ( 2021 )

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• Takashi Majima   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1396-9561 1 ,
• Per Fors 2 ,
• Yu Inutsuka 3 &
• Yohko Orito 4  

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In this paper, we aim to investigate how researchers in Japan and Sweden perceive and approach the term “sharing economy” in research publications. Systematic literature reviews were used to explore academic discussions in both countries. The main finding of this research is that although researchers in both contexts use similar definitions and concepts, the meanings and connotations of the sharing economy differ among the two contexts. In summary, Japanese researchers tend to focus first and foremost on the economic effects of the sharing economy, as it serves the purpose of economic revitalisation. In contrast, Swedish researchers focus on its environmental effects. The differences reflect country-specific socio-cultural, technological, and economic contexts. Finally, we suggest future directions for research and policy development.

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1 Introduction

The term sharing economy was coined in the mid-2010s and has since then been extensively researched, embraced by policymakers, and widely discussed by the general public. Despite the fact that many authors who write about the sharing economy use similar definitions and sources, it is clear that the sharing economy is not “a thing”, but rather a concept that allows of many different interpretations (see Corvellec et al. [ 1 ]). However, there is a general consensus that the sharing economy can improve the economic, environmental, and social aspects of society. For example, Sundararajan [ 2 ] emphasises the expected economic benefits; Schor [ 3 ] highlights the environmental benefits; whereas Rifkin [ 4 ], Belk [ 5 ], and Morioka [ 6 ] focus on ecological and social rather than economic effects. Furthermore, although authors are generally positive about the sharing economy and the expected outcomes of it, others disagree on what the sharing economy in fact is (and is not), and are concerned about potential rebound effects, negative impacts, risks, and backlashes. New concepts are often assigned various meanings depending on the interests of the actors involved (e.g., [ 7 , 8 ]); also, the sharing economy is interpreted against a background of different socio-cultural, technological, and economic contexts. In other words, the sharing economy is a “Rashomon-like reality” [ 9 , 10 ]. Rashomon is a movie directed by Akira Kurosawa of Japan in 1950, and the theme is that individuals perceive the same situation, event or object differently, based on their desires, greed and vanity. Footnote 1 There are no objective facts independent of the observers (the characters of the movie), but “reality” is instead by them perceived in many (ambiguous) ways [ 9 ]. Thus, reality depends on the context of the observer. The sharing economy can be interpreted as a Rashomon-like reality ; the characters are researchers, journalists, politicians, entrepreneurs, and consumers. Corvellec et al. [ 1 ] recently presented a similar idea, namely that the circular economy should be viewed as an empty or floating signifier, allowing for creative interpretations of the original concept by various actors.

To understand how different people perceive the sharing economy, and whether or not cultural factors contributed to this perception, we decided to do a comparative study on how the sharing economy was presented by researchers, policymakers, and politicians in Sweden and Japan, respectively. In this first paper out of two, we focus on how the sharing economy is understood by researchers in Sweden and Japan. Footnote 2 This paper is based on two systematic literature reviews, where papers published by Swedish and Japanese researchers were reviewed. We can conclude that although Swedish and Japanese researchers use similar definitions of the sharing economy, there are many differences concerning the underlying assumptions related to and understandings of the concept.

The paper is structured as follows: Sect.  2 describes the methodological approaches used. Sections  3 and 4 discuss the results of quantitative and qualitative surveys exploring understanding of the sharing economy in the Japanese and Swedish academic contexts, respectively. Sections  5 and 6 are the discussion and the conclusions, respectively.

2 Methodology

Snyder [ 12 ] showed that knowledge production by business-related research is accelerating greatly, but is fragmented. It is difficult to stay at the leading edge of research, and to access the assumptions in play within, and the general understanding of, a particular research area or concept. Snyder [ 12 ] thus argues that literature review is a valuable field of research. Almost all new research is based on previous knowledge. However, timely review is becoming increasingly difficult, given the pace of publication. Also, the assumptions made within, and the understanding of, a particular research field vary regionally. We thus performed two independent systematic literature reviews. We examined the vast majority of all academic articles, book chapters, and masters’ theses (available in full-text in specific databases) published (or supervised) by researchers in Japan and Sweden. We explored how Japanese and Swedish researchers viewed for example the definitions, values, and positive and negative effects of the sharing economy. Our literature review was both quantitative and qualitative. We recorded the year of publication, disciplinary background of the researcher, the methodology, the estimated effects, and the types of sharing investigated. Qualitatively, we interpreted the effects, and the underlying meanings and values imbued in the concept. The sources used are described below. Although a literature review facilitates an understanding of the sharing economy as perceived by researchers in Japan and Sweden; many limitations remain. Our research is the first step towards clarification of the Japanese and Swedish perspectives on this economy. Footnote 3 In future research, it would be beneficial to complement this literature review with empirical research based on qualitative data.

We collected only full-text publications (2005–2019) from J-stage, CiNii Articles, and Google Scholar (the latter served as a backup source). J-stage contains the full texts of over 2000 Japanese journals. CiNii Articles contains over 20 million texts (not only research but also business articles). We first counted the numbers of research articles on the sharing economy (quantitative review). We used “シェアリング・エコノミー” (sharing economy in Japanese) as the keyword. The authors were Japan-based researchers at universities and other research institutions. In addition, we read the four most cited books about the sharing economy to get a deeper understanding of the concept from a Japanese perspective.

We collected full-text publications from DiVA or Google Scholar (the latter served as a backup source). We read and categorised 121 research papers and masters’ theses written between 2013 and 2019; we sought general trends in research focus and methodology, the empirical focus, and the envisaged effects of the sharing economy. We considered only papers written by Sweden-based researchers and students. DiVA is the repository used by 49 of the largest Swedish research institutions and universities. Google Scholar served as a backup; the keywords were “the sharing economy” and “Sweden”. Also, during review, we included Swedish masters’ theses, due to the fact that most now prominent researchers first explored the field as subject readers of master theses instead of in research publications.

Below, we present our quantitative and qualitative findings. We captured and compared the expected effects and perceived risks of the sharing economy in the academic worlds of both countries. Although both reviews were similarly performed, we adapted our approach to the research context. First, we searched different databases (CiNii/J-stage and DiVA Portal, respectively). Second, as Japanese researchers commonly publish in Japanese and Swedish researchers generally publish in English, we used Japanese keywords to obtain the Japanese context and English keywords to explore the Swedish context.

5 The Sharing Economy in Japanese Research

5.1 research on the sharing economy in japan: quantitative overview.

Here, we present how the sharing economy is understood and presented by authors in the Japanese research context. Table 1 shows the numbers of papers and articles on the topic. It is evident that Japanese researchers began to take notice of the sharing economy in 2015, and the numbers of articles then increased (particularly from 2017). Footnote 4 Notably, the sharing economy is studied by those interested in business administration; marketing; economics; information and communication technology; law, municipal politics; local communities; urban planning; and industrial, automotive, and traffic engineering. However, most studies focussed on business administration, politics, and local communities. Although numerous international publications focusing on the sharing economy or related concepts have appeared, many of Japanese researchers do not refer to them (e.g., [ 3 , 4 , 5 , 13 ]).

5.2 Research Trend on the Sharing Economy: Qualitative Literature Review

We selected 50 papers dealing with the sharing economy in Japan and sought trends and characteristics (Table 2 ). The articles could be divided into six categories: (a) an explanation of the concept (what is the “sharing economy”?); (b) ride-sharing (including car sharing); (c) home-sharing; (d) money sharing (cloud funding); (e) skill-sharing; and, (f) other. Most articles fell under (a), (b), or (c). For example, Yagasaki [ 14 ] discusses how to promote home-sharing under a new law. Shiba [ 15 ] studies how to encourage consumers to use sharing services (rides and homes) from the viewpoint of trust. Notably, many studies focussed on home or ride-sharing, although the numbers of skill-sharing businesses are greater than those of the former services [ 16 ]. Researchers consider that home- and ride-sharing are typical or important service categories in Japan.

Sharing economy research in Japan commenced in about 2015. Most Japanese research views the sharing economy as a tool fostering further economic development. For example, Takahashi [ 17 ] notes that the sharing economy is a new (hopeful) “business model”, and Shiotani [ 18 ] emphasises that the sharing economy is the new optimal “strategy” for the Japanese economy. Kunimi [ 19 ] wrote:

We can say that it [sharing business] is also quite promising that businesses can make better use of surplus underused resources in society by efficiently matching their needs through ICT. (p.104).

Japanese researchers do not completely ignore the anti-capitalist view of among others (e.g., Rifkin [ 4 ]); however, most perceive the sharing economy or sharing economy business models as a new tools for market capitalism. Very few papers explore or take into consideration potential ecological effects of the phenomenon; however, some papers emphasise its social benefits. For example, some recent studies (e.g., [ 20 , 21 , 22 ]) encourage the use of ride-sharing services to solve rural problems caused by reduced public transport, depopulation, and ageing population. Thus, private companies are encouraged to take responsibility of (and profit from) societal functions usually handled by the state. For example, Noda et al. [ 22 ] wrote:

The sharing economy is expected to become a new business model in terms of conserving natural resources and coping with the depopulation of Japanese society, which is especially serious in rural mountainous areas. Such areas have difficulty in sustaining their local communities. Therefore, they are hoping that sharing businesses can solve the problem (p.2).

As mentioned above, Noda et al. [ 22 ] seemed to view the sharing economy as a tool that would resolve Japanese rural/regional problems. The cited authors introduce sharing services that promote tourism and support parenting established by local governments in Shimabara city (Nagasaki prefecture) and Taku city (Saga prefecture), respectively. Sasaki et al. [ 23 ] discuss whether ride-sharing might solve the lack of transportation in rural mountainous areas. Earlier examples are reviewed when creating a suitability test for ride-sharing. Test scores are used to evaluate whether various cities could benefit from ride-sharing, and a pilot implementation is performed in collaboration with a not-for-profit organisation. Ushiba [ 24 ] discusses how a regional currency system could revitalise a country town in Kagawa (in the context of sharing business). One interpretation is that Japanese studies tend to reflect the contemporary economic and social situations of Japan.

In terms of research methods, many articles seek to understand the conceptual idiosyncrasies of the sharing economy by reviewing prior research and precedents. Few articles adopt the present theoretical approaches and/or conduct empirical studies. Empirical studies of the sharing economy explore why customers would wish to use sharing businesses [ 15 , 25 ].

Moreover, most Japanese authors seem to be in favour of the sharing economy and present optimistic views, while very few articles presented negative or critical accounts of the phenomenon. Footnote 5 The challenges imposed by the sharing economy presented by Japanese researchers are usually of economic character and can be categorised as follows Footnote 6 (e.g., [ 19 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ]):

Cost increases; difficulties in guaranteeing service reliability; environmental concerns; cost monitoring; the need for social infrastructure; and literacy and educational issues.

Uncertainty of taxation: possible tax/duty impositions on sharing service companies, individuals who provide sharing services; and how to measure such costs.

Equal footing: fair competition issues; competition for existing companies in the same business (such as the hotel and taxi industries); a tendency to price services higher than sharing economy services can pay.

Protection of individual service providers; infringement of the rights of individuals who provide sharing economy services as employees; difficulty in defining a private business.

Until 2019, fewer than ten full-length monographs or anthologies on the sharing economy were written by Japanese authors. The topics were those described above. Some authors expect the sharing economy to revitalise the national economy (e.g., [ 26 , 34 ]). Others (after Rifkin [ 4 ]) foresee the development of collaborative communities living in shared urban residences (e.g., [ 35 , 36 ]). Therefore, Japanese interests are not limited to economic effects or solutions to social problems such as rural depopulation. However, research on environmental effects of the sharing economy is very scarce.

5.3 The Meaning of the Sharing Economy to Japanese Researchers

In summary, although many different interpretations of the sharing economy are apparent, and the suggested benefits that such an economy might bring to Japan vary greatly, Japanese researchers generally view the sharing economy as a new tool that will revitalise and redevelop the national economy. This reflects the current Japanese economic situation; the government and business are urgently seeking new economic growth [ 11 ]. The sharing economy is regarded as important in terms of revitalising regional economies and solving regional problems caused by an ageing society; it is thought to have the potential to create new collaborative communities in rural areas. Ride-sharing and home-sharing are the principal empirical foci of Japanese research. In terms of sustainability, Japanese researchers generally do not explicitly focus on positive environmental effects. This is surprising, given that Japan led the environmental conservation in Asia (by promoting Green ICT [ 7 ]), in line with the Japanese philosophy of mottainai . Footnote 7 Researchers interested in such aspects tend to refer to the circular economy, which seems to be much more associated with environmental effects from the Japanese perspective. Although there is certainly some connection between the sharing economy and a more circular society and industry, this relation is not explored to a large extent within the research community. This might be related to the fact that understandings of the sharing economy in Japan seem to be heavily influenced by commercial actors whose primary focus is not on either circularity or improving the environment.

To some extent, research publications reflect the assumptions about and understandings of the sharing economy in Japan. These publications are to some extent influencing the general opinions about the sharing economy in Japan. However, these publications do not reflect how the concept is understood more generally in Japan, but make up some of many Rashomon-like realities . Further surveys are essential to be able to present more nuanced and accurate accounts [ 11 ]. We plan to explore the attitudes and perspectives of other actors, such as the users of sharing economy platforms, and for- and not-for-profit platform providers.

At any rate, although the actual methods of the Japanese sharing economy are under discussion, the discussion of the nature has not been advanced by Japanese researchers, unlike the situation in Sweden as mentioned next section. Our literature review suggests that most Japanese researchers assume that the sharing economy will revitalize the national economy, and focus almost exclusively on how to implement it.

6 The Sharing Economy in Swedish Research

6.1 research on the sharing economy in sweden: quantitative overview.

In Sweden, the sharing economy has been researched since at least 2013—a couple of years before the phenomenon was explored by Japanese researchers (Table 3 ).

The sharing economy is researched within and among many scientific disciplines ranging from marketing, management and business to law, urban planning, environmental sciences, and information technology as well as design and human–computer interaction. Many publications embrace two or more of these disciplines, suggesting that research is often interdisciplinary. Methodologically, research tends to be qualitative, although approximately one in ten publications uses primarily quantitative methods to study a particular empirical context. This is comparable to the proportion of publications that are exclusively theoretical, thus discussing the sharing economy on a conceptual level without employing any primary data. In qualitative research papers, a case study approach is the most common. Approximately one in four papers use such an approach (see also Table 4 ).

6.2 Research Trend on the Sharing Economy: Qualitative Literature Review

The literature review revealed that, commonly, the empirical focus was on several different areas (i.e., both car and home-sharing) or was non-specific (other/many). If the focus was on a specific empirical field, this was typically car- and home-sharing, similar to Japanese studies. Most theoretical papers with no or little focus on any particular empirical setting tended to focus on the concept of the sharing economy per se. Such research discussed other things such as “the commons” [ 37 ], the concept of “sharing” [ 38 , 39 , 40 ], the conceptualisation of sharing-economy roles [ 41 ], sharing-economy futures [ 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ], the sustainability of the sharing economy [ 46 , 47 ], cultural barriers and enablers [ 48 , 49 ], and caring platforms [ 50 , 51 ].

In Japan, sharing practices in a rural context are thought to revive rural economy; in Sweden, the sharing economy is viewed as principally urban. Of 121 publications, about one-third consider the effects on everyday urban life. Most papers (about two-thirds) do not consider whether the perceived effects affect rural or urban dwellers preferentially; several deal exclusively with urban initiatives, albeit not explicitly. Not even one publication explicitly targets rural sharing initiatives.

In terms of the perceived societal effects of sharing economy practices such as car or home-sharing, most publications are optimistic, grounded on the assumption that the sharing economy will positively impact all three dimensions of sustainable development—the economy, the environment, and society. In publications that discuss the impacts of different sharing practices, environmental impacts (i.e., more efficient use of underutilised assets) are usually emphasised, followed by the social and economic aspects. However, in terms of the societal impacts of the sharing economy, researchers tend to be somewhat critical, given the lack of a clear distinction between private persons and businesses, and any role for the Swedish model in a new business environment. Another source of criticism is how certain researchers and policymakers interpret the concept, and how it is used by commercial actors to falsely promote their operations as sharing (i.e., “share-washing”). Another important aspect that is frequently discussed is the lack of appropriate tax regulation and guidance.

6.3 Meanings and Values Related to the Sharing Economy of Sweden

Laurell and Sandström [ 52 ], in an analysis of sharing economy discourse on social media, investigate how Swedes understand and reproduce meanings of the sharing economy. The perception of what sharing is spans a variety of both market and non-market practices, and is characterised by instability and tension. Furthermore, actors such as Uber, Airbnb and (surprisingly) Tinder dominate the framing of opinions. According to the authors, social media users tend to focus their attention on these actors both when criticising and praising the sharing economy. One explanation for this, according to Laurell and Sandström [ 52 ], is that:

Uber and Airbnb on the one hand are perceived and framed by social media users as part of the sharing economy. On the other hand, these actors are subject to resistance by social media users who argue that they should not be understood as part of the phenomenon in question (p. 63) .

In our literature review, we encountered many different perceived meanings of the sharing economy. Many researchers compare the sharing economy with “collaborative consumption”, “peer consumption”, “access-based consumption”, “peer-to-peer economy”, “gig economy”, “platform economy”, “on-demand economy”, and the “circular economy”. Although all of these concepts are related (at least to some extent, overlap), different researchers distinguish them in different ways. Some researchers argue that these words and concepts refer to the same phenomenon [ 53 ]; others adopt more narrow definitions to highlight certain aspects. For example, while the “sharing economy” emphasises sharing practices, the “gig economy” highlights a form of labour in which the individual providing the product or service is engaged. That being said, not all sharing economy platforms require gig-workers, and not all gig economy platforms facilitate the sharing of underutilised assets. Furthermore, most definitions of the sharing economy mention a digital mediator in the form of a platform. However, not all such platforms facilitate sharing practices; the sharing economy can also be viewed as a subdivision of the platform economy.

As described above, there are many ways by which to conceptualise the sharing economy; this is an important focus among Swedish researchers. This differs markedly from the Japanese situation, where a near-consensus definition (or at least a shared understanding) is in play. Most Swedish researchers are optimistic in terms of the potential of the sharing economy, but not all are content with the sharing practices that are viewed as part of that economy today. Thus, the Swedish research landscape is somewhat critical, depending essentially on how the individual researcher conceptualises the sharing economy. We identified different approaches used by researchers to make sense of the concept, associated with the values with which they imbued what they studied.

One approach is that of Kristoffersson [ 53 ], who used a rather generous definition of the sharing economy when discussing tax regulation: “[T]he sharing economy refers to online marketplaces for sellers and buyers of goods and services” (p. 221). In the cited work, only Uber and Airbnb serve as examples of sharing economy actors. Such research sometimes emphasises the sustainability potential of the sharing economy, but makes no distinction between different types of actors [ 48 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 ].

A second approach also adopts a loose definition of the sharing economy, but emphasises the differences between different actors and their roles in the economy. Bradley and Pargman [ 37 ], in an attempt to make sense of the highly diverse actors, argue that sharing economy platforms can be organised in many different ways: “[A]s for-profit corporations, as for-benefit organisations, as foundations, cooperatives, community groups or through looser informal networks. Some operate on a global scale, others are small and local” (p. 232). The authors generally acknowledge that there are major (and important) differences between the various actors (e.g., [ 40 , 59 , 60 , 61 ]). Some contributions are rather critical, but not necessarily those that focus on the type of sharing that promotes sustainability.

A third way of making sense of the sharing economy is to accept that there are indeed many different organisations (with different motives) active within the economy, and that these differences make or break the sustainability-related potential of economic initiatives. Examples include the works of Fedosov et al. [ 62 ], Pargman et al. [ 63 ], and Hult and Bradley [ 64 ], who argue that: “[F]ar from all the initiatives undertaken in the name of the collaborative or sharing economy align with … wider socio-environmental aims” [ 64 , p. 610]. Such a stance generally implies acceptance of different types of sharing economy initiatives including exploitative for-profit initiatives that do not align with sustainability values; and sustainable, non-exploitative not-for-profit activities. Such research sees the sustainability potential of the latter category while criticising the former, albeit acknowledging that many for-profit initiatives indeed promote sharing. Such research emphasises that the raison d'être of the sharing economy is sustainability; this should be promoted.

A fourth approach is related to those described above, but adopts a stricter definition of the sharing economy, usually to distinguish between actual sharing and other (unrelated) practices sometimes promoted as sharing. One common empirical approach is to compare Uber to Blablacar (e.g., [ 42 , 45 , 65 , 66 , 67 ], arguing that Uber does not facilitate increased use of underutilised assets, whereas Blablacar and similar initiatives do. Narrowing of the definitions allows researchers to portray (some) multinational for-profit companies not as sharing economy actors but, rather, as gig, platform, or on-demand economy actors. Guyader [ 65 ], in his doctoral thesis, uses the metaphor of the Heart and the Wallet to distinguish between prosocial initiatives of collaborative consumption on one hand, and for-profit activities on the other. He emphasises that some researchers tend to use these concepts interchangeably when they are in fact talking about very different phenomena. Thus, such a position is normative in that it recognises the potential of certain practices in terms of a sustainable future, often in combination with a circular economy [ 43 , 45 , 59 , 63 , 68 ], but regards other practices as mere “share-washing” [ 66 , 69 ].

7 Discussion

As revealed above, sharing economy researchers in Japan and Sweden differ in terms of their research foci and interests. Table 5 compares the research trends of the two countries, and summarises the most obvious differences. Footnote 8 In Japan, the sharing economy is viewed principally as a new way by which to promote economic activities and spur economic growth, i.e., the economic dimension is favoured. On the micro-level, the sharing economy is perceived as a new business model implemented by private companies to make better use of existing underutilised resources. The hoped-for outcomes emphasised in Japan are not commonly discussed in Sweden, i.e., social inclusion of the elderly/youth/men/women, commercialization of traditional “private sphere”, “female activities” such as childcare, but also countryside revitalisation, rural public transportation, and solving problems related to depopulation and ageing citizens. Although the perceived risks include taxation uncertainty and architectural control by giant platformers, most researchers are positive and optimistic. Compared to Japan, many more Swedish studies focus on the positive effects of the sharing economy on environmental sustainability (Table 5 ).

The sharing economy as a concept is more frequently discussed in Sweden than Japan; Swedish researchers often ask what the sharing economy is and what it is not. Some researchers use very general or “open” definitions; others favour narrower definitions to promote the “right kind” of sharing practices. Therefore, despite the fact that the concept of the sharing economy per se is viewed positively (thus something to be promoted), the current state of the “sharing economy” is often criticised by Swedish researchers as being dominated by multinational corporations. In Japan, in contrast, a near-consensus the understanding of what the sharing economy is and should be has emerged (Sect.  3 ). This understanding is usually based on an assumption of economic growth (e.g., “The Sharing Economy Association”). In other words, Japanese researchers prioritise the practical utility of the sharing economy, while Swedish researchers still ask: “What is the sharing economy?”, or “What should the sharing economy be?” In short, Japanese researchers prefer to “leap before you look”, but Swedish researchers prefer to “look before you leap”.

Why do such differences exist? As suggested above, the answer may be because they reflect the economic, cultural, environmental, and political contexts (history and current life) in the two countries. In particular, the problems faced by the two nations explain some of the differences. The Japanese are very concerned about depopulation and rural devitalisation; both compromise economic growth. Sweden (despite its large per capita environmental footprint) is regularly hailed as a world leader in environmental policy/awareness; it is not surprising that the sharing economy is viewed as a tool to promote environmental sustainability. However, as it remains unclear how today’s sharing practices in fact promote sustainability, Swedish researchers disagree on whether environmental benefits are possible. In another paper [ 11 ], we identified similar tendencies within the political sphere. There, we argue that although the concept is more-or-less already adapted uniformly adapted in the Japanese context, the Swedish views reflect disagreement rather than consensus within both the political and research spheres.

8 Conclusions

We examined how the sharing economy is understood by researchers in two countries, Japan and Sweden. The meaning of the “sharing economy” is not fully shared among researchers either between or within the two countries. When researchers use this term, their understanding of it and the points stressed differ profoundly. Japanese researchers, in general, view the sharing economy as a tool assisting national and regional economic revitalisation. They emphasise that it may reduce the depopulation of rural areas and remedy the shortage of labour force in an ageing society. In contrast, many Swedish researchers regard the sharing economy as phenomenon that can further our efforts towards a more environmentally sustainable society. Environmental issues and the impacts on the societies in general are discussed more explicitly by Swedish researchers than by Japanese researchers. In Japan, the concept of circular economy seems to have many more sustainability-related connotations; however, we have not yet studied this phenomenon in these two contexts yet. Although the meaning of sharing economy has not yet become unified within each country, the understandings are more diverse in Swedish than in Japanese research.

Some implications of our work follow. Despite the use of new phrase, thus the “sharing economy”, by members of a globalising society wherein new concepts are rapidly shared; in many cases, we tend to view the concept through the lens of our limited ethnocentric perspectives; we use the same word, but impart different meanings to it. Our study may open a new research path in terms of international comparative work. Japanese researchers can share their pragmatic views with Swedes; Swedish researchers can encourage the Japanese to reflect more on the underlying understandings and assumptions related to the concept. The practical ideas and applications in Japan may inform Swedish researchers. For example, new practitioners in the sharing economy of Japan can suggest novel business ideas (and, of course, define the risks).

A new ambiguous phrase is a Rashomon-like Reality , interpreted by various actors with reference to their intentions and desires. Therefore, it is impossible to predict whether new interpretations of the sharing economy will emerge or whether existing interpretations will be reinforced as researchers in either country begin to respect the view of others on what a sharing economy means. This research work is also an actor in the sense-making process of a phenomenon of the sharing economy.

To echo an earlier point we made in this paper, the sharing economy is Rashomon-like reality in nature. Footnote 9 We deal here with only the general (but diverse) understandings of the academic world; this is but one aspect of the sharing economy. The “sharing economy” is a relatively a new-born concept; the image and social values thereof vary by country, and change continuously, even in the era of COVID-19. We explored the research situations of only two countries by the year to 2019, and further work is required worldwide. In addition, the views of governmental bodies, business organisations, and consumers should be collected via empirical research and interviews; these will be our next steps.

This movie is based on two famous Japanese novels written by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. In Rashomon , each character perceives the death of a samurai differently.

In the second paper, we focus on the views of policymakers and politicians [ 11 ].

We focused on how the sharing economy was socially constructed by human actors, but it is also important to consider the effect for that by non-human actors, Actor network theory (ANT) can be employed to this end.

The literature survey was conducted as follows. First, CiNii Articles and Google Scholar were subjected to free word searches. J-stage was subjected to a full-text search. The retrievals overlapped.

In Japanese research papers, an expected negative impact is termed an “external diseconomy”. Unlike a “rebound effect”, which is a negative side effect, “external diseconomy” seems to focus mostly on economic side effects and not social or environmental.

Few researchers mentioned the risks posed by the architectural control enjoyed by giant platformers who design sharing-economy services using information systems. This is related to the risk of social/economic disparity caused by utilisation of personal information.

A rough translation is: “what a waste!”.

The table shows the general (typical) trends of academic research.

Japanese researchers use synonyms of the sharing economy, depending on their needs. For example, when they discuss some sharing businesses (e.g., ride-sharing and skill-sharing) critically, they often use the phrase “gig economy” to describe the businesses [ 70 ]. In a sense, this is another example of a Rashomon-like reality .

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Acknowledgements

This paper was supported by the JSPS/STINT Bilateral Joint Research Project, “Information and Communication Technology for Sustainability and Ethics: Cross-national Studies between Japan and Sweden” (JPJSBP120185411).

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Majima, T., Fors, P., Inutsuka, Y. et al. Is the Meaning of the “Sharing Economy” Shared Among Us? Comparing the Perspectives of Japanese and Swedish Researchers. Rev Socionetwork Strat 15 , 87–106 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12626-021-00068-7

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s12626-021-00068-7

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A decade of the sharing economy: Concepts, users, business and governance perspectives

Oksana mont.

a International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (IIIEE), Lund University, P.O. Box 196, 22100, Lund, Sweden

Yuliya Voytenko Palgan

Karin bradley.

b The Department of Urban Planning and Environment, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Drottning Kristinas väg 30, SE-100 44, Stockholm, Sweden

Lucie Zvolska

Sharing economy platforms have been transforming production and consumption systems in cities around the world. While the sharing economy may contribute to addressing sustainability issues, its actual economic, social and environmental impacts remain poorly understood. Advancing more sustainably promising forms of sharing and leveraging its benefits, while circumventing its pitfalls, is becoming increasingly important in the era of Covid-19 and climate crisis, economic downturn and uncertainty, and loss of social connectedness, particularly in anonymous urban environments. The ways to capitalise on strengths of the sharing economy are still poorly understood. In particular, the roles and perspectives of users, businesses and municipal governments in institutionalising the sharing economy in various geographical contexts are essential to examine. This volume seeks to advance the research field by focusing on four research areas: 1) understanding the sharing economy conceptually; 2) user perspectives on the sharing economy; 3) business perspective on the sharing economy; and 4) urban governance perspective on the sharing economy. The twenty articles in this volume discuss sustainability implications of the sharing economy from different perspectives, in various geographical contexts, and drawing on a range of disciplines. The volume makes a significant contribution by bringing in empirical findings from emerging and developing economies, including Brazil, China, Indonesia, Poland, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam, thereby supplementing more frequently discussed perspectives from high-income countries. The volume also outlines the course for future research.

1. Introduction

The sharing economy is an umbrella term for a great variety of organisational models that are transforming marketplaces and cityscapes, where goods and services, skills and spaces are shared, exchanged, rented or leased. Although sharing among families and friends has been a traditional form of exchange throughout human history ( Belk, 2010 ), new forms of sharing between strangers enabled by digital technologies are emerging ( Frenken and Schor, 2017 ). The sharing economy phenomenon has been growing for over a decade ( Acquier et al., 2017 ; Frenken and Schor, 2017 ; Zvolska et al., 2019 ). Particularly spurred by the rapid digitalisation and penetration of smart phones, sharing economy platforms have been transforming production and consumption systems in cities around the world ( May et al., 2017 ; McLaren and Agyeman, 2015 ; Zvolska et al., 2018 ). The sharing economy is forecast to grow by more than 25% annually ( PwC, 2014 ).

At the same time, the sharing economy is a contested concept ( Cohen, 2016 ; Schor, 2014 ; Sundararajan, 2016 ). One argument is that the sharing economy has potential to reduce environmental impact by putting underutilised assets to work, strengthen social cohesion by connecting individuals via ubiquitous digital technology, and stimulate entrepreneurship ( Botsman and Rogers, 2011 ; WEF, 2017 ). Proponents of the sharing economy claim that it can help mitigate new realities of continuing economic recession, governmental austerity, increasing disparities between ‘haves and have-nots’, and growing environmental problems caused by consumption ( Agyeman et al., 2013 ; Botsman and Rogers, 2011 ; Gansky, 2012 ). Many sharing organisations also frame their visions and operations in sustainability terms ( Voytenko Palgan et al., 2017 ).

However, there is growing criticism of the sharing economy and its effects. Critical voices warn that there is little evidence to support sustainability claims of sharing ( Cohen, 2016 ; Schor, 2014 ). The sharing economy is seen as a threat to professionalism, public safety, privacy and health, and labour rights ( SOU, 2017 ; Vith et al., 2019 ), as well as a risk of promoting increased consumption and associated environmental burden ( Martin, 2016 ; Voytenko Palgan et al., 2017 ). In particular, the rapid penetration of services delivered by multi-national platform giants such as Airbnb and Uber has been taking governments by surprise, leaving them unprepared for the challenges that might arise ( Davidson and Infranca, 2016 ; Ferreri and Sanyal, 2018 ; Finck and Ranchordás, 2016 ; Gyódi, 2019 ; Voytenko Palgan et al., 2017 ). As a result, many national and local governments have now started regulating sharing economy practices ( Voytenko Palgan et al., 2019 ).

While the sharing economy contributes to both creating and addressing sustainability issues, the actual economic, social and environmental impacts of the sharing economy remain poorly understood. Advancing more sustainably promising forms of sharing and leveraging its benefits, while circumventing the pitfalls of the sharing economy, is becoming increasingly important in the era of Covid-19 and climate crisis, economic uncertainty and loss of social connectedness, particularly in anonymous urban environments. The ways to achieve this are not yet understood. In particular, the roles and perspectives of users, businesses and municipal governments in institutionalising the sharing economy in various geographical contexts are important to examine.

This volume therefore aims to explore the diverse sustainability claims of the sharing economy, i.e. its economic, environmental and social implications, and the institutionalisation pathways of new sharing forms in different socio-cultural contexts. The volume seeks to contribute to advancing the research field by exploring these issues, focusing on four principal areas of research:

• • Understanding the sharing economy;
• • User perspectives on the sharing economy;
• • Business perspective on the sharing economy;
• • Urban governance perspective on the sharing economy.

The sharing economy remains a contested phenomenon lacking a definitional precision. There is no common understanding of the sharing economy ( Curtis and Lehner, 2019 ; Ertz and Leblanc-Proulx, 2018 ; Gurău and Ranchhod, 2020 ), and various terms are used, e.g. collaborative consumption, access-based consumption, collaborative or peer economy. A comprehensive framework is needed to design studies that are comparable. However, before arriving at a commonly agreed definition, a thorough analysis of different concepts, theories and understandings of the term ‘sharing economy’ is needed.

The sharing economy research field is split between various streams of research, such as reputation systems, taxation and regulation issues, trust, or conceptual foundations. There is a need to address the evolution of the research field, analyse how it has developed, and characterise the relationships between various sharing economy domains ( Ertz and Leblanc-Proulx, 2018 ). Many of the challenges of understanding the sharing economy are linked to the fragmented research on the topic, using either secondary or primary data, so a mixed-method approach exploring structural and functional units of the sharing economy is needed ( Gurău and Ranchhod, 2020 ). As most of the research is being conducted in the Global North, there is also a need to understand how, in what form, and with what implications the sharing economy is emerging in the developing world ( Yuana et al., 2019 ).

Previous research on the users’ perspectives on the sharing economy has highlighted motivations of users to participate in various forms of sharing economy schemes ( Bardhi and Eckhardt, 2012 ; Moeller and Wittkowski, 2010 ; Möhlmann, 2015 ; Tussyadiah, 2015 ), demographics of users (c.f. Martin et al., 2010 ; Owyang et al., 2014 ), as well as the inclusionary and exclusionary effects by and on users ( Schor et al., 2016 ). Several studies have also highlighted the shifting role of the citizen-consumers in the sharing economy – from the more passive consumer, i.e. citizen buying a product or service from a company (business-to-consumer or B2C), to a dual role as both provider and receiver in a peer-to-peer (P2P) relationship ( Eden, 2015 ; Jaeger-Erben et al., 2015 ). Hence, the term ‘user’ is often applied in the sharing economy discourse in order to denote the dual peer relation. While there are several studies on the motivations and perceptions of active users of the sharing economy, less is known about the wider public perceptions of the sharing economy ( Cherry and Pidgeon, 2018 ) and of the perspectives of non-users, e.g. why the current sharing economy may not be available or appealing to them. As pointed out by Retamal (2019) in this volume, existing research on sharing economy practices has focused on high-income countries, while considerably less attention has been given to sharing economy practices in low-income parts of the world.

Although research on business models has exploded in recent years, understanding how value is created, delivered and captured in business models in the sharing economy remains in a nascent stage ( Andreassen et al., 2018 ). Research is emerging on business model innovation at organisational level ( Bocken et al., 2013 ) and on innovating sustainable business models ( Breuer et al., 2018 ; Geissdoerfer et al., 2016 ; Joyce and Paquin, 2016 ; Yang et al., 2017 ), but consensus is limited on definition of sharing business models, their fundamental characteristics, and the nature of markets they create. We also know very little about why sharing organisations diversify their business models, what mechanisms for diversification are, and how and why they create business model portfolios. Assessment of viability and sustainability of different sharing economy business models is lacking. Tools and methods for business modelling are still scarce, and those that exist rarely elevate sustainability as a driver or an explicit goal when business models in the sharing economy are being developed ( Geissdoerfer et al., 2018 ). Examples of successful sustainable business model implementation are also rare ( Ritala et al., 2018 ), and there is the ‘design-implementation gap’ ( Baldassarre et al., 2020 ; Geissdoerfer et al., 2018 ). Knowledge is also scarce on the mechanisms for mainstreaming and upscaling different business models, and sharing business models in particular ( Meijer et al., 2019 ). The understanding is emerging that professionalisation and commercialisation of originally communal forms of sharing might have implications for their sustainability ambitions, but empirical evidence is lacking ( Cockayne, 2016 ). The interplay between business model innovations and socio-technical and organisational contexts overall has not been sufficiently explored ( Grinevich and Huber, 2015 ). Indeed, sharing organisations do not evolve in isolation. They affect the established sectors and companies, which are responding by either joining the sharing economy organisational field to reap economic benefits or tackling the disrupting newcomers ( Winterhalter et al., 2015 ). How the changes in business models of incumbents affect the sharing economy is largely unknown ( Ciulli and Kolk, 2019 ).

Various aspects of urban governance of the sharing economy require further attention ( Bernardi and Diamantini, 2018 ; Ma et al., 2018 ; Voytenko Palgan et al., 2019 ). Sharing in cities is promising because of high density and high levels of income of urban population, which leads to high levels of consumption and results in high volumes of underutilised assets. The rapid digitalisation also increases connectivity between sharing platform users. There is a need to understand the role of policy and regulation in enabling or constraining the sharing economy, as well as the kind of governance arrangements needed to ensure socio-economic and environmental sustainability of the sharing economy in cities. While municipalities engage with sharing economy organisations differently ( Voytenko Palgan et al., 2019 ; Zvolska et al., 2018 ) and govern the phenomenon in proactive or reactive ways ( Bernardi and Diamantini, 2018 ; Davidson and Infranca, 2016 ; Finck and Ranchordás, 2016 ), municipal institutional responses to the sharing economy remain underdeveloped ( Ma et al., 2018 ). At the same time, urban governance of the sharing economy is becoming increasingly important since, if managed well, the sharing economy may have a transformative impact on cities and their economic prosperity, social viability and environmental quality ( WEF, 2017 ). Therefore, it is important to understand how to govern the sharing economy in cities so that municipalities and their residents could capitalise on the benefits offered by the sharing economy and circumvent its pitfalls.

This special volume brings together articles from different disciplines that offer conceptual insights and bring forward empirical data illustrating how the sharing economy and its sustainability implications can be understood. The articles also show how more promising forms of sharing can be advanced by the users of sharing economy platforms, the platforms themselves, incumbent businesses, and municipalities. The sharing economy phenomenon has penetrated the academic and policy discourse on sustainable consumption and production – a general topic on which the Journal of Cleaner Production is publishing extensively. This volume continues the series of Special Volumes on Sustainable Consumption and Production and on Product-service Systems.

2. Contributions from the articles

2.1. this special volume at a glance.

This volume emerges from paper sessions at the 4th International Workshop on the Sharing Economy (4IWSE) held in Lund, Sweden, on 15–16 June 2017, and several additional contributions. During the workshop sessions, conceptual, methodological and empirical questions on the operations, governance aspects, actors and impacts of the sharing economy in different geographical contexts were explored. The workshop was testimony to a growing interest in seeking to understand the socio-economic and environmental dimensions of the sharing economy that engages various actors, including sharing economy platforms, their users, incumbent businesses, and municipal governments.

The twenty articles in this volume address sustainability implications of the sharing economy from different perspectives, i.e. conceptual, business, consumer and governance. They bring insights from different countries, including Austria, Brazil, China, Germany, France, Indonesia, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, the Philippines, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, Vietnam, and the United Kingdom. The volume therefore makes an important contribution by bringing in empirical findings from emerging and developing economies to supplement the more frequently discussed perspectives from high-income countries. Furthermore, the articles draw on different conceptual and theoretical backgrounds, stemming from a range of academic disciplines, e.g. Business and Management, Geography, Economics, Environmental Sciences, Sociology, Political Science, Psychology, Science and Technology Studies, and Urban Studies.

The first three articles help to improve understanding of the sharing ( Gurău and Ranchhod, 2020 ) and collaborative ( Ertz and Leblanc-Proulx, 2018 ) economy concepts and their evolution, and how the sharing economy manifests itself in the case of ridesharing in the Philippines and Indonesia ( Yuana et al., 2019 ). The next seven articles focus on consumer, resident and citizen perspectives, including their perceptions, motivations ( Cerutti et al., 2019 ; Hartl et al., 2018 ; Hawlitschek et al., 2018 ; Schanes and Stagl, 2019 ) and acceptance of sharing services ( Cherry and Pidgeon, 2018 ), and the role of sustainability for consumers of the sharing economy ( Cherry and Pidgeon, 2018 ; Hartl et al., 2018 ; Laamanen et al., 2018 ; Retamal, 2019 ). This is followed by seven articles discussing business perspectives on the sharing economy, including sharing economy platforms ( Curtis and Mont, 2020 ; Fraanje and Spaargaren, 2019 ; Geissinger et al., 2019 ; Guyader and Piscicelli, 2019 ; Netter et al., 2019 ; van Waes et al., 2018 ) and incumbents ( Ciulli and Kolk, 2019 ). The final three articles discuss the relevance of the sharing economy in cities, its impacts and challenges ( Bernardi and Diamantini, 2018 ; Gyódi, 2019 ; Ma et al., 2018 ), and the ways in which the sharing economy may be governed in urban contexts ( Bernardi and Diamantini, 2018 ; Ma et al., 2018 ). In sub-sections 2.2-2.5 , we discuss article contributions in detail.

2.2. Understanding the sharing economy

Given the complexity of the phenomenon of the sharing economy, a variety of methods and approaches are necessary to study the phenomenon from various perspectives. The articles in this volume bring together an interesting mix of concepts, theory and methods. Gurău and Ranchhod (2020) address the numerous attempts to understand the sharing economy, by analysing how the concept is understood in the literature and by different stakeholders. Ertz and Leblanc-Proulx (2018) explore how the sharing economy field has evolved by employing bibliometric analysis. Special attention is paid to how previous literature has discussed whether the sharing economy is sustainable. Zooming in from the broader understanding of the sharing economy to its specific sectors, the paper by Yuana et al. (2019) studies ridesharing in Indonesia and the Philippines. The authors explore the framings of ridesharing found in local news articles to bring a perspective from the Global South. The three studies offer a deeper understanding of complex structure and dynamics of the sharing economy’s and result in theoretical, methodological and practical implications.

Gurău and Ranchhod (2020) explore the structural and functional aspects of the sharing economy by focusing on its defining characteristics, main stakeholders, and systemic benefits and challenges. They draw on the perspective of a complex dynamic system, using interpretative content analysis. Using NVIVO, they analyse secondary sources and 256 interviews with sellers, service providers, clients or traditional competitors in France, Italy and the UK, bringing a rich dataset to this special volume. They deliver insights on who the main stakeholders are, how the sharing economy is understood and what the benefits and challenges are, as perceived in the literature and by the stakeholders. They find that the peer-to-peer dimension is much more emphasised in academic articles, books, and business reports compared to articles in newspapers and social media blogs. Books and service providers mainly focus on the benefits of the sharing economy, while competitors highlight the challenges. Academic and newspaper articles, as well as the general public, provide a more balanced view.

Similar to Gurău and Ranchhod (2020) , Ertz and Leblanc-Proulx (2018) examine how the sharing economy is understood and depicted in the literature. They explore how the collaborative economy evolved in the past years and with it the sustainability discussion around it. The authors employ three levels of analysis: bibliometric analysis; network analysis to identify prominent authors, leading publications, and extant and upcoming research clusters; and content analysis to identify main research questions. Searching for title, abstract and keywords of articles in Web of Science and Scopus databases, their study shows interesting insights into, for example, who are the most influential authors, publications or institutions. The authors also use techniques for data mapping to illustrate the progression of publications in the sharing economy literature over the past decade.

Yuana et al. (2019) employ frame analysis to study how ridesharing is framed in the news content in Indonesia and the Philippines, and how this reflects the policy response to ridesharing. The authors first identify five frames: commuter solution, unregulated passenger transport services, cooperative business, non-conformity solution, and informal livelihoods. They elaborate on whether the frames constitute a problem, a solution, or a rationale. Then the authors link the identified frames to policy responses to ridesharing. In the Philippines, legal sanctions are being imposed after establishing ridesharing as a new legal category. In contrast, Indonesia is regulating ridesharing under an existing legal category, which provides a more balanced position between key stakeholders.

2.3. User perspective on the sharing economy

A number of papers in this volume contribute to knowledge on why users engage in sharing practices and their experiences ( Cerutti et al., 2019 ; Hartl et al., 2018 ; Hawlitschek et al., 2018 ; Schanes and Stagl, 2019 ). Hawlitscheck et al. (2018) show that consumer motivations to engage in peer-to-peer sharing include cost-saving, trust in other users, ecological sustainability, and a “modern lifestyle”, and factors that impede peer-to-peer sharing include the independence of private ownership, effort expectancy, and perceived process risks.

Hartl et al. (2018) have studied motivations of both B2C and P2P car sharing, and specifically explored the role of sustainability in the promotion of these services. The study shows that environmental concerns play an important role, particularly for those choosing P2P car sharing over B2C. However, for those choosing B2C services, the financial benefits and convenience are considered more important. Here, environmental impacts are considered more as a positive side effect. These results indicate the importance of distinguishing between P2P and B2C services in marketing, communication strategies, and public policy. As pointed out by Hawlitscheck et al. (2018) , this also suggests that it is important to be wary of greenwashing in the promotion of sharing economy services.

Schanes and Stagl (2019) have explored the motivations of food sharing practitioners in an Austrian context. In contrast to the transport sharing cases ( Cerutti et al., 2019 ; Hartl et al., 2018 ), the motivations here concern “emotions and morality” and “identity and sense of community”, but there are also ‘instrumental’ motivations, such as getting access to free food. The authors show that the diverse agendas of food sharers – from political systemic change to simply getting access to free food – seem capable of coexistence and at times be reinforced.

Cerutti et al. (2019) have studied the motivations and user perceptions of bike-sharing services in the context of a mid-sized Brazilian city. Their study shows that the main motivation is “health and environment”, followed by being a role model and associated with a positive lifestyle. Their study also includes the perceptions of non-users, primarily women, who reported that the cycling infrastructure of the city is not perceived as convenient and safe enough and that cycling does not match their lifestyle. Cerutti et al. (2019) conclude that these findings indicate the importance of including citizen participation in the development of smart city strategies – smart digital solutions will not be enough, if the perspectives of users and non-users are not considered.

Two papers in this volume specifically contribute with knowledge on factors for mainstreaming of sharing economy practices. They do so by exploring the perspectives of the broader public, thereby going beyond studies of active users. Cherry and Pidgeon (2018) explore broader public perceptions of the sharing economy, desires, and concerns regarding mainstreaming of the sharing economy. The study shows that the overall perceptions of the sharing economy in the UK context are positive, specifically in terms of the potentials to reduce environmental footprints, strengthen community, and enable access to previously unaffordable products and services. However, the results also indicate more deep-seated concerns about the (lack of) safety and hygiene of shared products and peer-delivered services, fear of social inequality, and general low levels of trust in companies used for sharing operations. The conclusion is that these are factors that need to be dealt with if the sharing economy is to be mainstreamed.

The bulk of research on the sharing economy has been conducted in the Global North, often in contexts saturated with consumer goods and where individual ownership of items like cars or laundry machines has been the norm. Retamal (2019) contributes by exploring collaborative consumption practices in the context of Southeast Asia, more specifically Bangkok, Manila and Hanoi, where private ownership of such products is less common. The case studies include not only active users of collaborative consumption services but also policy makers, business owners, consultants, and NGOs, in order to explore prospects for mainstreaming. Retamal (2019) concludes that there are several factors that indicate possibilities for mainstreaming of collaborative consumption, e.g. high density of people, limited housing sizes, traffic congestion, and long commuting times. However, the study also shows that there is resistance, particularly to shared-access practices such as shared laundry machines or car sharing. The resistance stems from lack of trust, lack of knowledge of how to use the shared equipment, and lack of institutional support for consumer-to-consumer business models.

Lastly, Laamanen et al. (2018) contributes by highlighting non-monetary dimensions of the sharing economy, and time-banking specifically. Drawing on Karl Polanyi’s conceptualisation of house holding, the authors argue that time-banking contributes to self-sufficiency and autonomy by connecting people beyond kin relations. They argue that such forms of non-monetary sharing need to be emphasised to challenge the neoliberal forms of the sharing economy, where reproductive work is being commercialised through platforms.

2.4. Business perspective on the sharing economy

The articles that focus on business models and practices in the sharing economy span a range of topics. These comprise business model innovation and implementation ( Curtis and Mont, 2020 ), the communal-commercial continuum of SEBMs ( Netter et al., 2019 ), upscaling and development trajectories ( Fraanje and Spaargaren, 2019 ; van Waes et al., 2018 ), sustainability connotations ( Geissinger et al., 2019 ), the role of incumbents in affecting the landscape of the sharing economy ( Ciulli and Kolk, 2019 ) and finally, the role of emotions and human agency in the dynamic interaction between companies, practices, and practitioners that shape the future trajectories of the sharing economy ( Fraanje and Spaargaren, 2019 ).

Addressing the business perspective are conceptual articles ( Curtis and Mont, 2020 ; Netter et al., 2019 ), articles based on extensive and longitudinal empirical research ( Guyader and Piscicelli, 2019 ), and articles that combine conceptual and empirical sides. The articles present case studies ( Fraanje and Spaargaren, 2019 ; Guyader and Piscicelli, 2019 ) and cross-case comparisons ( van Waes et al., 2018 ), and delve deeply into individual organisations, with a bird’s-eye perspective on specific aspects of the sharing economy ( Geissinger et al., 2019 ). Contributions explore peer-to-peer sharing organisations and business-to-consumer organisations ( Netter et al., 2019 ; van Waes et al., 2018 ). We learn about sharing organisations from the mobility sector, including bikes ( van Waes et al., 2018 ) and car sharing organisations ( Guyader and Piscicelli, 2019 ), sharing of physical assets ( Guyader and Piscicelli, 2019 ) and the entire spectrum of other sharing business models ( Geissinger et al., 2019 ).

van Waes et al. (2018) develop a transition framework aimed at improving understanding about evolution of different SEBMs and especially mechanisms supporting and hindering upscaling, in different socio-technical contexts. The framework identifies “actors (individuals, firms, organisations), institutions (regulations, norms, beliefs) and material artefacts and infrastructure” as critical elements in understanding upscaling. It is applied to the bike sharing sector where mechanisms of upscaling of four business models – two-way station-based, one-way station-based, one-way free floating, and peer-to-peer sharing – are discussed and tested. The findings show that more traditional station-based business models have already been institutionalised, but experience difficulties with scaling up. On the other hand, the novel one-way free-floating models have the highest scaling potential. By combining the business model perspective with transition analysis, the framework can be used to predict the upscaling potential of different SEBMs. The paper contributes to transition and institutionalisation literature.

Ciulli and Kolk (2019) explore the role of incumbents in the sharing economy, and how their own sustainability profiles, including economic, environmental, and social value creation are affected. The authors develop a typology of business model innovation for sharing, and bring in cases of incumbents’ entry in the sharing economy. They discuss the sustainability implications of each type of business model innovation employed by incumbents. Then sustainability benefits and drawbacks of incumbents’ entering the sharing economy are explored, both for the incumbents themselves and for the development of the sharing economy. The paper advances the literature on the sharing economy and sustainable business models.

The sharing economy as a research field is still in an emerging state, lacking a solid conceptual foundation ( Acquier et al., 2017 ). A contribution to theory-building on SEBMs and the markets they serve is the paper by Netter et al. (2019) , where a theory-driven framework is developed for describing and analysing business-to-consumer and peer-to-peer sharing models drawing on the literature on partial organisation. The authors explore the importance of five core dimensions of organising (membership, hierarchy, rules, monitoring, and sanctions), and employ them to understand and map the continuum between largely communal (user-driven) and commercial (platform-driven) SEBMs. The intention is to offer a tool that allows description and analysis of SEBMs “without indulging in speculations about strategic intent and normative ideals of what sharing should be” ( Netter et al., 2019 ).

Geissinger et al. (2019) address another underexplored issue, namely the emergent tendency of sharing organisations to shed their sustainability aspirations when they upscale or become mainstream. The authors seek evidence of that by studying sustainability connotations of 121 platforms collected through social media analysis. The findings demonstrate that sustainability connotations are diverse, but specific for various sharing sectors, such as fashion, on-demand services, and logistics ( Geissinger et al., 2019 ). At the same time, the research found no evidence of the sharing economy unicorns describing themselves as being sustainable. The platform level analysis shows that sustainability credentials are becoming less prominent in marketing and communication compared to earlier discussions of the sharing economy per se and its sustainability potential. The authors discuss the development “from accessing and sharing to acquiring and consuming” as representing evolution of sharing organisations rather than the general development in the sharing economy landscape. They propose that it is unlikely that the sharing economy will drive sustainability discourse and action in the future, but that sharing organisations will rather adjust to a legal framework that governs diverse sectors of which different sharing sectors will be part.

Guyader and Piscicelli (2019) address yet another interesting and emerging phenomenon in the sharing economy organisational field, namely business model diversification. This follows the recent trend among the sharing organisations to develop multiple business models for different sets of customers. The authors set out to test a proposition that “successful business model configurations maximise the existing resources of a firm to establish hard-to-imitate capabilities and create sustainable competitive advantage”. Focusing on the sharing mobility start-up GoMore, the article traces its evolution and diversification. It started as a non-profit ridesharing website and developed into a for-profit platform that provides both peer-to-peer and business-to-consumer mobility services. The authors identified six key resources comprising business model portfolio, i.e. member community, platform technology, user data, customer support, local management teams, and partners. Also three key capabilities were defined, including leverage of the community’s assets, technological improvement, and user engagement. The key resources and capabilities are shared among the business models and geographical contexts with the aim to improve the quality of the offer, facilitate growth, and improve profits ( Guyader and Piscicelli, 2019 ). The article integrates the strategy literature on business models with the marketing literature on the sharing economy.

The article by Curtis and Mont (2020) aims to fill the design-implementation gap identified in literature by developing the sharing economy business modelling tool for sustainability. Unlike the paper by Netter et al. (2019) , which distances itself from any “strategic and normative” stance, Curtis and Mont (2020) take a normative perspective, suggesting that SEBMs need to be deliberately designed with sustainability in mind, since accessing and utilising idling capacity via platforms has sustainability benefits, but reaping these benefits is not automatic. The authors develop a tool aimed at this. The tool is based on performing a morphological analysis of SEBMs, according to which business model attributes and their alternate conditions are systematically mapped. Curtis and Mont (2020) propose four conditions for improved sustainability performance: SEBMs operating as platforms, leveraging idling capacity of an existing stock of goods, applying non-pecuniary motivation for ownership, and facilitating temporary access over ownership. The sharing economy business modelling tool has been developed and tested with experts, and should be of interest to all actors concerned about sustainability impacts of sharing organisations.

The article by Fraanje and Spaargaren (2019) has its starting point in observation that the sharing economy “increasingly follows a conventional market rationality of payments and profits” in contrast to its initial social and societal aspirations. The authors set out to investigate present and future trajectories of sharing practices on the Peerby and MyWheels platforms, by employing a practice theoretical perspective of social change addressed in the sociological theories ( Schatzki, 2016 ). The article demonstrates that participants in the sharing economy engage with sharing practices in both pragmatic and emotional ways. The findings also show the important role of emotions and human agency in influencing the dynamic interactions between companies, practices, and practitioners that shape the future of the sharing economy. Analysing the practices of two platforms, tool and car sharing (Peerby and MyWheels respectively), two distinct trajectories are identified. While Peerby from the outset is based on the idea of sharing goods by connecting people, its introduction of Peerby Go seeks to increase efficiency of sharing at the expense of reduced social interaction. In contrast, MyWheels, whose initial aim was to optimise car sharing efficiency, is currently trying to increase the sense of community on the platform. The authors suggest that, in order to understand trajectories of sharing practices, we need to consider how sharing organisations organise their practices, the types of products that are shared, and how people embed sharing practices in their daily lives ( Fraanje and Spaargaren, 2019 ). This practice-theoretical perspective on the future of the sharing economy resonates with the call to study sharing practices of resource owners, resource users, and platforms in the article by Curtis and Mont (2020) .

2.5. Urban governance perspective on the sharing economy

The articles focusing on the urban governance perspective on the sharing economy have a broad geographical coverage, as they build on the case studies of sharing economy developments and urban governance in eight global cities. While the article by Gyódi (2019) has a narrower focus on evaluating socio-economic impact of Airbnb on local residents and the hotel industry in four cities of Paris, Barcelona, Berlin and Warsaw, articles by Bernardi and Diamantini (2018) and Ma et al. (2018) focus on how the sharing economy may be governed in cities to advance its sustainability potential primarily in socio-environmental terms.

Bernardi and Diamantini (2018) apply the sharing concept and the collaborative urban governance perspective to explore how local authorities can build “a real sharing city”. The authors develop a conceptual model comprising three dimensions of the sharing city, i.e. technological, economic and human, to analyse urban governance of the sharing economy in Seoul and Milan. They find that, while specific municipal governance approaches differ, both municipalities work along all three dimensions to create a sharing city. The cities of Seoul and Milan view human dimension and social capital as important, so avoid building on purely neoliberal logic of developing prosperous and competitive urban areas or on a more technocratic orientation of smart cities. The authors argue that it is important to recognise the role if new actors in urban governance and promote their cooperation, as well as for municipalities to act as enabling states of the sharing paradigm. They find, however, that both municipalities lack institutionalised mechanisms of collaboration ( Bernardi and Diamantini, 2018 ).

Like Bernardi and Diamantini (2018) , Ma et al. (2018) argue that collaborative governance of the sharing economy in cities is important, to deliver its socio-environmental sustainability. They develop an analytical framework comprising principled engagement, shared motivation and capacity for joint action to explore collaborative governance processes surrounding the development of free-floating bike sharing in Shanghai ( Ma et al., 2018 ). The authors find that lacking recognition and integration of user groups and other social actors in the governance process is one of the main hindering factors for a well-functioning collaboration between business, government and the society at large. They suggest that municipalities should be more proactive “to accommodate, nurture and integrate emerging social actors as governance partners in the sharing economy”, which in turn would advance social and environmental potential of sharing economy initiatives ( Ma et al., 2018 , p. 396). The authors propose an alternative model that engages society in governing the sharing economy.

The article by Gyódi (2019) takes a step back to examine the impacts of Airbnb on European cities, their residents and the hotel industry, and therefore contributes with knowledge that can be used by policy-makers, urban planners and other relevant actors in governing the operations of short-term home rentals. The author uses a web-scraped dataset of Airbnb listings in Paris, Barcelona, Berlin and Warsaw to show that listings from professionalised hosts dominate in all cities, while ‘real’ sharing economy ( Frenken and Schor, 2017 ) listings constitute between 49.5% (Berlin) and 11.1% (Warsaw). The author argues that this reduces the stock of properties for local inhabitants and leads to eventual gentrification. At the same time, the study identifies governance approaches of city councils to be the reason for the variation ( Gyódi, 2019 ). Another finding from the spatial analysis is that “while Airbnb was highly concentrated in areas dense with traditional hotels, it complemented the hotel industry in more suburban areas” ( Gyódi, 2019 , p. 546). This also proves that Airbnb exacerbates pressure from tourism in the case study cities.

3. Conclusions and future research

This section summarises the key contributions to knowledge made by the articles in this volume, and concludes by suggesting areas for future research.

3.1. Conclusions

This volume discusses sustainability implications of the sharing economy from different perspectives, in various geographical contexts, and drawing on a range of disciplines. It makes an important contribution by bringing in empirical findings from emerging and developing economies, including Brazil, China, Indonesia, Poland, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam, thereby supplementing more frequently discussed perspectives from high-income countries.

The articles in this volume have contributed to a better understanding of the sharing economy phenomenon in several ways. They explored the evolution of the sharing economy as a research field, mapping the most influential authors and publications, which provided an interesting overview of the existing literature. They also brought new insights into the narratives and policies of the sharing economy in the Global South by analysing ridesharing in the Philippines and Indonesia. They contributed methodologically by using both secondary and primary sources to define the main characteristics of the sharing economy, its stakeholders, and the perceived systemic benefits and challenges. Finally, the papers debated the importance of sustainability in the literature and in practice, which is likely to play a major role in future publications.

From the user perspective, it can be concluded that there is plenty of research on user motivations, particularly emphasising the perceived benefits to users, in terms of cost-saving, health, and being a role model, but also the impediments to users. The perspectives of non-users have also been explored, as well as how the wider public perceives the sharing economy and the potential of the sharing economy for mainstreaming. However, the task remains for researchers to explore the risks that are not so easily perceived for users and the wider public in the short-term, such as risks related to data integrity, increasing reliance on a few digital giants, and lock-ins.

One important finding from the business perspective is that the sharing economy is not sustainable by default. Studies in this volume discuss many positive and negative sides of the sharing economy and how perceptions, actions and connotations about the sharing economy are changing with time. There is an emerging trend that some organisations shed their sustainability aspirations as they grow to fit the mainstream institutional contexts. Therefore, some studies call for a more strategic and deliberate stance on how sharing economy business models are shaped and evolve. Some studies suggest that it is important to understand the roles and interplay between actors, institutions and infrastructures that shape the evolution, sustainability and upscaling of business models in the sharing economy. Several papers conclude that understanding sharing practices of different actors, such as resource owners and resource users, is also critical, because they affect the sustainability of sharing organisations and trajectories of their development.

From the urban perspective, it is clear that the governance approaches of the sharing economy vary between geographical contexts. These are primarily dependent on sustainability challenges that various cities are facing, as well as the goals that they are pursuing. While the articles revealed both reactive and proactive engagement with the sharing economy among municipal governments, one important conclusion is that more agile action by municipalities will be important to leverage the sustainability potential of the sharing economy. In particular, collaboration was argued to be useful when governing the complexity of sharing economy developments, but to make it work, more focus should be paid to a better integration of emerging social actors in the governance processes and building on the social capital of urban residents.

As a whole, the articles in this volume represent an ongoing discussion on sustainability implications of the sharing economy and on the ways to leverage its economic, social and environmental potential while mitigating its risks. For this to happen, municipalities, communities, sharing economy platforms, incumbent businesses and knowledge institutes need to steer towards more sustainable development of the sharing economy to address the issues that are relevant to their particular contexts and concerns.

3.2. Future research

The articles in this volume give an indication of the course of future research.

From the perspective of understanding and conceptualising the sharing economy phenomenon, placing and exploring the sharing economy in the sustainability context remains an important area of current and future research. A more rigorous theoretical modelling of the sharing economy, drawing on existing economic and market theories, is also identified as important. In the context of the Global South, it will be crucial to further explore the interplay between the sharing economy as a global phenomenon, national regulations and city-level law enforcement concerns.

From the user perspective, it is relevant to not only deepen the knowledge on motives and impediments of participating in or mainstreaming of the sharing economy but also to critically explore the power-relations in a growing B2C sharing economy, where citizens no longer own, manage or repair the products they use. This also means handing over certain forms of power, control of resources, skills and know-how to companies. Research on the sharing economy has almost exclusively focused on urban contexts in ‘advanced economies’, while sharing practices in rural, small town and ‘less advanced’ contexts have received far less attention. In future research, it would be of interest to explore perspectives, knowledge and practices of sharing in the peripheries, beyond the big platforms. Perhaps there are experiences here that could inform the steering of sharing economies towards increased user autonomy.

From the business perspective, there is a need to improve our understanding about business models in the sharing economy, including mechanisms of their diversification and ecosystems of sharing business models. Further research is needed on business model innovation in socio-technical contexts, studying actors, institutions and infrastructures in their interplay. Another important direction is to explore the role of incumbents in shaping the sharing economy by affecting actors, institutions and infrastructures. In order to utilise the sustainability potential of the sharing economy, tools and methods for evaluating sustainability performance of business models need to be developed. More importantly, it is critical to improve the granularity of assessment, which would allow us to understand how change in design of certain business model elements affects the overall sustainability of the sharing economy business model. Future research should also focus on improving understanding of how sharing organisations evolve, and why and when their sustainability aspirations change, including cross-case and cross-sectoral comparisons. Finally, research on sharing economy business models needs to be supplemented with studies about behaviour of sharing economy participants, i.e. individuals who are involved in the sharing economy either as resource owners and resource users, and their everyday practices, since they affect both the sustainability of sharing economy business models and trajectories of their upscaling and mainstreaming.

From the urban governance perspective, there is a need for a deeper analysis of the socio-cultural, historical and political context in which various cities are embedded, to improve understanding of how municipalities may govern the sharing economy. Following this, it would be important to develop the understanding on the types of governance approaches that municipalities may utilise to strengthen their position towards sharing economy organisations and find ways to co-exist or collaborate, benefiting cities and their residents. Further comparative case studies among diverse economic, social and cultural contexts can contribute to the conceptualisation of collaborative governance phenomenon especially in the context of upscaling the sharing economy.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council Formas [project “Urban Reconomy”] and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No 771872). The authors would like to thank Leslie Walke for language editing.

Handling Editor: Yutao Wang

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