The primary objective of this dissertation is to examine the theoretical and practical implications of the collaborative consumption phenomenon for individuals, businesses and society. To accomplish this goal, a research approach at three levels of analysis is used to explore how market institutions and consumer practices negotiate a social order that combines the social domain of peers with the economic domain of market exchange. The first essay of the dissertation approaches this objective from a macro level to examine how social order is produced and sustained through the systemic interactions of service firms and peers. This essay provides a framework to understand the emergent business models by developing a typological theory that explains how platforms can be configured for higher value creation. The second essay approaches our understanding of the phenomenon from a meso level analysis to examine how peers interact with the social order of collaborative consumption markets to negotiate key existential tensions between consumer resistance and market appropriation. This essay explores the metaphors that peers use to construe the field of collaborative consumption. Through the interpretive analysis of participant-generated images, this research uncovers the prevailing use of a liberation metaphor that reveals a new way of thinking about resource circulation. Lastly, the third essay employs a micro level of analysis to examine how participation in collaborative consumption practices provokes intrapersonal dynamics leading to moral decay. By relying on a social cognitive framework that considers how behaviors impact personal and environmental factors in a recursive fashion, this essay scrutinizes when and how prolonged participation can erode moral identity and negatively impact prosocial behaviors. Together, this holistic approach advances our theoretical understanding of the collaborative consumption phenomenon and provides practical implications for managerial practice and public policy.

The prevailing capitalist and growth-driven economic system has led to an increase in inequality, resource consumption, and environmental pressure on the earth’s vital support systems. Cities face a number of sustainability challenges, and in view of overconsumption in affluent societies, particularly in the Global North, the question arises how alternative approaches can be implemented at the local level. The “sharing economy” is considered as having the potential to open a “new pathway to sustainability”. To unfold the alleged sustainability potential of the sharing economy, the focus should be on non-profit sharing initiatives rather than for-profit sharing companies. This study analyses different modes of governance applied by local authorities in steering non-profit sharing initiatives, highlights the challenges local authorities face, and draws attention to more general conflicts of interest in developing the non-profit sharing economy. A comparative case study of Gothenburg and Umeå, Sweden, is conducted using qualitative research methods. The results show that some modes of governance applied by local authorities in steering non-profit sharing initiatives are more prominent than others. It becomes clear that the municipal involvement in the non-profit sharing economy as investor and host depends largely on the political will. The challenges for local authorities in developing the non-profit sharing economy are quite diverse, ranging from lack of political support to legal aspects, organisation of administration, local conditions, and structural problems. A conflict of interest between a for-profit and non-profit orientation in the sharing economy becomes evident.

Housing affordability has been impacted by rising house prices in Europe and it is argued that home-sharing is making housing less affordable. The purpose of this thesis is to provide empirical evidence whether home sharing has a relationship on housing affordability by utilizing an extensive set of Airbnb listings data acquired from multiple European urban cities between the years of 2011and 2020. We conduct a panel data analysis using a fixed effects model to regress the relationship between the accumulated Airbnb supply and price-to-income ratio. The results display statistically insignificant results between the price-to-income ratio and the accumulated supply of Airbnb, implying that there is not enough statistical evidence to determine the relationship between short-term rental and European housing affordability. We unfold this relationship through analyzing transmission mechanisms such as supply reallocation, changes in demand and positive and negative externalities, and reassure the validity of our results through the use of comprehensive robustness tests. Additionally, we explore the agglomeration of the Airbnb listings by separating cities to further distinguish that the varying relationship depends on the size of the Airbnb market. We find that cities with high Airbnb supply have a positive relationship with the price-to-income ratio.

Yes / Sharing economy is flourishing and increasingly customers are shifting towards “using instead of owning” products and services. The objective of our research is to empirically prove that low organizational trust can trigger strict organizational practices such as ethics training and audits but excessive use of both of these practices can negatively impact the relationship quality in sharing economy. In doing so, it has detrimental effects on co-creation and co-innovation particularly when the goals are related to emotional cognitive, material support and relationship building. This study, therefore, targets to scrutinize the dark side of B2B sharing economy platforms using the ethical theory of organizing. The unique contribution of this study is first, showcasing the relationships between ethical climate, ethical practices and consequences. Second, it highlights that B2B alliances that perceive strictness in ethics audits have a low level of willingness to enhance relationship quality. However, the effect of strictness in ethics training does not lead to the development of a low level of willingness to enhance relationship quality. This is an interesting finding and generates a theoretical debate. The findings of the study will promote the development of an ethical model that addresses the negative aspects of the B2B sharing economy. / The full-text of this article will be released for public view at the end of the publisher embargo on 06 Oct 2024.

This paper analyzes the characteristics that influence the revenue of Airbnb listings in Sweden, aiming to uncover the factors driving high competition in the hotel business due to the sharing economy. By investigating the relationship between Consumer Trust The- ory and Hedonic Pricing Theory in the context of Airbnb, the study identifies variables that contribute to the success of hosts in this sector. Utilizing panel data analysis with panels nested in host ID and property ID, the research integrates theoretical concepts and empirical data to offer practical applications for hosts seeking to enhance their listings' performance. The findings reveal that Airbnb revenue positively correlates with a higher number of booked reservations, bedrooms, bathrooms, reviews, and photos. Listings with flexible cancellation policies and those priced in local currency also experience increased revenue. Conversely, long stay duration requests from hosts, shared accommodation rooms, and instant bookings are associated with lower revenue. These results provide valuable insights for optimizing revenue strategies and improving platform design. The implications of this research extend to Airbnb hosts and online platform designers, offer- ing strategies to enhance revenue and user experience. Furthermore, the study contributes to a broader understanding of the tourism sector in Sweden and lays a foundation for future academic research on the economic and sociological effects of home-sharing ser- vices.

受到科技進步、消費者心態轉變、經濟因素三大條件驅動，共享經濟逐漸發展成具規模的集體社會趨勢，更被美國《時代週刊》列為「將會改變世界的十大主意」之一。本研究參考學者研究，將共享經濟定義為：「基於使多數人得以重複使用之目的，將閒置生產力透過中介平台，以群體合作進行有效率的點對點分享，並創造利益之商業模式」。 　　然而，隨著共享經濟企業的規模與版圖逐漸擴展，產業內既有的商業模式面臨破壞式創新所帶來的嚴峻挑戰和威脅，導致既得利益者企圖透過尋租行為要求政府禁止或限制共享經濟企業的營運，造成共享經濟發展受到限制。其中，尋租者多從「私人財產利用界線」及「平台與使用者間關係」來爭執共享經濟企業的合法性，且根據美國Uber案及Smart Apartment案判決分析，可再細部歸納得出「外部成本」、「契約性質」係爭議主因。 　　Airbnb係目前規模最大的私人住宅出租平台，為共享經濟十分成功的個案，使用者可將家中閒置空間刊登於平台上，短租給各地旅客。然而，多數城市均以法律規定業者需取得許可始能提供短期住宿服務，Airbnb使用者未獲得許可即於平台上提供住宅短租的行為，即產生適用法規上的合法性爭議。 　　本研究從「外部成本」及「契約性質」兩大角度切入，以紐約州檢察總長之Airbnb市場研究報告、Airbnb美國訴訟案以及我國日租套房判決，針對Airbnb「短租私人住宅」與「使用者利用平台」兩大行為做出我國法規適用之合法性討論，並企圖以立法管制、寇斯定理及社會規範，提出政府面對Airbnb於臺灣營運時可行之管理方式。 / Driven by the technological, changes, consumers’ purchase behaviors and the economy concern issues, sharing economy becomes a sizable social trend. Furthermore, Times magazine even ranks sharing economy as one of the ideas that would change the world. This research difines sharing economy as “a accessibility based business model for peer-to-peer markets, aimd to share underutilized asset or idling capacity effciently by crowd collaboration through a intermediary platform”. 　　However, as the growth of sharing economy, enterprises are threatened by disruptive innovations and new business models., Thus, stakeholders’ rent-seeking behaviors within the industry would bring the difficulties and limitations to sharing economies. Those rent-seekers argue the issues of “the boundery of private property use” and “the relationship between platform and users” which make sharing economy invalid, and the lawsuits on Uber and Smart Apartment also show that “external costs” and “the nature of contract” are the main reasons resulting to rent seeking. 　　Airbnb is the biggest house-renting platform also one of the most successful sharing economy enterprises. Users could plae their own vacant spaces to rent out to other users on this platform to earn extra profits. While most cities in the world require house-renting or hotel business to obtain permission before providing short-term accommodation services, Airbnb’s users provide short-term accommodation via its platform do not require the permission which arise the disputes of the legality and vaility when applying to local regulation. 　　This theis is base on the perspectives of “external costs” and “the nature of contract”, market research report undertaken by the New York State Attorney General, American lawsuits related to Airbnb and cases of daily-based house-rental business in Taiwan to analyze the issues of short-term rental for private house, the useage of sharing economy platform, and the legality and validity of Airbnb when its business model applying to Taiwanese regulation. Based on the analysis, this theis proposes a solution about how Taiwanese government manages Airbnb’s based on legislative control, Coase Theorem and social norms.

International business strategy is a widely investigated topic, with a plethora of related research. Aspects such as the internationalization process and the challenges faced when entering a foreign market have been widely examined, with the majority of existing literature linked to multinational corporations and companies of a traditional nature. However, there is a lack of research based on companies operating within the sharing economy. This is in contrast to the attention that has been given to the study of small entrepreneurial firms, such as international new ventures and born globals. Hence making the sharing economy a valuable area of investigation in terms of internationalization.   With more and more companies breaking away from the traditional norms of operation, this modern approach to business requires a deeper understanding. Due to the very nature of the sharing economy, companies are highly likely to internationalize and do so from an early stage, and knowledge of the challenges related to the process is therefore vital. Such recognition provided the motivation for this study, in the belief that it will provide valuable knowledge to companies, as well as contribute to the existing body of literature.   This study sets out to fill this knowledge gap by exploring the challenges faced by sharing economy companies when internationalizing. Furthermore, the study seeks to examine the effects such challenges have on the company and how they can be overcome. Research was carried out through a qualitative case study of six companies, out of which; four have already internationalized and two are yet to internationalize. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the founders and senior managers, with questions relating to both internal and external challenges. The challenges were examined and their impact on the internationalization process explained.   The researchers conclude that both internal and external challenges impacted the internationalization process, and that many challenges were somewhat interconnected. From the challenges identified, the following were considered critical: networks, business model, funding and leadership decision-making. Overcoming such challenges can lessen the effects of other challenges and make the internationalization process more successful.

Inspired by the recent rise in interest surrounding the Sharing Economy, this report seeks to provide insight into the potential for sharing in cities. I focus my attention on land; as one of the scarcest resources in urban areas land holds some of the greatest potential for sharing. I strive to develop an awareness of the challenges against and opportunities for shareable approaches to land use and development of city-owned land. Through interviews and archival research I explore a variety of projects, programs and initiatives in Austin, TX and San Francisco, CA. Based on my findings I provide suggestions for the City of Austin in developing a more shareable approach to land use and development. / text

5 Abstract A significance of platforms based on sharing economy principle in tourism has been continuously increasing. Currently, the most significant phenomenon is Airbnb, which allows residents to offer their homes for tourists. Even though Airbnb still works on basic peer to peer principle of sharing economy, due to uncontrolled development, it has been leading to a diversion from values of sharing economy. Unlike Airbnb, couchsurfing still retains values of sharing economy and promotes sustainable tourism. However, there is not enough data about couchsurfing. For example, this platform does not have any public database, which would outline how many people were accommodated through Couchsurfing in particular destinations. The lack of data about couchsurfing is apparent in the academic sphere as well. The vast majority of studies is focused on sociological themes like motivations of people to use couchsurfing or mutual trust among its users. In the meantime, the spatial behaviour of these tourists has been therefore underestimated. Creation of a database of these tourists on international and Czech national scale including an exploration of spatial behaviour in Czechia is the main aim of this research. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was adopted for this research. The quantitative...

<div>The digital transformation of markets can remove traditional geographic restrictions, democratizing access to previously unattainable products, and enable individuals to extract rent from their personal assets. However, these digital innovations often have competitors and complementors that are not immune to the impact of local factors such as the local market structure, economic condition, and even demographics. This dissertation examines the geographic and demographic heterogeneity driven disparities in two digitally transformed markets, the financial and accommodations sectors respectively.</div><div><br></div><div>First, we study the impact of local financial market competition in managing online peer-to-peer loans. With the boom of financial technologies (FinTech), a critical question is whether the local financial market structure still matters. Unlike traditional retail financial institutions that are predominantly territorial, FinTech-based platforms, in particular peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, provide individuals equal access to funds by removing typical geographic restrictions. Combined with other benefits such as ease-of-use and lower interest rates, P2P lenders are increasingly threatening the traditional local lenders. A largely unanswered question in the literature is whether the local retail financial institutions strategically respond to the rise of such P2P platforms. Moreover, if the strategic reaction of traditional institutions continues the legacy of being territorial, borrowers will ultimately gain unevenly from the competition. That is, where a borrower lives may still matter. In this chapter, we devise multiple strategies to empirically analyze the extent and nature of the strategic response of traditional institutions to P2P lending. This includes: (1) utilization of a Probit model that leverages the richness of our local market data and (2) exploitation of bank mergers as exogenous shocks to local market structure. We find consistently that a borrower from a more competitive market is more likely to prepay, suggesting that local market structure plays a pivotal role in P2P borrowers' debt management. We validate the underlying mechanism by studying the improving credit profiles of borrowers and platforms' (exogenous) changes in pricing in moderating the main effect. This mechanism reveals that traditional banks, especially when their local market conditions support, credibly responds to the growth of P2P and are successful in attracting consumers back to traditional financial products. Relatedly, we document heterogeneity in the benefits that borrowers gain from the local market structure (using a machine learning algorithm) and verify the robustness of our main findings. We discuss the implications for P2P lending, other crowd-based markets, and local retail financial markets.</div><div><br></div><div>Second, we examines the heterogeneous economic spillover effects of a home sharing platform---Airbnb---on the growth of a complimentary local service---restaurants. By circumventing traditional land-use regulation and providing access to underutilized inventory, Airbnb is attracting visitors of a city to vicinities that are not traditional tourist destinations. Although visitors generally bring significant spending power, it is, however, not clear if the visitors use Airbnb primarily for lodging, thus, not contributing to the adjacent vicinity economy. To evaluate this, we focus on the impact of Airbnb on the restaurant employment growth across vicinities in New York City (NYC). Our results indicate that if the intensity of Airbnb activity (Airbnb reviews per household) increases by 1\%, the restaurant employment in an average area grows by approximately 1.03\%. We also investigate the role of demographics and market concentration in driving the variation. Notably, restaurants in areas with a relatively high number of Black residents do not benefit from the economic spillover of Airbnb activity. Also, restaurants in more competitive areas reap the benefit from this spillover most. We validate the underlying mechanism behind the main result by evaluating the impact of Airbnb on Yelp visitor reviews -- areas with increasing Airbnb activity experience a surge in their share of NYC visitor reviews. This result is further validated by evaluating the impact of a unique Airbnb neighborhood level policy recently implemented in New Orleans. </div>