Sharing economy is the use of market intelligence to foster a more collaborative and sustainable society (Heinrichs, 2013). Belk (2014) defines it as people who are coordinating the acquisition and distribution of resources for a fee or other compensation. This has to be differentiated from commercial offerings which do pseudo-sharing as short-term rental (Belk, 2014).
Alternative names for sharing economy are relationship-, cooperative-, grassroots-, and new economy.
1.2 Characteristics of the sharing economy
40% of the population, especially younger people in urban areas, has participated in the sharing economy (Heinrichs, 2014). Sharing economy comprises the segments product service systems, redistribution markets, and collaborative …show more content…
for a bike-sharing concept results an increasing number of customers in an increasing number of rental stations which leads to a better performance of the system for everyone. Idling capacity is necessary as if an asset has a high utilization rate there is no possibility to share it with others. Belief in the commons refers to the fact that a community is stronger as the sum of its individual members. For example, instead of collaborate in transportation; individuals drive on their own which results in traffic jams and slower transportation to everybody. Trust between strangers is necessary as people are uncomfortable with sharing things with others they do not …show more content…
• Mutual rating of the other party after a transaction.
• Vouching for others.
As stated in chapter 1.2, critical mass is another factor which can be influenced by the service provider. If the critical mass is not reached, the offering will fail (Ball, 2004).
If this is achieved the system can still fail because of a bad design of the collaborative service system. Fluidity of use, replication possibility, diversified access and enhanced communication support are considerable (Manzini and Francois, 2008).
Kassan and Orsi (2012) identified four steps to a successful shared economy, these are the following:
1. Building relationships for spontaneous one-time transactions.
2. Creation of agreements to rely on.
3. Building long-term organizations to get a resilient economy.
4. Establish necessary infrastructure.
Furthermore, they identify the problem that currencies are uncovered by physical values. In the sharing economy could this be minimized because a service of person A can be paid by coupon for a service performed by person B. In the past it was unlikely to find someone who needs this mutual peer-to-peer exchange, the internet creates possibility to identify the need of many individuals (Kassan and Orsi,