Sharing Economy

摘要

The internet has seen many steps of evolution since the inception of the world wide web in 1992. They comprise various steps in electronic, mobile and social business (Wikipedia 2015). While all phases have spurred new business models, the recent social web also enables a paradigm change from owning to using goods and/or services. Contrary to the traditional market model, which is based on ownership, the "Sharing Economy" is built on using and sharing of products and services among others. The principle per se is not new: sharing resources is known in business-to-business (B2B) domains, such as the sharing of machinery in agriculture and forestry (e.g., Maschi-nenring in the German-speaking countries) as well as in business-to-consumer (B2C) domains (e.g., self-service laundries, ski/video and car rental, public libraries and pools). It has recently received a proliferation to consumer-to-consumer (C2C) transactions and resulted in new business models. Three drivers may be identified for this development (Botsman 2014, p. 24; Hamari et al. 2015, pp. 5 ff.): 1. Changing consumer behavior While ownership has been a predominant model for using goods (e.g., cars) in the past, temporary usage has recently become more attractive for many consumers (Matzler and Kathan 2015, p. 71; Rifkin 2014, pp. 32 ff.). Examples are car2go, a company owned by Daimler which offers access to shared mobility services as well as Nextbike and Green Bikes Barcelona, both companies offering bike rental services. Among the reasons for this shift are convenience, lower prices, and ecologic sustain-ability (Eckhardt and Bardhi 2015).