The introduction of new technology and technological services worldwide has ushered in a new wave of peer-to-peer and access-driven companies that are disrupting the most established business categories. The emergence of these new business models has upset the flow in contemporary society and transformed people's behavior towards sharing-based economies. Companies and entrepreneurs can see this significant change in people’s behavior as both an opportunity and a threat. Sharing Economy and the Impact of Collaborative Consumption provides emerging research on the impact that the sharing services are having on society as well as the importance of the sharing economy development in the coming years, dealing with relevant issues such as regulations, the technological aspects involved in these platforms, the impact in the tourism sector, and consumer behavior in relation to these services. Multidisciplinary in nature, this publication establishes links between economics, finance, marketing, consumer behavior, and IT, and covers topics that include e-commerce, consumer behavior, and peer economy. It is ideally designed for researchers, students, business professionals, and entrepreneurs seeking current research on the impact that this industry has on various economic, marketing, and societal aspects of different countries.

This book deconstructs the ‘sharing’ marketing narratives surrounding Airbnb and similar platforms. It provides a conceptual analysis of the ‘sharing economy’ and accommodation sector and furthers the ongoing discussion surrounding Airbnb and the social sustainability of city tourism. The volume analyses the touristification of neighbourhoods in the context of broader economic and ideological shifts, thus bridging the gap between academic and social debate. It presents four different city scenarios of potential future developments and evaluates the effects of different regulatory responses, giving readers an understanding of the forces and factors at work and envisioning the ultimate consequences of current developments. The book will appeal to students and researchers in tourism and hospitality studies, futures studies and urban planning, as well as to policymakers and strategists in the hospitality and tourism sectors.

This open access book considers the development of the sharing and collaborative economy with a European focus, mapping across economic sectors, and country-specific case studies. It looks at the roles the sharing economy plays in sharing and redistribution of goods and services across the population in order to maximise their functionality, monetary exchange, and other aspects important to societies. It also looks at the place of the sharing economy among various policies and how the contexts of public policies, legislation, digital platforms, and other infrastructure interrelate with the development and function of the sharing economy. The book will help in understanding the future (sharing) economy models as well as to contribute in solving questions of better access to resources and sustainable innovation in the context of degrowth and growing inequalities within and between societies. It will also provide a useful source for solutions to the big challenges of our times such as climate change, the loss of biodiversity, and recently the coronavirus disease pandemic (COVID-19). This book will be of interest to academics and students in economics and business, organisational studies, sociology, media and communication and computer science.

Sharing instead of owning is one of the major trends in modern (business) life. By changing how people consume, the rise of the sharing economy has the potential to redefine the role of owners, consumers and producers, change their mode of transaction, create innovative business models, disrupt existing industries, and challenge political and regulative institutions. In addition to these practical implications, the sharing economy phenomenon represents a novel playground for theoretical advancement, attracting a multitude of research and researchers from different disciplines. While this can potentially open up new avenues for practice and theory to stimulate each other, they do not seem to go hand-in-hand at the moment. This volume brings together research from a wide variety of theoretical backgrounds and disciplines to encourage academic discourse on the sharing economy phenomenon. It comprises contributions that are grounded in different theoretical perspectives, including business history, economics, strategic management, organization studies, information systems, political science, legal studies, linguistics, and semantics. While all contributions focus on the sharing economy phenomenon, they examine the subject from different disciplinary angles. Together, they provide a coherent and comprehensive overview of research on the sharing economy.

“Amidst a thousand tirades against the excesses and waste of consumer society, What’s Mine Is Yours offers us something genuinely new and invigorating: a way out.” —Steven Johnson, author of The Invention of Air and The Ghost Map A groundbreaking and original book, What’s Mine is Yours articulates for the first time the roots of "collaborative consumption," Rachel Botsman and Roo Roger's timely new coinage for the technology-based peer communities that are transforming the traditional landscape of business, consumerism, and the way we live. Readers captivated by Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail, Van Jones’ The Green Collar Economy or Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point will be wowed by this landmark contribution to the evolving ecology of commerce and sustainability.

The wide-ranging implications of the shift to a sharing economy, a new model of organizing economic activity that may supplant traditional corporations.

A simple, powerful idea that's reinventing the way smart, adaptive companies do business. Most businesses follow the same basic formula: create a product or service, sell it, and collect money. What Lisa Gansky calls "Mesh" businesses throw this model out the window. Instead, these companies use social media, wireless networks, and data crunched from every available source to provide people with goods and services at the exact moment they need them, without the burden and expense of owning them outright. The Mesh gives companies a better understanding of what customers really want. Already, hundreds of successful Mesh companies are redefining how we interact with the people, goods, and services in our lives. These businesses are easier to start and spreading like wildfire, from bike sharing and home exchanges to peer-to-peer lending, energy cooperatives, and open source design. Consider: • ZipCar profits from streamlined car sharing • Kickstarter connects artists with funding from enthusiastic supporters • Music Gym makes finding a recording studio as easy as joining a gym The Mesh reveals the next wave of information-enabled commerce, showing readers how to plug in and profit.

Providing a colorful insight into the people at the forefront of the emergent Sharing Economy, a movement predicted to already be worth around $26B a year, this book gives vital advice to anyone thinking of starting or investing in a collaborative consumption business. The first of its kind, written by an author on the forefront of this new trend.

In the 20th century humanity consumed products faster than ever, but this way of living is no longer sustainable. This new and important book shows how technological advances are driving forms of ‘collaborative consumption’ which will change forever the ways in which we interact both with businesses and with each other.

This book employs an interdisciplinary, cross-sectoral lens to explore the collaborative dynamics that are currently disrupting, re-creating and transforming the production and consumption of tourism. House swapping, ridesharing, voluntourism, couchsurfing, dinner hosting, social enterprise and similar phenomena are among these collective innovations in tourism that are shaking the very bedrock of an industrial system that has been traditionally sustained along commercial value chains. To date there has been very little investigation of these trends, which have been inspired by, amongst other things, de-industrialization processes and post-capitalist forms of production and consumption, postmaterialism, the rise of the third sector and collaborative governance. Addressing that gap, this book explores the character, depth and breadth of these disruptions, the creative opportunities for tourism that are emerging from them, and how governments are responding to these new challenges. In doing so, the book provides both theoretical and practical insights into the future of tourism in a world that is, paradoxically, becoming both increasingly collaborative and individualized.