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Abstract:The disruptive rise of the sharing economy has inspired multiple social innovations embodying significant potential towards achieving urban sustainability in crucial areas like low-carbon mobility. Increasingly, consumers in such sharing systems participate in activities of value co-creation together with firms and peers, such as through enforcing rules that help maintain trust and reciprocity. Why do people choose to invest their time and energy in co-creating values that may benefit wider social and environmental sustainability in the sharing economy? This study addresses this question through an analysis of an emerging shared mobility community, the innovative socio-economic relationships it has spawned, and the cultural and cognitive forces that underpin these new forms of economic organization and value creation in relation to sustainability. Through a mixed method case study of a newly emerged free-floating bike sharing system in China, called Mobike, the paper explores the main enabling factors which is transforming people from passive product/service receivers to active value co-creators in the sharing economy, such as self-efficacy, cognition of duty, anticipated awards and learning processes. The paper argues that business, social and government organizations may leverage these enabling factors to achieve a more sustainable sharing business and society. Finally, based on quantitative and qualitative data analysis, the article proposes a value co-creation framework between users and firms that involves a clear social learning process on the one hand, and has strong links with social innovations towards sustainability, on the other.

ABSTRACT. Local and traditional ecological knowledge (LTK) is increasingly recognized as an important component of scientific research, conservation, and resource management. Especially where there are gaps in the scientific literature, LTK can be a critical source of basic environmental data; this situation is particularly apparent in the case of marine ecosystems, about which comparatively less is known than terrestrial ones. We surveyed the global literature relating to the LTK of marine environments and analyzed what knowledge has been collected and with what aims and results. A large proportion of LTK which has been documented by researchers consists of species-specific information that is important for traditional resource use. However, knowledge relating to marine ecology, environmental change, and contemporary resource management practices is increasingly emphasized in the literature. Today, marine LTK is being used to provide historical and contemporary baseline information, suggest stewardship techniques, improve conservation planning and practice, and to resolve management disputes. Still, comparatively few studies are geared toward the practicalities of developing a truly collaborative, adaptive, and resilient management infrastructure that is embracive of modern science and LTK and practices in marine environments. Based on the literature, we thus suggest how such an infrastructure might be advanced through collaborative projects and "bridging" institutions that highlight the importance of trust-building and the involvement of communities in all stages of research, and the importance of shared interest in project objectives, settings (seascapes), and outcomes.

Recent discussion on invasive species has invigorated the debate on strategies to manage these species. Lantana camara L., a shrub native to the American tropics, has become one of the worst weeds in recorded history. In Australia, India and South Africa, Lantana has become very widespread occupying millions of hectares of land. Here, we examine historical records to reconstruct invasion and management of Lantana over two centuries and ask: Can we fight the spread of invasive species or do we need to develop strategies for their adaptive management? We carried out extensive research of historical records constituting over 75% of records on invasion and management of this species in the three countries. The records indicate that governments in Australia, India and South Africa have taken aggressive measures to eradicate Lantana over the last two centuries, but these efforts have been largely unsuccessful. We found that despite control measures, the invasion trajectory of Lantana has continued upwards and that post-war land-use change might have been a possible trigger for this spread. A large majority of studies on invasive species address timescales of less than one year; and even fewer address timescales of >10 years. An understanding of species invasions over long time-scales is of paramount importance. While archival records may give only a partial picture of the spread and management of invasive species, in the absence of any other long-term dataset on the ecology of Lantana, our study provides an important insight into its invasion, spread and management over two centuries and across three continents. While the established paradigm is to expend available resources on attempting to eradicate invasive species, our findings suggest that in the future, conservationists will need to develop strategies for their adaptive management rather than fighting a losing battle.

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