Regulating the Sharing Economy: A Field Perspective

Abstract

Critics increasingly highlight the dark sides of the sharing economy resulting from the insufficient regulation of competition, labor, or taxes in its for-profit sector. In this paper we argue that regulatory solutions for the sharing economy hinge on our understanding of the ways in which the sharing economy is organized. Mapping out the field of actors that are or could be involved in regulating the sharing economy, we highlight a particular role played by digital platforms as market organizers, but also of a variety of other public and private actors such as standard setting organizations, social movements, trade unions, organized buyers and sellers, incumbents or policy makers. We suggest that an understanding of sharing economy markets as fields can not only capture the highly organized nature of the sharing economy, but also serve to untangle the contestations and power dynamics unfolding among various actors engaged in different regulatory issues associated with the sharing economy. Seeing Uberization as a next development stage away from the modern corporation after global supply chains, we highlight regulatory challenges associated with the even more individualized and dispersed way in which sharing economy markets are organized, but also discuss new opportunities for regulation provided by digital technology.

Uber-production: From global networks to digital platforms

“…More specifically, we shall identify key conceptual challenges posed by the emergence of platforms by confronting the GPN approach with pertinent theoretical contributions in economics and business studies (Cusumano, 2019; Gawer and Cusumano, 2002; Kirchner and Schüßler, 2020; Parker et al., 2016; Rochet and Tirole, 2003; Shipilov and Gawer, 2020), sociology (Arcidiacono et al., 2018; Watkins and Stark, 2018; Wood et al., 2019), social media studies (Gillespie, 2010; 2018; Plantin and Punathambekar, 2019; van Dijck et al., 2018; Zuboff, 2019) and economic geography (Davies et al., 2017; Frenken, 2017; Grabher and König 2020; Graham et al., 2017; Langley and Leyshon, 2017a, 2017b; Stabrowski 2017).…”

“…Second, and despite contrary corporate assertions, platform operators act as non-neutral intermediaries between different groups of users (Evans and Schmalensee, 2016; Gillespie, 2018). Rather than simply providing a neutral interface as match-makers, platform operators in fact act as market-makers (Grabher and König, 2020; Kirchner and Schüßler, 2020) by deploying various business practices. Instead of displaying prices established through demand-and-supply coordination in a passive fashion, platform operators actively forge price regimes (Parker et al., 2016).…”

“…The juxtaposition between ‘asset-heavy’ GPN firms and ‘asset-light’ platform operators is presumably most starkly evinced in the politically charged debates on the status of the asset labour (Frenken et al., 2018; Kirchner and Schüßler, 2020). Whereas the production logic of GPN implies that labour is employed and, at least in the controlling echelons of the network, is regarded as a critical asset (Coe and Yeung, 2019), the very essence of the matchmaking logic of platforms is to refuse contracted labour the status of employees (Frenken et al., 2018).…”

Personal Trust and System Trust in the Sharing Economy: A Comparison of Community- and Platform-Based Models

“…There are several regulatory issues such as competition, labor, social policy, taxation, insurances, etc. (Kirchner and Schüßler, 2020 ). Nonetheless, the contracting parties are clearly identified.…”

The Relevance of Digital Sharing Business Models for Sustainability

“…Such models are normally associated with positive moral and social connotations. These impacts of sharing are viewed in the contexts of social mission [20], social innovation [64], and social movement [65].…”