Understanding current and future issues in collaborative consumption: A four-stage Delphi study

Abstract

Sharing activities underpinned by the technologies of the Internet have become dominant in the activities of individuals, business and governments. Recently, such sharing activity has grown from information and media content to wider resources, including money, physical goods and servicescoined collaborative consumption. Sustainability is often cited as a key driver, underpinned by economic, social and environmental benefits. If successful, the sharing of such resources is likely to have a potentially disruptive impact on incumbents in traditional supply chains. However, given the embryonic state of its development, it is perhaps not surprising that collaborative consumption is not well understood in research or practice. With this in mind, this study undertook a four-stage Delphi study with 25 experts in order to identify the key drivers, inhibitors and likely future developments in collaborative consumption over the next 10 years. A key finding was that environmental concern (sustainability) was considered of minor importance. The paper rounds-off with conclusions and implications for practice and further research.

Understanding the organization of sharing economy in agri-food systems: evidence from alternative food networks in Valencia

“…The recent debate revolved, though, around whether participants in sharing economy initiatives are driven by social or environmental values or instead by other functional goals (Schor 2014;Gruszka 2016). Looking across multiple models of collaborative consumption, for example, Barnes and Mattsson (2016) found that the efficient use of resources was a key driver for sharing participants mostly from a financial perspective, but rarely from an environmental perspective.…”

“…From a theoretical standpoint, this analysis on which resources are shared tells us that it may be appropriate to explain the emergence and establishment of sharing economy models based on which resources are shared (funds, labour/time, space, equipment at different stages of a value chain) along with who their members are (consumers versus producers; Cohen and Muñoz 2016) or what they want (Barnes and Mattsson 2016). This distinction demonstrates that the sharing economy cut across the stereotypical distinction between producers and consumers, as consumers engage in sharing resources for production and vice versa.…”

“…The first strand includes comparative studies on sharing economy initiatives which do not focus on organizational mechanisms. These studies sought to compare sharing economy forms in terms of participants' characteristics and motivations (Cohen and Muñoz 2016;Barnes and Mattsson 2016) or the nature of the shared goods (Lamberton and Rose 2012). A second strand of studies has recently focused on organizational issues in the sharing economy, yet missing a comparative perspective.…”

A Proposal for a Typology of Sharing Economy

“…In this sense, the new models make collaborative offerings more convenient and seem to be necessary to allow a wide dissemination and usage of collaborative consumption. Barnes and Mattsson (2016) point out that the major motivators identified for collaborative consumption growth are economic ones, maintained by economic problems and the need to save money, as well as technological ones, by means of the dissemination of mobile devices and the Internet, and also social and cultural aspects. Unfortunately, sustainability issues do not seem to be very important for collaborative consumption these days.…”

Economía Colaborativa: Análisis de la Producción Científica en Revistas Académicas

“…Más tarde, en los 2000s, aparecen plataformas que facilitan la interacción a través de los servicios sociales de la red, tales como Facebook y Twitter (Barnes & Mattsson, 2016). En 2011, las redes sociales ya eran utilizadas por más de tres cuartas partes de los usuarios de internet en las principales economías mundiales, incluyendo los EE.UU., Reino Unido, Japón, Alemania, Francia o Brazil (Nielsen, 2011).…”