Who Am I? How Compelling Self-storytelling Builds Digital Personal Reputation

Abstract

The work explores whether self-storytelling is a powerful predictor of personal reputation in a collaborative community of the sharing economy realm. By proposing that powerful self-storytelling allows an attractive positioning in respect to potential others, the paper extends the literature of brand storytelling and brand archetypes shifting the perspective to a personal level. This study adopts a qualitative-quantitative approach to investigate the meanings and stories contained in personal profile descriptions and their relation with reputation. Personal descriptions are interpreted as storytelling activities, labels/glosses that allow members to access the services of the community by facilitating personal reputation building. The findings show that powerful storytelling structures have defined phases and are crucial in reputation building when the story evolves in a metaphoric, symbolic lesson. The presence of archetypes, in particular the Sage and the Ruler, also confer reputational power to the stories. The results reveal opportunities for peer-to-peer communities, traditional companies, and social businesses. Marketers should design tools and platforms able to trigger consumers' desire to express their individuality through personal descriptions and suggest the drivers that affect reputation.Keywords: storytelling, personal reputation, archetypes, sharing economy 2 ! ! IntroductionA new, grassroots model of doing business is emerging, providing consumers with the power to get what they need and want where no transfer of ownership takes place. All over the world, people are renting rooms from strangers through Airbnb, outsourcing grocery trips to TaskRabbits, and traveling with ride-sharing service BlaBlaCar. These empowered individuals are participating in the sharing economy by beginning to function like hotels, taxis, farms, restaurants, manufacturers and other traditional business models. The sharing economy is becoming increasingly popular, and it is estimated, at the time we are writing, at more than US$15 billion (PwC 2014). The trend is expected to increase, as consumers and firms seek to maximize efficiency in volatile economic conditions (Lamberton and Rose 2012).The sharing economy is contingent upon one crucial factor: reputation, which is now considered a new currency for transactions in collaborative consumption platforms. Reputation is the enabling factor inherent within all sharing-sector activities. It helps to build trust in certain people and distrust in others. Because of its centrality to the success of the sharing economy, various thought leaders -entrepreneurs, social advocates, academics, investors, journalists -have opined as to how trust is established and maintained among strangers engaging in peer-to-peer transactions. Despite the topic has received attention, it still has not been theorized. This work explores personal reputation, understanding its antecedents. The main objective is to assess whether self-storytelling is a powerful predictor of personal reputation in o...

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