Читать книгу Sharing Economy and Big Data Analytics - Soraya Sedkaoui - Страница 25

Sharing, in the formal sense of the word, means “to divide a whole into several pieces in order to own it with others”. But in this case, sharing means “to take part in a whole or to benefit from a part of a service or good”.

The representation of the economy according to the sharing orthodoxy revisits the economic reality. Does it simplify it? Or does it complicate it even more? We are not ready to decide, but we can argue that this is a new “identification” or “modeling” of the economy.

The characteristic of this model lies in the novelty of the process of sharing goods and services. Indeed, exchanges follow a horizontal and decentralized trajectory between individuals, by modifying the redistribution system (Penn 2016).

The sharing economy embodies a new socio-economic system based on the exchange of goods (vehicles, housing, tools, etc.) and services (carpooling, take-back, etc.) between individuals. It may involve profit-based transactions, in other words, there is a monetary exchange, or it may involve giving, bartering or volunteer activities.

But what makes the sharing economy famous?

The thing that offers all these opportunities for exchange and makes this new business model famous is a technical instrument: the “digital platform”. The sharing economy is thus also called the “platform economy”. It is defined as being constituted by trades between “peers with platforms, acting as brokers between them” (Nicot 2017).

Platforms ensure the success of the sharing economy because they contain several features:

First, the platforms provide an algorithm for efficient matching between labor providers and users. Second, technology reduces transaction costs because platforms can also facilitate micro-transactions. Third, platforms provide services to reduce or manage the risks associated with market transactions, thereby addressing market failures, in other words, incomplete or erroneous information. (Drahokoupil and Fabo 2016)

The sharing economy is not just a fashionable phenomenon. Today, an increasing number of companies depend on the intensive use of digital platforms, which allows for an easy relationship between supply and demand, in addition to the trust required by users.

Even materialistic consumers, who are more inclined to own things, are attracted to the sharing economy, and projections show that the main sharing sectors, namely carpooling, online staffing, music and video streaming, finance and housing have the potential to increase global incomes from about $15 billion to about $335 billion by 2025. Such exponential growth is a reminder of the importance of the subject in both theory and practice (Ranjbari et al. 2018).

It also creates jobs, can support the ecological cause (shared resources, reduction of negative effects) and can remedy excessive consumption (Torfs 2016a). It contributes to the achievement of the objectives of sustainable development, namely the sustainability of the economy.

Like any economic model, the sharing economy draws on basic elements to build its theory, through the formalization of the economic phenomenon and hypotheses, so as to identify its functioning and the scope of its model.

What are the foundations of the sharing economy? What does the technical nature of digital platforms give it?

Certainly, technology has attributed a particularity to the sharing economy in terms of conceptualization, but it remains a concept based on currents of theoretical reflection.