Sharing economy platform firms and their resource orchestration approaches

Abstract

Drawing upon key insights from the resource orchestration framework as a dynamic perspective on the resource-based view (RBV), we investigated the value creation dynamics found in sharing economy platform firms. By performing multiple-case analyses on platform firms operating in the sharing economy in China, we identified three main mechanisms by which sharing economy platform firms orchestrate their external resources (i.e., crowds of suppliers and consumers) to create value and gain a competitive advantage—constructing on-demand resource adaptation, building big-data-driven network effects, and enabling ecosystem resource coordination. We contribute to the emerging literature on the sharing economy while extending the RBV to the digital platform context, in which the value creation process is significantly shifted to beyond the boundaries of the firm.