A proposal for a typology of sharing economy

Abstract

Purpose: to propose a typology for sharing economy that allows the characterization and classification of its main forms of manifestation. Originality/value: the theme that involves collaborative consumption and sharing economy has wide definitions with no clear establishment of boundaries between them. Part of that definition gap may occur because of the recent emergency of literature on sharing economy. Additionally, the fact that sharing economy and collaborative consumption are the newest buzzwords, several businesses started calling themselves as such. Design/methodology/approach: from the review of the literature, 11 characteristics that describe the theme were identified. In the light of those characteristics, 72 collaborative consumption websites were analyzed, representatives of the 24 collaborative consumption categories proposed by Botsman and Rogers (2010). Findings: three archetypes were identified: 1. new business models represent the new players based on technological platforms, which are the core business of the company, and generate income by charging service fees; 2. redesigned businesses are traditional market models redesigned to present time and price advantages to the consumer; 3. sharing by ideal is the archetype that best represents sustainable consumption alternative models.