Why is it so difficult to define the sharing economy?

I am just starting up a new research project focussing on the sharing economy in the UK, building on my ongoing research on grassroots innovation in collaborative consumption.  One of things has that really caught my interest is the challenge of defining the core terminology (e.g. the sharing economy, the collaborative economy, and collaborative consumption) and how these different terms might fit together. Rather than offer yet another definition or set of definitions, I would like to briefly reflect upon the challenges of constructing a definition of the sharing economy. Having explored a range of definitions offered by both academics and sharing economy advocates I tend to agree with Juliet Schor (2014) that “Coming up with a solid definition of the sharing economy that reflects common usage is nearly impossible”. So why might this be the case?

Well when we talk about the sharing economy we seek to define a multi-faceted (i.e. multi-dimensional) space of social, economic and technological activity. Furthermore, these dimensions are interrelated and are collectively or individually open to critique or contestation from different political stances.

Starting with perhaps the central dimension of the sharing economy – what forms of exchange are considered to be acts of sharing? One might consider sharing by its common sense meaning to exclude forms of exchange where a monetary benefit accrues to one or more party. Or alternatively one might consider monetary benefit to be irrelevant as it is access to an asset which is being shared. There is certainly an incentive to adopt the latter position as entrepreneur or advocate with commercial interests in the sharing economy, due to the positive associations potential customers may have with the term sharing. However, using the term sharing in this way is certainly open to critique as a form of share-washing. For example, those less sympathetic to the logics of the market economy might argue that renting isn’t sharing, it is obviously renting and that fact should not be obscured.

Moving on to considering a second dimension – what things might be shared within the sharing economy? The things being shared might be framed in many different ways including assets, products, services, skills, time, human resources, physical resources, networks or access. Some of these framing are certainly more contentious than others, although most are open to the critique of adopting a rather dehumanising managerial or technological perspective. In particular the avlues of enabling shared access to a person’s professional skills and time by multiple employers (e.g. as offered by Task Rabbit) has the potential to divide opinion. Whilst from a market perspective such innovation can be lauded as economically empowering the individual by providing create opportunities for employment, from a socialist perspective it can be easily critiqued as eroding workers rights and casualising the labour market.

In the table below I highlight 16 dimensions of the sharing economy each of which open up further potential for contestation and critique. To me this emphasises the extent to which the dynamics of politics and power pervade the sharing economy, and hence the political nature of seeking to define and place boundaries on the sharing economy.

This exploration of the challenges of defining the sharing economy have left me with the feeling that there is mileage in developing more explicitly normative definitions of the sharing economy – i.e. definitions that outlining a vision for what we want the sharing economy to become. Such definitions would of course be contested, but I believe might further open up the possibilities for acknowledging and understanding the politics at the heart of the sharing economy.

Some dimensions of the sharing economy	Some options for each dimension when creating a definition of the sharing economy
The actors do the sharing	Individual, consumer, citizen, organisation, cities, countries
The framing of empowerment in the sharing economy	The economic consumer, the digitally connected citizen, the individual
The framing of the things being ‘shared’	Resources, assets, products, services, skills, time, human resources, physical resources, networks, access
The forms of exchange considered to be ‘sharing’	Giving, renting, swapping, bartering, sharing ...
The role of digital technology in ‘sharing’	Central, definitional (if it isn’t online it isn’t the sharing economy), mediating, enabling, optional
The role of money in ‘sharing’	Necessary, optional, unacceptable
The scope of the sharing economy	A business model, a socio-economic system, a social movement, consumption, production
The Drivers of the sharing economy	Underutilised assets, disruptive technologies, waste, environmental concerns, hyper-consumption, the profit motive
The Purpose of the defining the sharing economy	Descriptive, normative
The Goals of the sharing economy	Efficiency, digital connectivity, sustainability transitions, economic opportunity, fulfilling consumer needs and desires
The Relationship between the sharing economy  and  traditional/offline/established forms of sharing	Taking established practices online and scaling up, alternative means of enacting established practices of sharing
The core values of the sharing economy	Efficiency, openness, trust, autonomy, economic liberty
The form of innovation taken by the sharing economy	Technological, social, open
The institutional logics enacted by the sharing economy	Capitalist, socialist, internet, peer-to-peer, digital society, the network, social enterprise, the triple bottom line
The thing being transforming or disrupting by the sharing economy	Business models, sharing practices, ownership practices, consumption practices, production practices
The potential impact of the sharing economy	Disruptive, transformative, human development

Reference

Schor, J. 2014. Debating the Sharing Economy. Available: http://greattransition.org/publication/debating-the-sharing-economy [Accessed 19th January 2015].