Initial steps towards a research agenda for the sharing economy and socio-technical transitions

A friend of mine suggested as academics we could be more open about our unsuccessful publications; listing them and making them publicly available. I liked the idea, so below is a short viewpoint article that I unsuccessfully submitted to Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions this Summer. I am still very much interested in developing a research agenda around the sharing economy and sustainability transitions, so just thinking about how to shape and develop the ideas below.

Initial steps towards a research agenda for the sharing economy and socio-technical transitions

1. Introduction

There is rapidly growing interest in the nature and impacts of the sharing economy amongst entrepreneurs, innovators, incumbent businesses, policy-makers, media commenters and academic researchers alike. The sharing economy is often framed by advocates as a disruptive and transformative field of innovation which enables peer-to-peer (P2P) forms of economic activity at an unprecedented scale. Perhaps, the dominant definition of the sharing economy has been offered by Botsman (2013), as an economic model built upon online P2P platforms and “based on sharing, swapping, trading, or renting products and services, enabling access over ownership”. Following this definition, the sharing economy encompasses a diverse field of market-based and grassroots innovations including: P2P platforms for renting or sharing short-term accommodation (e.g. Airbnb and Couchsurfing); P2P car rental and sharing services (e.g. EasyCarClub); P2P ridesharing services (e.g. Uber and Lyft); and, P2P platforms for sharing or gifting resources within local communities (e.g. Peerby, Streetbank and Freecycle). The scale of the sharing economy remains under researched, however by the estimates of PWC (2014) current global revenues are $15bn, potentially growing to $335bn by 2025. Furthermore, the social and environmental impacts of the sharing economy remain a fiercely contested topic. At one extreme Botsman and Rogers (2010) argue that the sharing economy possesses the potential to disrupt the culture of hyper-consumption prevalent in market economies, bringing about a transition to more sustainable consumption practices. Whilst at the other, Morozov (2013) offers a scathing critique claiming that the sharing economy is a form of “neo-liberalism on steroids”. In the next two sections I further explore the contestation of the sharing economy, and then based on the insight developed offer an initial outline of a research agenda for the sharing economy and socio-technical transitions.

2. The contestation of the sharing economy

Three factors driving the contestation of the impacts and scope of the sharing economy can be readily identified. First, the sharing economy is built upon a general purpose technology, the online P2P platform, which enables a diverse range of values and institutional logics to be enacted (Martin and Upham, 2015). For example, using Airbnb (Ravenelle, 2015): citizens can rent out rooms in their homes to strangers and build social relationships in the process – enacting, amongst others, the value of sociability and the logic of community; and, commercial actors can rent out vacant properties solely for profit – enacting, amongst others, the value of economic efficiency and the logic of entrepreneurship. Hence, each platform and the sharing economy as a whole, possesses the potential to create a mix of positive and negative impacts (Selinger, 2008) from the perspective of social and environmental sustainability. Secondly, much of the innovation within the sharing economy is misaligned with the common sense meaning of the term ‘sharing’; as a form of exchange in which economic benefits are not accrued. For example, for-profit P2P platforms that enable citizens to share (i.e. rent) access to resources (such as Airbnb) are easily critiqued for appropriating the term ‘sharing’ to benefit from its positive associations (i.e. sharing-washing). Thirdly, a diverse cast of commercial, social enterprise and grassroots actors are seeking to define the nature and scope of the sharing economy in such a way that favours and furthers particular interests (as elaborated upon below).

The contestation of the sharing economy is manifested in diverse and divergent visions and expectations for the niche (Martin, Under Review), each emphasising and aligning with different values and institutional logics. When the concept of sharing economy emerged it tended to be framed as a new and better form of capitalism with the potential to promote sustainable consumption and create economic, social and environmental value in concert (Botsman and Rogers, 2010); hence aligning with the institutional logic of social enterprise. My recent observations of the Ouishare 2015 Fest^[1] – attended by approximately 1000 activists, social innovators, entrepreneurs and innovation intermediaries – suggest that many niche actors are distancing themselves from the concept of the sharing economy.  Here, a broader vision of a collaborative economy was offered incorporating socio-digital innovations including the sharing economy (as defined above), digital currencies (e.g. Bitcoin), open digital government and grassroots digital fabrication (e.g. the maker movement). Such visions appeared to be driven by concerns about the unsustainable nature of the prevailing centralised capitalist economic paradigm, and to be aligned with the values of citizen empowerment and the logics of community and the social movement.  Furthermore, actors within the media, including the Telegraph (Cave, 2015) in the UK and the New York Times (Singer, 2014) in the USA, have presented a rather different vision; focussing on the potential of the sharing economy to increase the flexibility of the labour market and erode workers’ rights. Hence, offering a vision aligned with values and logics including economic empowerment and the market respectively.

3. Initial steps towards a research agenda for the sharing economy and socio-technical transitions

Given such diverse and divergent expectations for the sharing economy’s development, the transitions research community can view the sharing economy from two distinct perspectives. First, the sharing economy can be viewed as a niche of socio-digital experiments, with the paradoxical potential to: promote more sustainable consumption and production practices; and, to reinforce the current unsustainable economic paradigm. Secondly, the sharing economy can also be viewed as a transformative niche aligned with ongoing processes integrating digital technologies into the socio-technical structures of the regime. Furthermore, these processes have important consequences for sustainability transitions (Hilty and Aebischer, 2015) across the energy, mobility, water, food regimes. However, the socio-technical transitions research community, alongside many other research communities^[2], is struggling to keep pace with the rapid development of the sharing economy. Although, there have been promising signs of engagement with: the emergence of empirical research focussed on sharing and collaborative economies (Smith et al., 2013, Martin and Upham, 2015); and, the inclusion of a transitions stream at the First International Workshop on the Sharing Economy.  Hence, much work is needed to establish and pursue a research agenda for the sharing economy and socio-technical transitions. To conclude this article, and as a starting point for further discussion, I offer an outline of some of the topics a research agenda might address.

The sharing economy represents a new and potentially important field of empirical study within socio-technical transitions, and research is needed to understanding the nature of, and processes within, the sharing economy niche. Initial research might focus on mapping the sharing economy niche and engaging in a preliminary assessment of the sustainability impacts of those innovations identified. Such research would be complemented by investigations focused on the dynamics of power and politics at play within the discourse contesting the sharing economy. Furthermore, there may be considerable value in exploring how the sharing economy can be governed; both as a niche in its own right, and within the broader context of efforts to govern transitions (Schot and Geels, 2008) in the energy and mobility systems. 

Studying the sharing economy also offers extensive opportunities to develop greater understanding of the processes of socio-technical transitions. Perhaps the most prominent opportunity lies in research developing understanding of the role of the web and other digital technologies in the dynamics of transitions. For example, research might investigate how digital technologies have enabled sharing economy platforms (such as Airbnb^[3]) to rapidly established a presence (i.e. socio-digital experiments) across many cities and countries, to an extent outpacing the processes of regime resistance. Furthermore, as the sharing economy offers affordances to enact diverse and potentially conflicting values, there is a considerable opportunity for studies developing much needed understand of the role of values in socio-technical transitions (Martin and Upham, 2015). Whilst, the processes by which niches interact with multiple regimes (Seyfang et al., 2014) might be better theorised by research exploring the interrelationships between the sharing economy and the energy, mobility and consumer goods regimes. Additionally, the sharing economy niche spans the for-profit, social enterprise and non-profit sectors, and hence presents an interesting empirical context in which to further develop and integrate theories of market-based and grassroots innovation. Finally, I suggest that sharing economy offers fertile ground for research focused on how innovative economic practices emerge and shape the socio-technical structures of the regime. In particular, research might assess the degree to which established theories of the dynamics of technological and social innovation (e.g. Smith et al., 2010, Haxeltine et al., 2013) might be helpful in explaining the dynamics of innovative economic practices.

References

Airbnb. 2015. About Us [Online]. Available: https://www.airbnb.co.uk/about/about-us [Accessed 26th June 2015].

Botsman, R. 2013. The Sharing Economy Lacks a Shared Defintion [Online]. Available: http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/2013/11/22/the-sharing-economy-lacks-a-shared-definition/ [Accessed 8th January 2015].

Botsman, R. & Rogers, R. 2010. What's mine is yours: how collaborative consumption is changing the way we live, London, UK, Collins.

Cave, A. 2015. The future of the sharing economy: why we'll all be doing odd-jobs [Online]. The Telegraph. Available: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/11427099/The-future-of-the-sharing-economy-why-well-all-be-doing-odd-jobs.html [Accessed 26th June 2015].

Haxeltine, A., Wittmayer, J. & Avelino, F. 2013. Transformative social innovations: A sustainability transition perspective on social innovation. Social Frontiers: The next edge of social innovation research. London.

Hilty, L. M. & Aebischer, B. 2015. ICT for Sustainability: An Emerging Research Field. In: Hilty, L. M. & Aebischer, B. (eds.) ICT Innovations for Sustainability. Springer International Publishing.

Martin, C. J. Under Review. The role of narratives in the contestation of the sharing economy: taking a multi-level perspective. Ecological Economics.

Martin, C. J. & Upham, P. 2015. Grassroots social innovation and the mobilisation of  values in collaborative consumption: a conceptual model The Journal of Cleaner Production.

Morozov, E. 2013. The 'sharing economy' undermines workers rights [Online]. Available: http://evgenymorozov.tumblr.com/post/64038831400/the-sharing-economy-undermines-workers-rights [Accessed 8th January 2015].

Ouishare. 2015. Ouishare Fest 2015 [Online]. Available: http://2015.ouisharefest.com/ [Accessed 29th June 2015].

Pwc. 2014. The sharing economy: how will it disrupt your business? Megatrends: the collisions. Available: http://pwc.blogs.com/files/sharing-economy-final_0814.pdf [Accessed 22nd April 2015].

Ravenelle, A. 2015. Microentrepreneur or Precariat? Exploring the Sharing Economy through the Experiences of Workers for Airbnb, Taskrabbit, Uber and Kitchensurfing. The First International Workshop on the Sharing Economy. Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Schot, J. & Geels, F. W. 2008. Strategic niche management and sustainable innovation journeys: theory, findings, research agenda, and policy. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 20, 537-554.

Selinger, E. 2008. Does Microcredit “Empower”? Reflections on the Grameen Bank Debate. Human Studies, 31, 27-41.

Seyfang, G., Hielscher, S., Hargreaves, T., Martiskainen, M. & Smith, A. 2014. A grassroots sustainable energy niche? Reflections on community energy in the UK. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 13, 21-44.

Singer, N. 2014. In the Sharing Economy, Workers Find Both Freedom and Uncertainty [Online]. The New York Times. Available: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/technology/in-the-sharing-economy-workers-find-both-freedom-and-uncertainty.html?_r=1 [Accessed 26th June 2015].

Smith, A., Hielscher, S., Dickel, S., Soderberg, J. & Van Oost, E. 2013. Grassroots digital fabrication and makerspaces: reconfiguring, relocating and recalibrating innovation. Available: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=2013-02-swps-aps-sh-gdf-working-paper.pdf&site=25 [Accessed 8th January 2015].

Smith, A., Voß, J.-P. & Grin, J. 2010. Innovation studies and sustainability transitions: The allure of the multi-level perspective and its challenges. Research Policy, 39, 435-448.

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^[1] The theme of Ouishare Fest was “Lost in Transition?” which the organisers expanded upon as follows: “Transition, transformation, shift: these are words we hear a lot lately to express how the economy, environment, politics and business are changing. What exactly are we transitioning to? What direction would we like to go in? What could a collaborative society look like?” (Ouishare, 2015)

^[2] A search of the Scopus database of academic literature for the term “sharing economy” returns 39 results as of 22^nd May 2015.

^[3] Airbnb was launched in August 2008 (Botsman and Rogers, 2010), as of June 2015 Airbnb (2015) claims to be active in more than 34,000 cities across more than 190 countries.

The sharing economy could end capitalism – but that's not all

I wrote this article for The Conversation. Read the original article.

The sharing economy could bring about the end of capitalism: that’s the provocative claim made by economic journalist Paul Mason, among others. But my ongoing research indicates that there are many possible futures for the sharing economy: it could transform the world of work as we know it – or it could gradually fade from the public eye.

The exact nature and impacts of the sharing economy are still disputed. The organisers of social movements, entrepreneurs, established businesses and politicians all have very different ideas of what the sharing economy is, and what it should become. For example, Share the World’s Resource (a not-for-profit civil organisation) talks about building a sharing economy based on “shared” public services, which are funded by taxation.

Meanwhile, the UK government speaks of building a sharing economy based on online peer-to-peer platforms, which enable citizens to become micro-entrepreneurs by renting out assets such as homes, driveways and pets. So it seems that a diverse range of actors can see their own hopes, fears and values reflected in the sharing economy. But one thing is for sure: online platforms such as Airbnb and Uber have grown from Silicon Valley startups to global corporations, and this trend will probably continue.

Research on the economic, environmental and social impacts of these enterprises is scarce. As a result, there is very little evidence to help us understand how the sharing economy will develop. So I analysed approximately 250 sharing-economy-related articles and reports, which contained contrasting views from advocates and critics. Based on this evidence, I mapped out four possible paths for the sharing economy: and only one of them predicts that the sharing economy will bring capitalism to its knees, as Mason holds.

Consumption 2.0

Some have argued that online sharing platforms can enable a new form of collaborative consumption, where citizen access rather than own products. For example, peer-to-peer car sharing platforms, such as Easycar Club, enable individuals to rent out their car to others when they are not using it.


The idea is that these new forms of consumption have major environmental benefits. As these practices reduce consumer demand for products, this in turn reduces the number of products manufactured and ultimately decreases carbon emissions. If this form of innovation grows significantly, the sharing economy may enable a new form of consumption.

But this path seems unlikely to be transformative: simply using products more efficiently will not, on its own, lead to a sustainable economy. By engaging in more efficient forms of consumption within the sharing economy, people save money, which they then spend on other carbon intensive other products and services. For example, someone using a car sharing platform could spend the money they save on holiday flights, thereby increasing their overall carbon emissions.

New ways of working

Much of the interest in the sharing economy – particularly in the United States – focuses on online platforms which enable citizens to engage in new forms of work. For example, Uber enables car-owners with “spare” time to work as taxi-drivers. Airbnb enables property owners with “spare” space to work as hoteliers or landlords. Taskrabbit enables anyone with “spare” time to perform tasks including cleaning, shopping and other domestic errands. These platforms enable consumers (for instance, a tourist) and service providers (an Airbnb host) to form short-term relationships.


But sharing economy workers do not automatically have access to the rights and benefits of contracted employees, such as sick pay and annual leave. And as the recent swathe of cases brought against Uber and its contemporaries has shown, there is strong opposition to these conditions on behalf of the workers themselves, and those they compete with.

If this form of innovation grows significantly, the sharing economy may come to transform the world of work. But whether you view this a path to creating new opportunities for entrepreneurship, or promoting the exploitation of low-skilled or low-income workers, rather depends on your political beliefs and values.

A fair and sustainable future

Paul Mason is not alone in predicting that the sharing economy will bring an end to capitalism. Radical grassroots actors such as Ouishare and Shareable, who are critical of the capitalist economic system, are creating a sharing economy built upon the principles of collaboration, sustainability and equality.

They talk about a sharing economy of grassroots activities, ranging from cooperatives, to open source software and hardware, to crowdfunding, to the maker movement – a social movement which enables individuals to create products, challenging the dominant systems of large-scale industrial manufacturing.

This vision includes grassroots innovations as diverse as bread co-ops, open-source communities developing tools for reducing energy demand, Kickstarter and Fab Labs, which provide people with access to the tools needed to manufacture products.

These activities share a focus on empowering communities and creating a decentralised, sustainable economic system. If these diverse forms of innovation grow significantly then the sharing economy may, indeed, bring about the end of capitalism.

Fading away

Given the diverse visions of the sharing economy, it’s questionable whether the idea will stand the test of time. It’s possible that the sharing economy will lose meaning as a concept and gradually disappear from public, media and policy discussions.

Perhaps it will be replaced by concepts such as the gig economy – referring to platforms enabling new forms of work – or the collaborative economy – referring to grassroots action to create a more sustainable economy.


It’s hard to tell which path we’re currently on. I for one hope Mason is right, and that the sharing economy will bring an end to an unsustainable system. But I fear that it’s more likely to transform the world of work in a negative way, reducing quality of life for many within society. The people championing this path are those with great power within the capitalist economy.
Meanwhile, those advocating for a path towards a more equal economy – such as grassroots organisations – are currently marginalised and disempowered. It’s clear who the odds will favour.

From the Sharing Economy to the Collaborative Economy: a transition of note for the research community?

Over recent months the concept of the sharing economy has begun to emerge within the discourse of the sustainability transitions research community: a transitions stream has been organised for the First International Workshop on the Sharing Economy; a PhD project focused on business-to-consumer and peer-to-peer models of car sharing has been advertised; and, Frank Geels noted engagement with the sharing economy as evidence of the dynamism of sustainability transitions research (see March 2015 Sustainability Transition Research Network Newsletter).  Perhaps, this interest reflects the growing media profile of, and government engagement with, the sharing economy. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly hard to ignore Airbnb; the Silicon Valley success story, which is so often used to exemplify the nature of the sharing economy.

However, the definition and scope of the sharing economy is much contested, and definitions which reflect the multifarious uses of the concept in practice remain elusive at best (Schor, 2014). Perhaps, the dominate definition has been offered by Botsman (2013), who argues that the sharing economy is an economic model built upon peer-to-peer platforms and “based on sharing, swapping, trading, or renting products and services, enabling access over ownership”. Furthermore, advocates including Botsman and Rogers (2010) argue that the sharing economy possesses the potential to disrupt the practices of hyper-consumption prevalent in market economies, and hence bring major environmental and social benefits. However, the sharing economy has also garnered strong critiques, amongst the most scathing Morozov’s (2013) claim that the sharing economy is a form of “neo-liberalism on steroids”. Such divergent arguments, and a growing profile, make the sharing economy a fertile domain for researchers, and the sustainability transitions research community is not alone in struggling to keep place with developments in practice[1].

Before engaging with sharing economy - to understand sustainability impacts and processes of innovation - as a research community we might benefit from engaging with the latest developments within the niche. Indeed, having done so, I have found that much of the discourse now expands upon the central ideas advocated by Botsman and Rogers (2010) - – i.e. new digitally mediated business models which enable access over ownership. My observations of the Ouishare 2015 Fest[2] – attended by approximately 1000 activists, social innovators, entrepreneurs and innovation intermediaries – suggest that many niche actors are distancing themselves from the concept of the sharing economy (as defined in the narrow terms above). Whilst, within the niche the concept of the collaborative economy has also emerged - and has been the topic of lengthy discussion at the Ouishare Fest - driven by concerns around the unsustainable nature of the prevailing capitalist economic paradigm. OuiShare (2015a), a think and do tank and network of innovators, define the collaborative economy:

“as initiatives based on horizontal networks and participation of a community. It is built on "distributed power and trust within communities as opposed to centralized institutions" (R. Botsman), blurring the lines between producer and consumer. These communities meet and interact on online networks and peer-to-peer platforms, as well as in shared spaces such as fablabs and coworking spaces.”

Similar visions of a broader sharing economy or collaborative economy have also been offered by other niche actors, and actors working at the interface between the niche and the regime (e.g. Nesta (Stokes et al., 2014), a major UK based innovation charity). Such visions share a critique of the centralised structures of the market economy, and herald the potential of, and need for, digital and social innovations which empower citizens to promote sustainability and equality. Hence, the concept of the collaborative economy connects with active research areas, e.g. grassroots innovation (Seyfang and Smith, 2007), and areas which have tended to be overlooked, e.g. digital innovation (with notable exceptions including Smith et al., 2013).

To conclude, I suggest there is a considerable opportunity for the sustainability transitions research community to develop and pursue a sharing economy research agenda that engages with both mainstream and emerging niche visions. In particular, the emerging concept of the collaborative economy is related to, but distinct from, the mainstream understanding of the sharing economy, and is hence also in need of further research. In pursuing such an agenda, a transdisciplinary research orientation might have an important role to play in supporting the formation of a robust sharing (or collaborative) economy niche with the potential to contribute to a wider transition to sustainability.

References

Botsman, R. 2013. The Sharing Economy Lacks a Shared Defintion [Online]. Available: http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/2013/11/22/the-sharing-economy-lacks-a-shared-definition/ [Accessed 8th January 2015].

Botsman, R. & Rogers, R. 2010. What's mine is yours: how collaborative consumption is changing the way we live, London, UK, Collins.

Morozov, E. 2013. The 'sharing economy' undermines workers rights [Online]. Available: http://evgenymorozov.tumblr.com/post/64038831400/the-sharing-economy-undermines-workers-rights [Accessed 8th January 2015].

Ouishare. 2015a. The Collaborative Economy [Online]. Available: http://ouishare.net/en/about/collaborative_economy [Accessed 21st January 2015].

Ouishare. 2015b. Ouishare Fest 2015: Lost in Transition? [Online]. Available: http://2015.ouisharefest.com/ [Accessed 26th May 2015].

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

Seyfang, G. & Smith, A. 2007. Grassroots innovations for sustainable development: Towards a new research and policy agenda. Environmental Politics, 16, 584-603.

Smith, A., Hielscher, S., Dickel, S., Soderberg, J. & Van Oost, E. 2013. Grassroots digital fabrication and makerspaces: reconfiguring, relocating and recalibrating innovation. Available: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=2013-02-swps-aps-sh-gdf-working-paper.pdf&site=25 [Accessed 8th January 2015].

Stokes, K., Clarence, E., Anderson, L. & Rinne, A. 2014. Making Sense of the UK Collaborative Economy. Available: http://www.nesta.org.uk/sites/default/files/making_sense_of_the_uk_collaborative_economy_14.pdf [Accessed 21st January 2015].

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[1] A search of the Scopus database of academic literature for the term “sharing economy” returns 39 results [22^nd May 2015].

[2] The theme of Ouishare Fest was “Lost in Transition?” which the organiser expanded upon as follows: “Transition, transformation, shift: these are words we hear a lot lately to express how the economy, environment, politics and business are changing. What exactly are we transitioning to? What direction would we like to go in? What could a collaborative society look like?” (Ouishare, 2015b)

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].

Exploring the barriers faced by the Open Government Data agenda

Advocates of Open Government Data^[1] (OGD) talk about the potential of such data to increase government transparency, catalyse economic growth, address social and environmental challenges and boost democratic participation. This heady mix of potential benefits has proved persuasive to the UK Government (and governments around the world). Over the past decade, since the emergence of the OGD agenda, the UK Government has invested extensively in making more of its data open. Yet the transformative impacts claimed by OGD advocates still seem a rather distant possibility. Even the more modest goal of integrating the creation and use of OGD into the mainstream practices of government, businesses and citizens remains to be achieved. In this blog I reflect upon the barriers preventing the OGD agenda from making a breakthrough into the mainstream. These reflections centre on the five key finds of my research, recently published in Policy and Internet, exploring where members of the UK OGD community perceive barriers to the OGD agenda. 

1. Barriers to the OGD agenda are perceived to be widespread

Unsurprisingly, given the relatively limited impact of OGD to date, my research shows that barriers to the OGD agenda are perceived to be widespread and numerous. What I find rather more surprising is the expectation, amongst policy makers, that these barriers should just melt away when exposed to the OGD agenda’s transparently obvious value and virtue.  Rather given that the breakthrough of the OGD agenda requires change across the complex socio-technical structures of government and society, many teething problems should be expected and considerable work will be required to overcome them.

2. Barriers on the demand side are of great concern

Members of the UK OGD community are particularly concerned about the wide range of demand side barriers, including the low level of demand for OGD across civil society and the public and private sectors. These concerns are likely to have arisen as a legacy of the OGD community’s focus on the supply of OGD, which has often led the community to overlook the need to nurture initiatives and groups that make use of OGD.

Adopting a strategic approach to supporting niches of OGD use could help overcome some of the demand side barriers. For example, such an approach could foster the social learning required to overcome barriers relating to the practices and business models of data users. Whilst there are encouraging signs that the Open Data Institute is supporting OGD use in the private sector, there remains a significant opportunity to improve the support offered to potential OGD users across civil society. It is also important to recognise that increasing the support for OGD users is not guaranteed to result in increased demand. Rather the possibility remains that demand for OGD is limited for many other reasons – including the possibility that the majority of businesses, citizens and community organisations find OGD of very little value.

3. The structures of government continue to act as barriers

Members of the UK OGD community are also concerned that major barriers remain on the supply side particularly in the form of the established structures and institutions of government. For example, barriers were perceived in the forms of the risk adverse cultures of government organisations and the ad hoc funding of OGD initiatives. Although resilient these structures are dynamic, so proponents of OGD need to be aware of emerging ‘windows of opportunity’ as they open up. Such opportunities may take the form of: tensions within the structures of government (e.g. restrictions on data sharing between different parts of government present an opportunity for OGD to create efficiency savings); and external pressures on government (e.g. the pressures exerted by a rapidly changing climate could create opportunities for OGD initiatives and demand for OGD).

4. There are major challenges mobilising resources to support the open government data agenda

The research results also showed that members of UK OGD community see mobilising the resources required to support the OGD as a major challenge. Concerns around securing funding are predictably prominent, but concerns also extend to developing the skills and knowledge required to use OGD across civil society, government and the private sector. These challenges are likely to persist whilst the post-financial crisis narrative of public deficit reduction through public spending reduction dominates the political agenda. This leaves OGD advocates to consider the politics and ethics of calling for investment in OGD initiatives whilst elsewhere spending reductions are leading to the degradation of public services provision to vulnerable and socially excluded individuals.

5. Within the OGD community the nature of some barriers remains contentious

OGD is often presented by advocates as a neutral, apolitical public good. However, my research highlights the important role that values and politics plays in how individuals within the OGD community perceive the agenda and the barriers it faces.  For example, there are considerable differences in opinion, within the OGD community, on whether or not a private sector focus on exploiting financial value from OGD is crowding out the creation of social and environmental value.  So benefits may arise from advocates being more open about the values and politics that underpin and shape the agenda. Whilst, OGD related policy and practice could create further opportunities for social learning which bring together the diverse values and perspectives that coexist within the OGD community.

Having considered the wide range of barriers to the breakthrough of OGD agenda, and some approaches to overcoming these barriers, these discussions need setting in a broader political context. If the agenda does indeed make a breakthrough into the mainstream, it remains unclear what form this will take. Will the OGD agenda make a breakthrough by conforming with, and reinforcing, prevailing neoliberal interests? Or will the agenda stretch the fabric of government, the economy and society, and transform the relationship between citizens and the state? 

If you are interested you are interested in reading more about the research underpinning this blog the published paper can be found here http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1944-2866.POI367/abstract  or do drop me an email requesting a copy (chris.martin@open.ac.uk).

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^[1]The Open Knowledge Foundation define Open Government Data as: data produced or commissioned by government or government controlled entities that can be freely used, reused and redistributed by anyone.

Challenging the cultural values embedded in technologies: an opportunity for social innovation?

This blog was originally published by Nesta as part of a series of reflections on the issues raised at this year's Social Frontiers conference in Vancouver. To explore the blogs, or find out more information about the conference, visit the event page.

The nexus where social innovation and culture interact is a massively complex, inherently political and relatively uncharted research space. Thus, it comes as no surprise that challenging questions around the interrelationships between social innovation and culture remain to be addressed.

Some of the questions that have preoccupied me of late include: how does culture constrain, mediate and enable the processes of social innovation? How do actors immersed in different cultures relate to the concept of social innovation? How do contrasting cultures across the public and private sector and civil society influence the nature of social innovations?

In this blog I’m going to further complicate matters, by bringing technology into the discussion and posing a further question. How do the cultural values embedded within technologies shape the opportunities for social innovation? Let’s use the example of the smart energy meter to unpack this question a little.

In the UK, £10.9 billion is being invested in the roll out of smart energy meters to every home by 2020, in a top-down technologically driven initiative which the government hopes will enable citizens to “better manage...energy use, save money and reduce emissions”. A cursory examination of government policy reveals some of the cultural values embedded within smart meter technology.

First, rational decision-making is wrongly taken as a given. Once presented with information about their energy use (via a smart meter) people are expected to just change their energy consumption behaviour accordingly. Secondly, the smart meter is one more closed box of consumer electronics in the home. Policy-makers do not anticipated that people will want to customise or develop their smart meters.

So the question arises, can the smart meter be more than a technology, can it be part of a social innovation that reduces energy demand? Personally I’m not sure if this question can be answered yet. Rather I believe that we must await evidence of the subtle balance of positive and negative impacts made by the large scale rollout of such smart meters. Although the participative and empowering features that we would expect to see in a social innovation are far from prominent in current policy.

In the meantime, pending such evidence, it is interesting to explore alternative interpretations of the smart energy meter, which may sit more comfortably with our concept of social innovation. Here we can turn to the open source movement, and the grassroots community of 3000 technologists and environmental activists who are developing and using an Open Energy Monitor (OEM). A distinct set of cultural values, shaped by an open source philosophy, are embedded within an OEM.

First, the development of technologies is a collaborative enterprise, so anyone with the inclination and appropriate skills can contribute to the design and development of the monitor’s software and hardware. Secondly, technologies are designed to be customised, for example the owner of an OEM can determine if the energy consumption data they collect is shared. So is the OEM a social innovation?

Again I am unsure, but in this case I tend towards a yes, as the participative and empowering features that we would expect to see in a social innovation are prominent. Members of the community form new social relationships, they share expertise to address shared challenges, and they learn about the technology that mediates their daily lives.

So where does this brief discussion of social innovation, technology and culture leave us? I believe that it highlights the need for the emerging research agenda around culture and social innovation to embrace a technological dimension. Such an agenda might highlight the opportunities to conduct detailed empirical investigations, exploring how emerging social innovations challenge the cultural values embedded in prevailing technological paradigms.

More generally, we should further examine the intersection of social and technological forms of innovation, and seek to uncover problematic assumptions that technologies are mere instruments of social innovation.

Funding Digital Social Innovation

Sometimes we forget that social innovation is just as much about improving existing solutions to social problems as it is about creating new ones. Policymakers and funders of digital social innovation are due a reminder of this fact too.

That's not to deny the importance of new digital enabled approaches to tackling social issues. Working on a research project, at the Open University, studying digital social innovation we have spent days talking to truly inspirational people; who with the help of the Internet are working to solve some of the toughest problems we face.

Like many others, we have been happily swept along on a wave of enthusiasm for the novel, the emerging, and the high-tech. However, a nagging feeling remains that advocates of digital social innovation need to temper such enthusiasm. That in our rush to celebrate the latest example of Internet-powered progressive social change we are missing a trick or two.

Talking to volunteers involved in Freegle, a website that enables people to directly give unwanted items to others in their local area, really brings this home.

Freegle (a UK off shoot from Freecycle) is a huge, but often overlooked, success story of digital social innovation. A non-profit organisation with more than 1.6 million members, Freegle is run almost entirely by volunteers on an annual budget of £10,000, and saves 13,000 tonnes of potential waste from landfill each year.

Yet Freegle faces huge challenges when seeking funding to improve the service it offers. Edward Hibbert, a volunteer director of Freegle, believes that; “In the current climate it's extremely hard to win funding unless you employ professional fundraisers, or you invent a project just because it fits funding criteria.” 

“Sustaining and developing the core work of existing organisations with a proven track record too often takes second place to funding glamorous but ultimately doomed startups.  Given the spectacular impact Freegle has with such limited resources, we could do so much more, but we have effectively given up on the formal funding route as a waste of time - and we hate waste.” 

It seems Edward has point, in 2011 the Cabinet Office announced £10 million of funding to the support innovators develop the next Freecycle or JustGiving.

The focus on supporting start-ups, at the expense of more established innovations, may be a result of the dominance of Silicon Valley thinking in the world of digital social innovation.

The Silicon Valley model - start-up companies securing venture capital investment, establishing a business model, and scaling up – is not the only way to address social problems using the Internet though. This model often overlooks the persistent and complex nature of social problems, and the important role played by grassroots movements.

Of course we could be wrong. Maybe grassroots organisations would benefit from becoming more like an internet start-up. Freegle could certainly become more entrepreneurial, and find a Silicon Valley solution to its funding challenges. It could easily create a revenue stream by charging its members a small subscription fee.

It feels as though that this would undermine the grassroots principles of the organisation by excluding those with the least financial resources from the free reuse movement. 

So as our initial Internet optimism fades we are developing a more balanced and critical perspective on digital social innovation. A perspective which hopefully helps the digital social innovation community grapple with the tricky dilemmas of this era of enthusiasm for using the Internet to solve social problems. 

This blog was written jointly by Dr. Chris Martin (Research Fellow at the Open University) and Patrick Truss (Freelance Science and Technology Writer)